In Nightmares Begin Responsibilities: Katrina's Unhappy Anniversary

While we're aware of recent path of Hurricane Ernesto, and are all aware of the unhappy anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, I thought I'd do a deja vu all over again recycling of some of my fave Katrina raves, that hurricane that nobody could have predicted (except for those who had predicted it) and about which nobody could do nothing (except when super-competent FEMA chief James Lee Witt had he been back-to-the-future-ly time-warped in.)


Saturday, September 03, 2005


Nightmares:

Via an interview with BBC News with Lieutenant Commander Sean Kelly of the Northern Command, video here:

NorthCom started planning before the storm even hit.

We were ready for the storm when it hit Florida because, as you remember, it crossed the bottom part of Florida, and then we were planning, you know, once it was pointed towards the Gulf Coast.

So what we did was we activated what we call defense coordinating officers to work with the state to say okay, what do you think you'll need, and we set up staging bases that could be started.

We had the USS Baton sailing almost behind the hurricane so that after the hurricane made landfall it's search and rescue helicopters would be available almost immediately. So we had things ready.

The only caveat is, we have to wait until the President authorizes us to do so. The laws of the United States say that the military can't just act in this fashion, we have to wait for the President to give us permission.

"WE HAVE TO WAIT FOR THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES TO GIVE US PERMISSION."

Permission George W. Bush clearly failed to give.

Negligence? Malevolence? Incompetence? Racism? All of the above?

Just asking.

Yes, indeedy.

And how about a little deja vu here?

And a little deja vu here. And here.

All over again.


Katrina anniversary
FEMA
Bush, Katrina
Snakes on a plane
Bush saying he's sorry, sorta, here.