September 5, 2005

National Politics

Fire Michael Brown

Carroll Andrew Morse

Over the coming months and years, America must deal with three separate though interrelated failures that combined to create the New Orleans disaster.

1. The failure to properly evacuate New Orleans before the storm.

2. The failure to immediately evacuate the shelters of last resort, e.g. the Superdome and the convention center, after it was known that the levee had broken.

3. The failure to provide basic relief to the shelters of last resort while their evacuation was being organized.

The first two failures were basically local and/or state government failures. But the third was clearly the responsibility of FEMA. FEMA failed to carry out its most basic mission; get to an emergency first, and get people what they need so they will be alive to take advantage of more permanent fixes being organized by the rest of society. FEMA had the resources to collect and deliver supplies to the evacuees awaiting rescue. Their inability to do so greatly contributed to the rapid deterioration of the situation in New Orleans.

It won’t help prevent future repeats of the first two failures, but firing Michael Brown as head of FEMA would be a reasonable step towards preventing future instances of the third.

11:29 PM
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Fire "Brownie," fine. But some of the reasons you gave were not under his control. Oh, and how about the people of LA and New Orleans impeach their Governor and Mayor. How could neither of them use the city buses and school to evacuate thier citizens? If you ask me, they deserve the most rebuke.

Posted by: Hector at September 6, 2005 11:31 AM

Fire Michael Brown! His inability to acknowledge that there were people at the Super Dome and the Convention Center without food and water shows he is too much a political appointee. How could anyone in the United States deny those people were there. Did he not turn on a tv for 4 days? Did he not talk to anyone there?

Crystalcookie

Posted by: CrystalCookie at September 6, 2005 11:49 AM

I agree with the emotion, but since when is FEMA a first-responder? Not their job, as far as I know. Unless they have suddenly been given a job they never had before.

Posted by: bird dog at September 7, 2005 10:05 AM