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WPCNR POLICE GAZETTE. From the White Plains Department of Public Safety. September 2, 2005: The White Plains Dept. of Public Safety encourages SAFE DRIVING throughout the Labor Day weekend. Traffic Safety checkpoints will be conducted by the Police Bureau for your driving safety. Drivers should not utilize hand held cellular telephones while operating a motor vehicle. DON’T drink and drive and always use the appropriate seatbelt and restraint device.

WPCNR NEWS COMMENTARY. By John F. Bailey. August 31- September 1, 2005: As I start to write this column, the President of the United States has completed a “low pass” in Air Force One over New Orleans, Biloxi, and the tragically stricken Gulf Coast.

 

What is President Bush expecting to see? What has he been doing since Monday noon?

 

Well, he and his government are now demonstrating perhaps the worst performance of a Presidential Administration in a national crisis in the history of the republic.

I tell you what I’d have done Monday afternoon if I were President, I would have gotten on the phone to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and said, get every available chopper unit, med unit, guard unit, aircraft, supplies,  airlifts, on route to the gulf coast and have them there by 6 PM, pronto or you’re all fired. 

 

He and all the president’s men and women should have had the brains to do this Sunday night.

 

Well, Wednesday afternoon 48 hours after the storm had left, the government has decided to route navy ships and a hospital ship to the area. The first of them, with hospital services on board, copters, and rescue crews will not arrive until Saturday, according to the ship Commander.

Is there something wrong with your television picture? You cannot make this performance of our government up. It is beyond belief.

 

 It is beyond incompetent. It is negligent. It is stupefying.

 

Even the Mayor of New Orleans says he is very disappointed in the Federal Government response. He lost it Tuesday night on CNN, bitterly criticizing the Army Corps of Engineers. At least he is not playing the stern grim-faced news conference game played by the President’s Homeland Security Advisor, the FEMA head, and assorted other flunkies.

 

 President Bush’s administration has dropped the ball big time on preparation, planning, response, and strategic management of a disaster, which they knew was coming.

 

There are no excuses, Mr. Bush, Mr. Rove, Mr. Brown, Mr.  Homeland Security.

 

The buck stops with you all. Have you been seeing those people wading in waist-deep water because the Army Corps of Engineers had no plan to fix the levees if they broke?

 

In a news conference, the Army Corps of Engineers all but admitted this, saying they are going to try everything to see if they can stop the leaks. They have to get the materials first. They can’t get them there. Are you kidding me? It is a tad late to be ordering materials.

 

As I predicted right after 9/11, I predict there will be another congressional investigation of the decision making involved in disaster planning after this one.

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As of  2 PM  the water level in New Orleans has risen to the level of Lake Pontchartrain.  Well take a look out to sea, or look at the radar. There are more tropical storms on the way out in the intertropical conversion zone in the Atlantic off Africa. The Army Corps of Engineers better figure out how to fix those levees pronto.

 

As I write this, the government is holding dueling press conferences assuring all that they are doing “working tirelessly to assure,” but what are they doing? They certainly did not work tirelessly planning for this storm, did they?

 

They are making this up as they go along because the governments, state and local, were not prepared for a Category 4 hitting the area.

 

The federal government  had no plans in place just in case the levies breeched. A MNBC reporter, Steve Handlesman, I believe,  revealed tonight that the big levy that broke was supposed to be new hurricane-proof levee.

 

Well, it did not work, he reported.

 

Now as I finish this article at 12:30 A.M., September 1, they still do not have enough choppers or boats to rescue people. They do not have provisions for feeding persons left homeless. They are not even dropping food and water.

 

This brain freeze defies reason.

 

This is incompetent planning by the Federal Emergency Management Administration, and demonstrates, unfortunately, a naïve attitude on the part of  the state governments of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama in organizing disaster response, in not planning for the food/water situation at the very least. They could not have planned much. This storm was on the way for 3 days!

 

The brave workers rescuing are not at fault. They just have very poor planners organizing emergency response.

 

In Mississippi for example, emergency crews and counties cannot talk to each other because there are no communications. People there have no food, no gas. They are roaming. Total anarchy.

 

Now, where are the food airlifts? Where are the water rescue units? Local people are doing it.

 

Where are the emergency housing plans? (Note: the military can set up bases in mere hours halfway around the globe. Let’s use that expertise for America.)

 

Meanwhile, my hat is off to the rescuers doing what they can, flying until they are exhausted. I regret you are not being supported by your federal government.

 

If you think I am being too harsh, and Wednesday morning quarterbacking, you can say that.

 

I think it needs to be said that there has been no quarterbacking at all.

 

 The inept performance of FEMA and the Gulf State Governments themselves speaks for itself.

 

They never planned on what to do – to answer the question  “What if the levee goes?” “How do we get everyone out of here?” They never planned on feeding people if they did have to evacuate. It is grimly obvious. What did they think might happen? What did they they think the people were going to eat?

 

Here’s what should be happening and what should have happened if they had been thinking, and what President Bush, if he were President, should be ordering as I pound this out:

 

1. Planes in waves airflifting in food and water to the folks on the rooftops. Let’s get the commercial airlines involved, and FEDEX, and of course, the Air Force. Where are they? Have we seen any? I mean the supplies of food, cots, and bedding are coming in by truck according to the President’s press conference yesterday afternoon at 5.  There are no roads, guys.

 

2. MedEvacs handling the hospital evacuations – before the storm, and particularly now. Just now they are trying to identify hospital facilities to move sick persons to. Just now they are bringing military hospital teams.

 

      The President announced he was sending them Wednesday.

 

 

3. Navy Seabees repairing the major Interstates into N.O. Where are they? Two days later and no pontoon bridges. We do that in Iraq fast enough.

 

4. A repair plan for the levees. Not an adlib plan. Shame on the Army Corps. And speaking of the levees, the New Orleans Times Picayune reported two years ago the levees could not withstand a Category 3 and above hurricane and no move was made to raise the levees. The budget was cut by this same President. More incompetence and failure to pay attention to infrastructure.

 

 

5. A strong military presence house-to-house moving people OUT before the storm hit and now they need a strong military presence protecting order.

6. A plan in place to build tent cities. The FEMA head Michael Brown was saying he may house them that way tonight. Well, where are they? How about having this thought out a little, Mike?

     

      We built tent cities for refugees abroad. Why not here? I mean the anchor on CNN asked Brown if he had misjudged the storm and he did not really answer the question. He should have been asked, why are the facilities coming in by truck and not  military cargo planes which can carry a lot more than trucks and do not need roads.

 

7. Mobilization to address the environmental disaster: the polluted water, the collection of bodies, the collection of wreckage, and ruined vehicles. That has not even been thought of, because the initial response is inadequate. You are going to need a lot of dumpsters soon.

 

8. The problem of the oil platforms in the gulf…which will they address first

…the humans or the oil company profits.

 

9. Freezing gas prices right where they are (at pre- $70 a barrel)and making the oil companies participate in fixing the disaster, not contributing to the misery of all the people in the area who cannot get cash out of an ATM on the Gulf Coast to pay for the gas with cash, even if it was available.

 

WPCNR has learned from a correspondent in Atlanta that gas stations are reporting  no gas, and that they expected prices to rise to $5.00 a gallon in the Atlanta area.

 

 Let’s have the oil companies contribute to the economy for a change, Mr. President, instead of looting it. Freeze those prices, and stop the profiteering. Let’s remember the oil companies have jacked prices about $1.00 already since the beginning of the summer. Now we’re giving them another 50 cents?

 

10. Find some way to get fuel into the gulf states. The oil reserve was the right move by President Bush. One good decision out of 10 is a lousy batting average in crisis management.

 

Now, here is the real question. Where was President Bush the 48 hours from Monday noon until Wednesday at 5? He has to have a task force meeting to figure out what to do?

I always thought you figured out what to do before disaster struck.

 

 The task force meeting was the latest spin coming out of the all-news stations and television outlets at noon on Wednesday as we were all waiting for Air Force One to make its leisurely pass over the Gulf Coast. But, note, the news conference was held at 5 PM…not in prime time.

 

Well, they have had 13 years of FEMA experience to prepare for big time hurricane disasters, and they have dropped the ball. Hundreds are dying, now about to starve because, hey, there’s no food in New Orleans. There’s a lack of water.

 

Wednesday evening, one official was leveling with the public, the Mayor of New Orleans predicted that thousands were dead in the city.  This would mean that the toll of Katrina would well exceed that of 9/11.

 

Where’s a leader when you need one?

 

Sadly, America has no leaders. We just have politicians. Timid, vicious people who do not step forward, but wait and see and distribute the blame when their own incompetence compounds problems. Where are the Senators and Congressmen screaming for faster response? Not one has spoke up.

 

Hell, where are the Cessnas and general aviation planes that could be used to fly in food? Water?  That’s what the Civil Air Patrol used to do?

 

Where were the supplies of water ready to go? The President said Wednesday afternoon,  400 trucks were being loaded today. Then Brown said on television last night, the trucks were loaded earlier but had trouble getting there. Again that kind of spinning is irresponsible. Get the story straight. Did we load them Wednesday, or are they somewhere stuck in traffic?

 

 Where are the military cargo transports? We can drop water on forest fires in California…but not food for our American brothers and sisters in a disaster?

 

This week we are seeing first hand the incompetence of created bureaucracies in action. Only this time it is costing lives due to their negligence and inability to plan or even think how to handle “the worst case scenario.”

 

They have played a hunch and the citizens of the Gulf Coast is the victim of their malfeasance.

 

So somebody has to take charge of this situation.

 

It is the President’s job.

 

But Mr. Bush’s handlers are already saying well, he’s cut short his vacation to take charge. Well, do tell. What a good job!

 

How about picking up the phone, Mr. President and taking some action Sunday afternoon?

 

Friends I met in Lake Placid Sunday were telling me, well New Orleans was going to be destroyed. What were your advisors telling you?

 

No excuses. Everyone knew this was coming. This was no 9-11.

 

Wasn’t Mr. Bush a Boy Scout?

 

Well he was not prepared. He is not serving. He is not even thinking. How can you go to San Diego to give a speech when three states have had their guts ripped out?

 

How can you not personally, before the hurricane hits, check in with the states “in harm’s way” (one of Mr. Bush’s great overworked phrases),  and assure yourself that Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama have everything ready and in place in case just this thing happens? Or order in backup battalions. Or take charge, and say, you know, we’re sending in the marines anyway.

 

Talk and words which I write, are cheap.

 

Action takes brains, guts, savvy, and judgment. I have them this President does not.

 

 

Well I did not see those qualities from any official in Mr. Bush’s administration in the last 72 hours. Just calming blathering. Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama people are coping as best they can, but their government has let them down.

 

Mostly African-Americans from New Orleans poorest neighborhoods, they have shocked looks on their faces, not believing what has happened to them, and still is happening to them. They are so damn brave, it brakes your heart. With spirit.

 

And what a great idea: School buses to Houston? How about buses to a flotilla of commercial 747s in the nearest functioning jetport? Bus them to the jets. Come on Delta, we’re ready when you are.

 

And, hey, how long does it take to go from San Diego to D.C.? 6 hours right? The President could have been back in D.C. at nightfall Tuesday night.  Instead all his other flunkies are holding news conferences for him and giving no specifics, filling time until all the president’s men decide what do we do now?

 

But the longer the President was in the air, the longer he did not have to deal with the problem. I mean has any reporter asked why he has not left San Diego a little earlier? I mean they must have flown Air Force One at Cessna speed.

 

Sounds a lot like the Mr. Bush performance in 9-11. Doesn’t it?

 

Sadly, brains, savvy, judgment and guts are lacking in the Commander-In-Chief, who once again has left the bridge in a crisis, abdicates command, and shows he does not know how to act decisively when the nation needs that from somebody. No one in this administration acts decisively.

 

No excuses. I don’t want to hear “This was a big storm.”

 

Ask the poor people I watched on television tonight, who are 90% African-American, elderly, and young, if they think their government is doing a good job. How about the rescuers greeting those rescued with a bottle of donated Poland Spring. That would be a nice product tie-in on a real reality show.

 

Let’s hear an airhead ask that question, just once. And put the answer on.

 

Nobody in government aside from the Marines, our Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, and the Army gets things done.

 

On talk radio Wednesday, a member of the 101^st Airborne in Fort Bragg, said his unit is dying to go in and help, saying they could parachute in.

 

The military is there ready to help their own people.

 

It was not until 5 PM Wednesday that our President said he was ordering 10,000 more National Guard troops to go to N.O., that 400 trucks were on the way, that navy ships were on the way, and then taking a leaf from some local politicians, he does not take any questions.

 

I want to repeat that. The President did not take any questions on the biggest damn disaster this country has ever seen.

 

He said one other thing: four pathetic words that say a lot:

 

After listing the four priorities the task force was going to oversee and detailing the trucks, the ships, the medical supplies, and other steps, the President added brightly, 

 

 “And we’re just starting.”

 

Exactly, we’re just starting.

 

48 hours too late for thousands of persons they could not evacuate in time. 48 hours too late for those on rooftops in attics waiting for the rescue they thought would come.