WPCNR News Commentary By John F. Bailey. September 2, 2005: It has been two days since WPCNR was the first media in the world to publicly go on record on the negligent effort by FEMA, the military, the Office of Homeland Security, the States of Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi, the President and all the President’s“professionals” in dealing with the Hurricane Katrina apocalypse.
Fact is citizens of the world, they were caught with their pants down, the boats in dock, the aircraft in the hangars, the food in the frig, the military on R N R and the food not in the trucks, friends. It is a Pearl Harbor in the civilian sector.
In fact the Adminstration’s Fab Four were on vacation and did not see fit to be on the American Titanic command deck when they took an iceberg in the bow. When they were told about the iceberg in the bow, they stayed in their cabin. While New Orleans is still sinking, the Administration’s Crooners, Brown and Chertoff were singing “Closer to New Orleans to Thee,” and the cartoon genius in the White House, Karl Rove was paying more attention to creating photo ops Friday than finding shelter for the refugees.
What a pitiful performance.
President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and the National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice, an African-American, were on vacation, friends. Watching sunsets, playing tennis, shopping for stilettos.
I have a deal for Great Britain, we will trade you George Bush for Tony Blair straight up!
Not since Nero allowed Rome to burn has a ruler so miserably ignored its poorest citizens, pathetically allowed babies and children to die and let them down, and watched. They make Edy Amin look good.
Condoleeza Rice was shopping for killer spike heels in Faragamo in New York Tuesday night, and played tennis with Monica Selas in N.Y., and took in a show while New Orleans was and is still dying, real slow, according to Air America Radio 1190. Solid research there, Air America.
Dick Cheney was in Wyoming on vacation and get this today, the White House does not know when Mr. Vice President will be back. Mastermind Karl Rove was partying with Bush supporters Tuesday night. I guess he ate well. And were they having cocktails on Air Force One as they flew past “The Big Hard”?
I guarantee you ladies and gentleman if Grosse Point, Michigan, Beverly Hills, Scarsdale, Greenwich, Monterrey Peninsula, were underwater they’d have been a lot more attentive. But these were African-Americans in trouble in south New Orleans. This administration has cared less. Not appears.
They did or did not do, or could not do what they should have been able to do. Well, it’s too late now.
It is Friday afternoon as I write this to you from my office in White Plains NY. Nothing has changed since Wednesday. It is a SNABU…Situation Normal All Bushed Up.
What apparently are the first convoys of food have arrived today. No one knows what food has been being served. As I read the AP dispatch tonight, I read that 36 trucks with the National Guard arrived and “dozens” of buses behind them.
Five days after the hurricane blew in and blew out. Five days after the hurricane blew in and blew out. Five days after the hurricane blew in and blew out. You can drive across the freaking country in five days. Perhaps they should have considered a wagon train.
Why, because they had to load food on the trucks.
I allege it was not ready. Prove to me it was on the trucks, Mr. President, on Wednesday. Where were the photo ops of the fleets of trucks leaving. They were shown loading them. Brown said to the AP they were ready to go Monday. What is the truth? Where did they leave from? The mile-by-mile progress? Where was that photo op? Because I allege they had to cobble together a convoy.
I allege it was not ready to go or in place as Michael Brown says in questions and answers compiled by the AP. Prove it! Five Days for a lousy 36 trucks? “With a cigar chomping general” at the head. This is not The Cavalry. A Department of Public Works responds faster than the National Guard or FEMA. You cannot make this stuff up.
We were told Wednesday the trucks were on the way. Well let us add up what we have learned:
- There were no trucks ready to go Wednesday packed with food, ice, blankets cots.
They did not arrive until today. Well as Roger Erickson on WABC Radio pointed out today, the trucks are arriving but the refugees are leaving! They are headed to Houston, San Antonio and God knows where next. Dozens of buses? How many dozen?
Come on they need around a thousand more buses with 15,000 refugees if we presume they have already moved out 12,000 or so. But no one knows how many they’ve moved out. Nobody knows. Nobody’s counting. They have no handle on it, ladies and gentlemen.
Where are the buses you need, Mr. Brown? Can any of these geniuses count people? They are like the City of White Plains Budget Department. At least they overexaggerate, Not under.
- These trucks were slow.
I drove from Madison, Wisconsin to Oxford, Ohio on the interstate in mid-August through the incredible Chicago traffic nightmare, the Illinois-Indiana transition boondoggle, and straight across Indiana to Oxford, a distance of 425 miles in 8 hours, with a stop for lunch. If the trucks came from Canada they should have made it there Thursday at NOON, highballing. If they were fully loaded.
These trucks supposedly were on the way Wednesday. They arrived today, friends. Where were they coming from? Where was the close-in contingency planning? Where was the private sector cooperation? Was it ever asked for? FEDEX has the largest airfleet in the country. They would have gotten everything there overnight. Ontime. Fred Smith should be running this whole effort not Michael Brown or Mr. Chertoff.
I suggest that there was no food ready on the trucks. No cots. No ice. No nothing, and they cobbled together a convoy. It took them like three days!
- There was no crowd control.
No bullhorns. Jerry Springer suggested this this morning. Jerry I have newfound respect for you based on the comments on the radio this morning.
There were no signs. No meal preparation. We do not know what these wonderful, brave trusting BLACK people were eating. Brown said in an interview with Soledad O’Brien, he first learned of the Convention Center situation on T.V. Really. He said they were air dropping food. They weren’t. He would not answer the question why there were no planes bringing in supplies. He ignored that. He lied on t.v. Thanks for asking Soledad, and your expression was pricelessly incredulous.
- There were no Porto-Sans.
Could somebody somewhere have donated about a gazillion Porto-Sans? There are so many port-o-san companies all around the country. They needed those in place, then sanitation conditions would have been addressed. Porto-Sans are not nuclear reactors. A Fastpitch Softball Tournament Director could run this operation better.
- There were not enough generators, except apparently at the hospitals.
There was no food at the hospitals. Why couldn’t they figure that out that they might need those generators in an “take-out” emergency? Why doesn’t the Superdome have generators? Why doesn’t the convention center? Too many “whys” to count on this story, ladies and gentlemen.
- There was no backup communications to coordinate movement.
There is still no communication and it is being used as an excuse by the miserably, pathetically inept Mr. Brown and Mr. Chertoff and all.
Westchester County has such a system. It was put in place after 9/11. With all the security conferences the security people in those three states, and FEMA held, this was stressed. Yet, you have a city, government agencies unable to coordinate movements when the electricity, cellular and landline phones go out. We were told there was no phone service. But last night, I saw on CNN someone talking a payphone in the heart of the city to Scotland!!! At least one phone in New orleans was working, probably the only pay phone. It was like a scene from Archie’s Tavern.
They can do it in Iraq. Communicate in Iraq to units in beautiful downtown Baghdad. Not here. Pathetic.
- There appears to be no central command center anywhere coordinating the effort.
The talking heads Brown and Chertoff are shuttling from one network to another area in Washington, that is rarely mentioned. The guys running things are in Washington. I am sorry you have to be there.
They are watching television to see what is happening.
When the head of the FEMA Fumblers, Michael Brown can say he was unaware of a situation in the Convention Center, and learned about it watching TV, that tells you a lot more than we ever wanted to know. He said that on national television last night. How can you not know what the situation is, minute-by-minute? How can you not know? How can you not know?
How can you make decisions? You can’t. That’s why you have thousands dead right now, because of this horrendous managerial ineptitude. Too many cooks cannot figure out how to start a recipe.
- There are no professional managers here.
No one is setting priorities still. It is being handled like an advertising agency handles things, reactive, not proactive. This is an administration of former account executives and campaign managers who deal in creating reality and spin, and persuading the client, us, the trusting American public.
These smooth operators with their “values” are right out of the Watergate gang.
But the Watergate gang never killed tens of thousands of people in a week by their negligence. This administration has. Harsh. It’s what they did. It’s right out there on the T.V. But they’re telling us they couldn’t help it. We all have to pull together. A standard line. Well I do not see this administration pulling together for an all out effort, yet.
- America’s air fleet, commercial, military, and civilian seems to have vanished, as well as the railroads.
One Train cleared down a mainline from Chicago to Orleans with 100 freight cars brings in the equivalent of 200 trucks loaded with supplies if you think of it. If you piggyback the trucks you get even more stuff down there fast. There was no supply train, and last night one of the talking heads said the tracks were being cleared into New Orleans. Hey, how bout bringing the train and stopping it somewheres North…and driving the trucks off it and down?
Obviously no contingency plans were ever established to command the commercial airfleets to move things out pronto. Why not? What do we have all these military bases in the south for, if not to use them to protect and save Americans instead of looking pained on T.V. I tell you, friends, the talking heads do not look pained enough. How about one “I’m sorry.”
The excuse for no planes: Michael Brown says the New Orleans and Gulfport Mississippi airports were closed because of damage. And the New Orleans airport was used for humanitarian supply flights. There is more than one airport in Louisiana and one airport in Mississippi. In World War II the Seabees got bombed out airstrips ready in hours for use.
Couldn’t we plan on doing that with the airports in a disaster? There are airports in Lake Charles, La., 200 miles away with a 10,700 foot runway; and 2 airports in Alexandria, La, 223 miles away with 9,000 and 7,000 foot runways. There’s Shreveport, too, in the northwest corner of Louisiana, 347 miles out. Brown in another place says planes are being used to bring supplies in. Could we fly them over the city? Drop things, if they are? Why does not the AP clarify that obvious contradition?
Why couldn’t supplies and troops be flown there and convoyed in? Why was there no plan to use them? Brown’s explanation for no air relief is preposterous and is being let slide because of media ignorance. We have never yet been told where the trucks (that mighty convoy as far as the eye can see of 36 trucks. More vehicles line up at the Tappan Zee Bridge every morning.
That is pathetic, in this man’s opinion. 5 days and we get 36 trucks of men and supplies. If there are more trucks…how about a list of how many. We were told by Mr. Bush Wednesday that 400 trucks were on the way. Well, where are the other 364? They cannot tell you because I believe they don’t know and nobody’s counting them in.
- There is no contingency coordinated local strike force in place for fire, electric, phone service in these states.
How many other states have squandered Homeland Security money and not upgraded their infrastructure force abilities? Westchester County has this kind of system.
- The military resource is not being used.
As I write this tonight, I have learned that according to the AP, 7,000 National Guard troops are expected by Saturday, again by truck. But the First Calvary Airborne could have have flown in and parachuted in like Wednesday. Protocol, hierarchy problems? And is the U.S. Air Force still in business, Mr. Brown? Is this that Mickey Mouse state protocol nonsense.
Hello — Louisana, Mississippi and Alabama can’t handle it. We knew that Tuesday.
- The buses were not contracted for until the emergency had already happened.
If they were, where were they, Mr. Brown and Mr. Chertoff and Mr. Bush? Meanwhile where’s Trailways, where are the double length buses as we have in Westchester County and New York City that hold more people. They used school buses at first then came the luxury buses. And they did not get them in there en mass! How about Winnebagos? On Wednesday we were told the buses were going to arrive. Are there 1,000 more buses in the country, somewhere?
Now, because there is no accurate reporting of the numbers, i.e., no central command, we are getting conflicting reports about how many people are left to evacuate! I heard on CNN at 3:45 A.M. E.D.T. Saturday morning all had been evacuated fromthe Superdome. I heard Jessie Jackson say on the Larry King Show, there were 200,000 left to be evacuated.
No one in government knows or tells what is going on.
- There is no backup.
The New Orleans Police Force, Louisiana State Police were trying as best they can but they were not being coordinated. Now we are told that they are not reporting for duty last night at many precincts. This tells me they had no backup from Texas, Arkansas, or other states. Those states are sending guys on an ad hoc basis!!!!! No planning, no contingency escalation of response in place. No mutual aid agreements that work. If they were in existence, they did not practice enough.
The firemen, the police the emergency workers are trying, but they need coordination and backup and relief. They’re trying, but they just can’t do it. None there, folks. Nobody is stepping up until late Friday.
- There are no African-American leaders in America.
Where is Jessie Jackson, Al Sharfton, Colin Powell, Judge Clarence Thomas, Diana Ross, Tina Turner, Run DMC, and the black Senator from Illinois recently elected – where are those voices? Where are the clergy of America? White or Black?
Well, at 4 A.M. E.D.T. Jessie Jackson is being heard from. He is asked by Larry King do you think President Bush doesn’t care, Jessie says, “Well, he doesn’t show it.” Thanks, Jessie. Right on.
Well I will say what the black celebrities and “leaders” of American are not saying and should be saying,
“You’re killing black people. This is negligent genocide. If they were white you’d be doing a better job.”
Well, a rap star said exactly this on NBC tonight. “They don’t care about black peole.” Thank you, sir! He said they have said it is all right to shoot us. And they did.
Thank you!
This is the American Hotel Rwanda down there in New Orleans. This is Mogudishu. Remember the Congo atrocities? Well, America and the United Nations ignored them, too. They asked for help, and no one wanted to because they were black. No one cared about the butchering then, and I will say it, nobody in the Bush Administration, the U.S. Congress is caring enough now.
But remember Bosnia? There the victims were white. Remember the Tsunami. There, the victims were wealthy vacationers. Well, we helped them and intervened in two days as Soledad O’Brien pointed out to Michael Brown. Spunky questioning Soledad.
As soon as Mogudishu citizens attacked our Marines we bailed out, taking the excuse to leave.
- These are black people begging for help in there. Patiently. It looks like a slave camp.
They are trusting the politicians for the umpteenth time. Like the American Indian did. You have a bunch of white elitists in Washington to whom it appears that saving these wonderful brave people is a nuisance and an impediment to their vacation. All I have is words and a brain, and I am writing this because all those poor people are the bravest, toughest people I’ve ever seen. And the weakest, dumbest, most inept leaders America has ever had cannot figure out how to help them. I do not understand that, ladies and gentlemen. Do you? Harsh. YES. But NOT HARSH ENOUGH.
- This Administration is in over its head.
They cannot do their jobs. They make things up as they go along. That’s what they have done for the last four years and 9 months. You know what folks? We Americans who get things done have their pathetic management to have to train for the next 3 years, 3 months and 28 days. I notice now it is 1 A.M. the good news is they are only in office for 3 years, 3 months and 27 days.
Hell, the cast of “The West Wing” could do a good a job as we have seen done by the FEMA Fumblers, and “Jive Five” of Bush, Cheney, Rice, Brown, Chertoff. No, they’d do better.
The Democrats could run a dead person against a Republican in any election next year and win, probably for the next 25 years. The Bush Administration by their ineptitude and callous indifference to this situation are doing to the party what Herbert Hoover did to them in the early 30s. The next Democratic Presidential Candidate’s commercials are being seen right now on TV:
Video: Pictures of President Bush saying on televison, “This is a temporary disruption being dealt with by the federal government and the private sector.”
And one word, superimposed, “Remember?” Leader, 2008.
- This Administration is sensitive. The poor dears.
Reports on the media last night said that Washington and the Pentagon were upset about the criticism because everybody was trying the best they can and this was a cataclysmic event.
You deserve the criticism. It was your job. Your mission all of you except the persons out there actually doing the work on the ground and in the stench, the mire, the nightmare. And, Mr. Chertoff and Mr. Brown, go to New Orleans, get your Guccis wet with sewage. It’ll be good for you.
You have bungled it worse than Custer at the Little Big Horn. Custer did not hold press conferences and stage photo ops when he was orchestrating his boondoggle because of his mismanagement and arrogance. He at least was very busy trying to rectify his misjudgment.
It is too bad the Indians did not let Custer live to hold one last press conference for Matthew Keough. The Indians were not media savvy. What is best punishment for the bright neat, self-satisfied elitists in this administration is to expose them to scrutiny.
They hate that.
- There is no real leader or leaders here.
The cries for help on the television screen tell me this. You have nobody coordinating, planning, putting out fires, orchestrating. Handing them a water for Christ’s sake. They are being guarded like they are in a concentration camp.
Why are Brown and Chertoff holding so many interviews and saying nothing. When they’re giving interviews, they are not making decisions. Mayor Giuliani, I believe gave very limited briefings when he was managing 9/11. And, when he gave interviews he said something and gave facts. He gave you progress reports. He hurt. Mr. Brown and Mr. Chertoff and Mr. Bush do not hurt.
Brown and Chertoff are not managing. They don’t know how. No wonder we cannot manage Iraq, they do not know how or what they are doing.
- There is no sense of responsibility here.
The faces of the African-Americans and the poorest of the poor on our screen, are bewildered, they trusted their government. Their governments in New Orleans, in Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi and Washington, D.C. has failed them utterly, irretrievably, because it did not care enough about them. It did not appreciate their trust. They forgot their oaths.
- The Army Corps of Engineers have no clue how to stop this flood.
They’re trying things. But, hey, what are you going to do. It’s a big hurricane. Their excuse, according to Mr. Brown to the Associated Press: No one knew the levees would break, they thought they would just overflow at best. They thought. They thought. They thought. Not only that but they had trouble getting materials in to attempt to stop the break. They thought, but did not sadly, think.
- John D. Rockefeller and Jay Gould are Saints compared to today’s oil companies.
As Bill O’Reilly asked a very overweight, pompous administration think tank guy last night, why couldn’t the oil companies cut their profits 20% and spare the hit? You got to hand it to the oil companies. They raised the price from $1.50 a gallon in the spring for regular to about $2.50 by mid August before the hurricane hit, now they have it up to $3 for regular. That’s good old American capitalism folks. Bullshit. That’s Comanchero marketing.
The Comancheros were a roving band of white men, Mexicans and Indians who preyed on settlers in the Southwest in the 1800s, selling them into slavery.
- Politicians protect each other. They do not protect you. They do not care about you.
When the Senator of Louisiana, Mary Landreau can repeatedly thank the President, and Presidents Clinton and Bush and congress for passing $10 billion aid, and not utter one word of criticism, you can see all the powerful in Washington are circling the wagons.
I mean Anderson Cooper standing out in there in the middle of New Orleans, was incredulous as Ms. Landreau babbled thanks.
Then we have Bill Frist of Tennessee, a doctor, for crying out loud. He realizes the seriousness of this because he now knows he now has no shot at becoming the Republican Candidate for President in 2008 because of this incredible historic crackup by Mr. Bush and his Jive Five. Somebody’s going to swing for all this. My bet it is Mr. Brown. Maybe the American people will forget this by 2008. I do not think so.
I mean they’re all thanking each other for their efforts. What efforts? Do you see any, ladies and gentlemen?
Oh, of course the official lines are we must pull together. We are all trying. Well, hello out there, you’re not trying hard enough. You’re not thinking. You’re not coordinating. It’s all screwed up. The administration is worrying more about their image than the babies.
Here is what I do if I am the Senator from Louisana, I go into the convention center and the Superdome. I comfort my people. But it just might soil Ms. Landreau’s dress and she might gag a little. And, the Governor of Mississippi, how about walking the beach and and the wreckage, you damn fool.
Hell, the Mayor of New Orleans said it best. He said, “Get off your asses and do something.”
- Nobody did a What If.
Here is Mr. Brown’s excuses to the AP for why not everyone was evacuated. He told the AP people wouldn’t leave and that plans had to be “crafted” in the future to evacuate and shelter those who did not or in the New Orleans instance, could not leave. Well, why didn’t they think of that last week? 112,000 households I believe do not own cars in that city. Brown on aid being available: Brown tells the AP food, water and teams were ready to move in but the levee breaks made it unsafe to move into many parts of the city. We move our boys and girls around in Baghdad, a considerably more dangerous environment. What kind of excuse is that? And there were not enough boats.
Brown also says the National Guard had 10,000 National Guardsmen dispatched across the region but that road conditions hampered their arrival. Could the AP have asked why the roads were not cleared to make way as a priority?
- They are blaming the looting for failure to rescue and feed the people.
This is such a subtle prejudice, and it started working its way into administration statements and media reports yesterday, and was resounding in Mr. Chertoff’s comments and Mr. Brown’s comments. Because it’s unsafe and there are roving gangs, we cannot send in rescue crews. These lawless people are preventing us from rescuing. This is the lie.
They are blaming the residents. Commentators are trashing the people looking for food, at first, then they are changing this to calling them all animals. This rationalizes shooting them because they are animals.
Well, Mr. and Mrs. America, don’t let them play you for fools. If you had no food and water, you might look for it too. No excuse for shooting people though. But they are crazed. Now we are ordering to shoot to kill, I read today. There are hungry white people looting houses in Biloxi and they are not shooting them, or even thinking about it.
Well, come on if the military was in on Tuesday, that would not be occurring. Don’t let them blame the victims for their own mismanagement, no inept, response.
25. They are calling ahead for vacancies.
When the Astrodome was closed after only 3,000 residents were reported taken in, then the number was reported as 12,000, then another time at 15,000, when the original reports were the Astrodome would hold 25,000 refugees, it was obvious, somebody in Washington, just came up with the idea of housing them in the Astrodome. They adlibbed this, I allege. How can you not figure out how many beds you can put in any place? How? And it was closed by the fire marshall. This means folks, they never checked with the fire marshall. They adlibbed this housing.
Thank the Red Cross and the Salvation Army, otherwise we’d be in a 1930s roaming population situation, even more. But, why did not they put the Red Cross into New Orleans? At least by the Superdome and the Convention Center that was not too dangerous. Bad decision.
But, have their been any good decisions made the last 5 days. NO!
They’ve all been bad.
(Part II Continues in a first look at the media handling.)
