In the holy shiite department

[gldstwmn]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/13/kat...act/index.html

Bush: 'I take responsibility' for U.S. failures

Tuesday, September 13, 2005; Posted: 1:02 p.m. EDT (17:02 GMT)

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- President Bush on Tuesday said he takes responsibility for the federal government's failures in responding to Hurricane Katrina

Click the link for the full article.

[strandinthewind]

Of course he has to say this and its true. But, watch Fox this evening and see them laud Pres. Bush and then slam Blanco for failing to admit her fault, which was there, though in far less severity than W's.

This will bring him back up to in the 40's.

Though I am loathe to say it - well done W.

[DrummerDeanna]

Whoa..my head is reeling...he actually ADMITTED this???

Hmm...someone better check Hell - I think it may be freezing over!

[amber]

It's a trick! Run!

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by DrummerDeanna

Whoa..my head is reeling...he actually ADMITTED this???

Hmm...someone better check Hell - I think it may be freezing over!

He's desperate. Makes me wonder is Fitzgerald has a few surprises coming before his term expires.

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

Of course he has to say this and its true. But, watch Fox this evening and see them laud Pres. Bush and then slam Blanco for failing to admit her fault, which was there, though in far less severity than W's.

This will bring him back up to in the 40's.

Though I am loathe to say it - well done W.

Apparently Rove's recovered from his bout with kidney stones.

[dissention]

Originally Posted by gldstwmn

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/13/kat...act/index.html

Bush: 'I take responsibility' for U.S. failures

Tuesday, September 13, 2005; Posted: 1:02 p.m. EDT (17:02 GMT)

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- President Bush on Tuesday said he takes responsibility for the federal government's failures in responding to Hurricane Katrina

Click the link for the full article.

He'll shoot up 20 points in the polls.

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by dissention

He'll shoot up 20 points in the polls.

and that is exactly why he did it. Sadly, Blanco did not think of it first as she would have stolen his thunder. But, I have to give it to W, he took it on the chin here.

[amber]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

and that is exactly why he did it. Sadly, Blanco did not think of it first as she would have stolen his thunder. But, I have to give it to W, he took it on the chin here.

If I was her, i wouldn't really think it's my fault.

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by amber

If I was her, i wouldn't really think it's my fault.

Well, Blanco committed several error that were avoidable. Her first error was not knowing how to mobilize the requisite number of troops under her command despite FEMA's intervention. Blanco also seemd scared to make a decision instantly, which will bite her in the end. So, she most certainly has egg on her face - even that Newsweek article acknowledges that. But the point is, if she had said, a la Bush, mistakes were made at the state level and I take responsibility for those and we are going to make sure they are never made again, then W's alleged epiphany would have had less prominence.

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

Well, Blanco committed several error that were avoidable. Her first error was not knowing how to mobilize the requisite number of troops under her command despite FEMA's intervention. Blanco also seemd scared to make a decision instantly, which will bite her in the end. So, she most certainly has egg on her face - even that Newsweek article acknowledges that. But the point is, if she had said, a la Bush, mistakes were made at the state level and I take responsibility for those and we are going to make sure they are never made again, then W's alleged epiphany would have had less prominence.

Give her time. She probably will. I mean, the woman is reeling from this.

[strandinthewind]

Here is the article - along with other cool info.

Bush: 'I take responsibility' for U.S. failures on Katrina

Programming note: Anderson Cooper gets a progress report from New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, tonight, 7 p.m. ET.

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- President Bush on Tuesday said he takes responsibility for the federal government's failures in responding to Hurricane Katrina.

"Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government and to the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility," Bush said during a joint news conference with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.

Bush said he wants to know what went right and what went wrong so that he can determine whether the United States was prepared for another storm, or an attack. (Watch the president's statement -- 1:32)

"I'm not going to defend the process going in, but I am going to defend the people who are on the front line of saving lives," Bush said. (Full story)

Earlier in the day, the White House announced the president will address the nation Thursday night about recovery efforts in the Gulf Coast.

New Orleans may lose 160,000 homes
Katrina and the floodwaters that swept through New Orleans may have damaged 160,000 homes beyond repair, an official with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Tuesday.

Col. Richard Wagenaar said that one of the local government's biggest challenges would be letting residents return to look at their homes.

Water flowed into the city from Lake Pontchartrain through five breaches in three levees after the storm hit August 29, leaving 80 percent of the city submerged. (Watch Wagenaar describe the levee repairs -- 3:34)

Workers should be able to pump the remaining water out of the city by the end of October, said Wagenaar, the New Orleans district commander of the Corps of Engineers.

"It's set up by neighborhoods," he said. "Some of them will be done by early October, other ones by mid-, late October -- if everything goes right, Mother Nature doesn't give us any rain and our pumps continue working."

Wagenaar said the process would speed up once water recedes around the city's main pumping station -- Pump Station No. 6 -- and its 1920s-era pumps can go back online. That's not expected for another two weeks. (Watch the efforts to pump New Orleans dry -- 2:40)

He said that workers were focusing on making "semi-permanent" repairs to the levee system that protects the low-lying city -- that could take two or three months. More permanent fixes would be made once investigators have determined why the levees failed.

The Corps of Engineers hasn't completed surveys of the levees outside the city, but Wagenaar said they appeared to be badly damaged. Some areas remain inaccessible and can only be looked at from the air.

"The levee at the Mississippi River and Gulf outlet is virtually gone," he said. In the event of another hurricane or strong tropical storm, St. Bernard Parish, east of New Orleans, would "have zero protection on one side of their parish at this time."

Ninety percent of the 10-mile-long, 17-foot-high levee on the east flank of the river is gone, leaving only a small, 60-foot-long levee intact.

"Should another storm come in, it could do more damage than it already has," Wagenaar added.

Bodies found in hospital
Rescue workers have removed 45 bodies from a downtown New Orleans hospital that was surrounded by floodwaters from Katrina, a spokeswoman for the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals said.

The bodies were recovered Sunday from Memorial Medical Center, spokeswoman Melissa Walker said.

Tenet Healthcare Corp., the company that owns the hospital, said in a statement that "a significant number had passed before the hurricane." (Watch the grim process of recovering victims -- 1:34)

Tenet spokesman Steven Campanini wrote that the hospital was told Wednesday "that we were on our own to evacuate, [and] we brought our own helicopters to take the patients out."

He said, "Every living patient was evacuated by Friday afternoon."

The statement said that once all of the patients were evacuated, officials brought in guards to secure the hospital until the coroner could remove the bodies.

Officials have confirmed 279 deaths in Louisiana in the wake of the hurricane.

Meanwhile, authorities were considering launching a criminal investigation into the failure to evacuate St. Rita's Nursing Home in St. Bernard Parish.

Thirty-four residents died when the facility was flooded.

Repeated attempts by CNN to reach the nursing home's owners for comment have been unsuccessful. Authorities said they too have been unable to find them.

Other developments

The acting head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency told reporters Tuesday that the agency would focus on getting evacuees out of shelters and into more permanent homes. David Paulison, a 30-year veteran of fire and rescue work, was appointed Monday after Michael Brown resigned. (Watch Paulison discuss FEMA's plans)

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco lashed out at FEMA on Tuesday for what she said was a "lack of urgency and lack of respect" involving the recovery of bodies of Hurricane Katrina victims. Blanco said she ordered the state to sign a contract with Kenyon International Monday, after Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff failed to live up to a promise to sign a contract with the organization.

Bush has been criticized for his leadership in the federal response to the disaster. According to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll released Monday, a majority of those interviewed -- 54 percent -- said they disapproved of the president's handling of the crisis. (Full story)

White and black Americans view the federal response in starkly different ways, with more blacks viewing race as a factor, according to another CNN/USA Today/Gallup survey released Monday. (Full story)

The Department of Homeland security reportedly plans to send a team of about 30 investigators and auditors to the Gulf Coast to make sure that relief aid is spent properly, according to The Associated Press.

A limited number of cargo and commercial flights are scheduled to start flying into Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport on Tuesday, the director of the agency that runs the airport said.

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/13/kat...act/index.html

[strandinthewind]

As if on cue:

Legislature to meet

Capital bureau

BATON ROUGE -- The state Legislature will meet Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. in a special meeting to get an update on the status of the state in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco will address a joint meeting of the House and Senate at 6:30 p.m.

A spokeswoman for the House of Representatives said the meeting will not be a lawmaking session and the Legislature cannot pass resolutions or take any legislative action. The meeting will not continue beyond Wednesday evening.

House and Senate leaders said they called the meeting under a provision of the state Constitution stating that the Legislature is a "continuous body" that can meet even when not in a lawmaking session. A press aide in the governor’s office said Blanco called the meeting.

The governor has the constitutional authority to convene an "emergency session" of the Legislature in the event of a public catastrophe, but Blanco has not declared such a session. Lawmakers and state officials are anticipating that the governor will call a special or emergency lawmaking session to deal with the storm’s impact on the state and its budget priorities.

Other Legislative and state financial meetings related to Hurricane Katrina are scheduled at the state Capitol. The Senate Local and Municipal Affairs Committee meets Wednesday and Thursday at 10 a.m., the Joint Insurance Committee and the State Bond Commission will meet separately Thursday at 10 a.m. The Louisiana Transportation Authority meets 2 p.m. Sept. 21 and the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget meets 9:30 a.m. Sept. 23.

www.nola.com

[strandinthewind]

and another jab to the ribs by Blanco I guess Halliburton does not collect bodies

State hires company to recover bodies

By Ed Anderson
Capital bureau

BATON ROUGE – An angry Gov. Kathleen Blanco Tuesday said the state has retained the services of the Kenyon Co. to help collect the dead victims from Hurricane Katrina because the federal emergency agency was not moving quickly enough to hire the firm.

“In death, as in life, our people deserve more respect and dignity,’’ [ and there it is folks - the jab to the ribs ] Blanco said at a meeting of statewide officials which was opened briefly to reporters.

Aides to Blanco did not say how long the company will be retained by the state or how much it will be paid.

The company and the Federal Emergency Management Agency failed to come to terms on a contract to help collect and process the dead, so the state decided to hire the company, said Blanco spokeswoman Denise Bottcher. The company is one of a handful with expertise in body-retrieval and processing and worked the World Trade Center disaster in New York City in the aftemath of terrorist attacks four years ago, and also helped collect and process bodies in the Asian sunami last year.

Blanco said she spoke to officials at FEMA and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff about the lack of progress in signing a contract and recovering bodies.

“I expressed my frustration regarding the lack of urgency and lack of respect involing recovery of our people who . . .were lost’’ in Hurricane Katrina, she said. “No one seems to be able to break through the bureauracy to get this done . . . I am angry and outraged . . . We have pleaded for contract resolution.
“More than a week ago, Secretary Chertoff told me plans would be put in place for a system of ‘recovery with respect. . . .’

“The failure to execute a contract for the recovery of our citizens has hurt the speed of recovery efforts.’’

Blanco said while body-recovery is a FEMA responsibility, “I cannot stand by while this vital operation is not being handled appropriately.’’ [ a jab and a right hook]

Blanco said she spoke to Kenyon officials and they told her Monday they were on the verge of leaving as soon as they could “professionally pull out’’ because FEMA and the company could not agree on a contract.

Bottcher said the state started negotiating a contract with Kenyon Monday and it was expected to be signed Tuesday.

Bottcher said that any contract that the state signs will probably have to be approved by FEMA and the federal agency will reimburse the state its contract expenses.

www.nola.com

[strandinthewind]

Finally and look at them spin it -

'People making decisions hesitated'
More officials' jobs may fall to Katrina response criticism

(CNN) -- Michael Brown may have been the first official to lose his job to Hurricane Katrina, but he might not be the last.

Even after Brown's departure as head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, criticism of the government's response to the disaster keeps rising like the unstoppable floodwaters.

It threatens to swamp other officials involved in the recovery effort. Blame is being directed at every level of government -- federal, state and local

As new details emerge on what happened behind the scenes as the storm ravaged New Orleans, it is becoming clear that government officials knew what to expect, despite claims to the contrary. ( Watch the video that documents what officials knew and who warned them -- 3:28)

They had planned and trained for it for five days last year, playing out the disastrous scenarios of a hypothetical Hurricane Pam. But when the real disaster stuck, they appeared to be paralyzed.

President Bush on Tuesday acknowledged "serious problems" in the government's response to emergencies, and accepted responsibility for the federal government's failures in responding to the disaster.

"Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government and to the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility," Bush said during a news conference.

There are plenty of unanswered questions about what went wrong, when it went wrong and who is at fault.

In the hurricane's aftermath, thousands of people trapped in the submerged city began asking how they got left behind without food and water. And why?

Why did it take so long to get help to stranded people? Where were the helicopters to drop food and emergency supplies? And eventually, why were people who sought safety in shelters still without food and water five days after the storm?

In the aftermath, the questions grew sharper: Why did aerial shots of the flooded city show hundreds of school and city buses window-deep in water? Why hadn't anyone used those buses to move people out? Did Amtrak really offer residents seats on trains the company moved out of harm's way? And if so, who refused that offer and why?

People also asked why FEMA wouldn't allow the delivery of 20,000 trailers Sen. Trent Lott found? Lott, a Republican from Mississippi, lost his own home.

Then there's perhaps the most alarming question of all: Is the Department of Homeland Security too big a bureaucracy to be effective in its mission?

"We had our first post-9/11 task and we've miserably failed," said former U.S. Rep. Tim Roemer, an Indiana Democrat who was a member of the 9/11 Commission.

"Our government couldn't drop water to our most needy citizens," Roemer said. "We couldn't get generators to people in hospitals. We didn't go by any evacuation plan."

Plenty of blame
In addition to Brown, other public officials face criticism and hard questions about what they did and didn't do. Chief among them are Michael Chertoff, who heads the Department of Homeland Security, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin.

Chertoff has insisted for two weeks he had no warning of how bad Katrina could be.

But the National Weather Service issued a detailed message a day before Katrina made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane, saying buildings would be leveled, high-rises crippled and most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks, perhaps longer.

Chertoff, whose department oversees FEMA, had continued to downplay the significance of the levee breaks in New Orleans, even as floodwaters consumed 80 percent of the city.

Blanco is under fire over whether she asked the right people in Washington for help soon enough. She has been accused of waging a bureaucratic turf war that delayed the National Guard response as New Orleans spiraled into anarchy.

Help turned away?
State officials also are being blamed for turning back assistance during the critical first few days. Sheriff Steve Simpson, of Loudon County, Virginia, sent 22 deputies with supplies and 14 vehicles, including four all-terrain vehicles. But he called them back when Louisiana state police officials waved him off.

"I said, 'What if we just show up?' and he says, 'You probably won't get in," Simpson told CNN. Later that night, Blanco cleared legal hurdles that would have allowed local officials to accept the help, but no one ever got back to Simpson.

"I'm very frustrated, trying to figure out what went wrong in that process," Simpson said.

The White House has suggested that Gov. Blanco also failed to call early enough for the federal help she needed. The governor's office says that before, during and after the storm, Blanco's message to the president was consistent. (Watch the video on political defensive moves -- 1:56)

"The governor genuinely felt at that time she had asked for help," press secretary Denise Bottcher said, "She said, 'We need your help. We need everything you've got.'"

Blanco lashed out at FEMA Tuesday for what she said was a "lack of urgency and lack of respect" involving the recovery of bodies of Hurricane Katrina victims.

Blanco said she ordered the state to sign a contract with Kenyon International Monday , after Chertoff failed to live up to renew the private disaster recovery firm's contract. The company has been recovering bodies in New Orleans.

Kenyon worked for the Australian government to identify the remains of tourists killed during the December tsunami, and the company handled the remains of plane passengers who crashed into a Pennsylvania field during the September 11 attacks.

Kenyon told the state that if they didn't get a contract soon, they would be force to leave as soon as they professionally could.

"In death, as in life, our people deserve more respect than they have received," Blanco said.

Empty train
Nagin, whose desperate plea for help in the days after the storm made him a folk hero to some, faces criticism for turning away resources that could have moved more people out of the city faster.

The mayor's disaster plan called for mobilizing buses and evacuating the poor, but he did not get it done. He said he could not find drivers, but Amtrak says it offered help and was turned down, so a train with 900 seats rolled away empty a day and a half before the storm. (Watch the video detailing the failed evacuation plan -- 2:11)

"One of the problems that we're facing at the federal level and at the state level and at the local level -- and again, not casting blame anywhere, is a total system-wide failure, because people making decisions hesitated," Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Republican from Tennessee, told CNN.

Louisiana Sen. David Vitter, a Republican, said he initially was impressed by how quickly federal authorities mobilized before the storm. But after it hit, nothing happened for days.

"There was absolutely no execution," Vitter told CNN.

"I was very happy with how quickly the president had signed his first emergency order," he said. "The FEMA director was on the ground before the storm. FEMA teams were on the ground. But then Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, absolutely no execution. I don't know what they were doing."

Bureaucratic breakdown
The accusations and the public outrage make federal, state and local leaders jittery and defensive. They know that just a few days ago Brown's job appeared to be safe.

Vitter believes the time will come soon enough to answer the hard questions.

"I don't have a doubt in the world that all of these questions are going to be asked in a very forceful, focused way," he said. "So there are a lot of folks, myself included, just as a citizen of Louisiana, who are going to demand straight answers and get the full story, wherever that leads."

He said that the blame does not rest solely with Brown.

"This wasn't a failure of one person, although it was that also," Vitter told CNN. "It was a failure of the whole bureaucracy, and the solution to that isn't getting a new head bureaucrat or a new type of head bureaucrat. I think the whole bureaucratic FEMA model is what has to be probably discarded. "

CNN's Tom Foreman, Mike M. Ahlers and Anderson Cooper contributed to this report.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/13/kat...nse/index.html