JoKe is spelled F-E-M-A

[scubadoo]

FEMA denied state's request for rescue rafts as Katrina approached
By Bill Walsh
Washington bureau
WASHINGTON — A day before Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast, the Louisiana Department of Fisheries and Wildlife fired off an urgent request for 300 rubber rafts to rescue people from what was expected to be high water in New Orleans.
Marked “Red-High” priority, the plea went to the Federal Emergency Management Agency headquarters in Denton, Texas, where a team of disaster experts considered it. As Katrina lashed southeast Louisiana and ruptured New Orleans’ levees Aug. 29, FEMA gave its answer: “Request denied.”

 

[dogstar]

" a team of disaster experts "
The buck stops where ?

 

[lovethesea]

what I find even crazier is that the Fish and Wildlife dept. requested this. NOT the state or local government.

Fish and Wildlife saw it coming, but no one else seemed to.

 

[darth tang]

would 300 rubber rafts have really helped? after all they are rubber. Just a question. Fish and wildlife probably requested them to save animals in their request. Not people.

 

[dogstar]

Fish and wildlife went ahead and did what they could without direction from FEMA and helped rescued 4,500 ' people ' according from a letter from ******** Department Assistant. Sec. Lynn Scarlett, the ********. Dept. also offered 300 trucks, 300 boats, 11 aircraft and 400 law inforcement personel that was not incorperated into the uh, efforts by FEMA.

 

[scubadoo]

Originally Posted by Darth Tang
would 300 rubber rafts have really helped? after all they are rubber. Just a question. Fish and wildlife probably requested them to save animals in their request. Not people.
They were requested to save lives not animals..as testified on Monday.

 

[scubadoo]

Originally Posted by lovethesea
what I find even crazier is that the Fish and Wildlife dept. requested this. NOT the state or local government.

Fish and Wildlife saw it coming, but no one else seemed to.
It was the Louisiana Depatment which would equal local/state.

 

[scubadoo]

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpa...est_denied.jpg

 

[lovethesea]

but Fish and Wildlife. Hardly seems the appropriate dept. to have the most interest in being proactive. I would think there would be a few others up the ladder.

 

[lovethesea]

Don't get me wrong, I thing its great that they showed interest and sad that it was denied, but just finding it odd that Fish/wildlife showed the most interest.

 

[scubadoo]

'We were not prepared'
The most stunning revelation from Monday's hearing was the urgent missive for rubber rafts as Katrina remained on course to swamp the New Orleans area. At that point, the National Hurricane Center was warning of potential breaches in New Orleans' levees and high water throughout much of the city.
The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries wanted to use the rafts to carry those stranded by the expected floodwaters to higher ground. As predictions about the storm's ferocity grew more dire Aug. 28, the request was increased to 1,000 rafts.
"We could have used them to tow additional evacuees, and in lower water the rescuers could have used them to load people who were sick and handicapped," said Lt. Col. Keith LaCaze of Wildlife and Fisheries, which was instrumental in the search and rescue effort in New Orleans.
It's not that FEMA didn't have resources at its disposal. The committee released documents showing that the U.S. Department of the ******** offered 300 boats, 400 trained rescue workers and 11 airplanes to FEMA in the crucial days after Katrina struck the Gulf Coast.
"I was not aware of that offer at the time," Lokey said. "That shows we have a lot more work to do at the federal level."
Lokey later conceded bluntly: "We were not prepared for this."

 

[scubadoo]

Originally Posted by Darth Tang
would 300 rubber rafts have really helped? after all they are rubber. Just a question. Fish and wildlife probably requested them to save animals in their request. Not people.
Of the 1000 plus that lost their life.....if it saved one of these folks it was worth the effort.

 

[scubadoo]

Originally Posted by lovethesea
but Fish and Wildlife. Hardly seems the appropriate dept. to have the most interest in being proactive. I would think there would be a few others up the ladder.
Their agents are trained to operate the boats which would make sense that the request would come from them. As a state agency they did thier part in advance...with an increase to 1000 boats. Certainly, if the feds thought the rubber boat request was inappropriate based on the fact they were rubber they should have suggested/offered an alternative.

 

[scubadoo]

Originally Posted by ScubaDoo
Their agents are trained to operate the boats which would make sense that the request would come from them. As a state agency they did thier part in advance...with an increase to 1000 boats. Certainly, if the feds thought the rubber boat request was inappropriate based on the fact they were rubber they should have suggested/offered an alternative.
I meant rafts not boats...operate the boats towing the rafts. Their agents are trained in this area...sorry.

 

[scubadoo]

Local request from Police Department BEFORE the Hurricane Hit
FEMA wasn't the only agency that had difficulty managing its resources when storm victims needed them most. Collins questioned Louisiana National Guard Brig. Gen. Brod Veillon about why boats and high-water vehicles requested before the storm by the New Orleans Police Department weren't made available.
Instead, many of the National Guard's boats and vehicles were left at Jackson Barracks, one of the lowest points in the city, where they were covered by floodwaters when the levees broke.
"We have always placed them there," Veillon said. "We were aware of the danger but believed it was the right place to put the equipment."
IDIOTS

 

[scubadoo]

Can I get that in writing?
Layers of bureaucracy
Capt. Tim Bayard, commander of the New Orleans Police Department's vice and narcotics section, said he was turned down by Wildlife and Fisheries for boats. Bayard had set up a command post at Harrah's New Orleans Casino, where he and another captain dispatched search and rescue teams using five boats they managed to rustle up on their own, two of which were commandeered.
Bayard said that two days after the levees broke, one of his men spotted on high ground near City Hall a line of 20 flat-bottomed boats on trailers under the command of the state Wildlife and Fisheries Department.
Bayard said he asked to use the boats for search and rescue missions but was turned down. It wasn't the first instance of friction between state and local agencies scrambling to mount their rescue efforts with little or no coordination.
"In an effort to coordinate, several contacts were made with the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries. Each contact was met with a great deal of resistance," Bayard said in written testimony. "I often wonder how many stranded citizens we could have rescued with those boats!"
LaCaze said five of the boats were lent to the New Orleans Police Department. He said his agency refused to give up the rest because they were being used to save patients stranded at Tulane Medical Center.
The plan, LaCaze said, was to ferry the patients out of the hospital to higher ground to be transported to waiting buses. After hearing that the National Guard had five buses parked nearby on Interstate 10, LaCaze got permission from the state Office of Emergency Preparedness in Baton Rouge to use them.
He told the committee that he dispatched a firefighter to tell the National Guardsmen guarding the buses to turn them over.
"He came back to me and said they needed to know who made the request and could we put it in writing," LaCaze said. "The fireman took the message over. A few minutes later, he came back and said, 'They want to talk to you.' I went over, and the senior sergeant said he didn't have the authorization and couldn't release the buses. I said, 'What are the buses for?' He said, 'Special needs people.' "
LaCaze said the patients ultimately were loaded into pickup trucks and driven out of the flood zone.
"That sounds like bureaucracy at its worst," Collins said.

 

[dogstar]

Originally Posted by lovethesea
but Fish and Wildlife. Hardly seems the appropriate dept. to have the most interest in being proactive. I would think there would be a few others up the ladder.
IMo, No one up the ladder was. Either un-intrested or incapable or both.

 

[pontius]

I would like to know other people's experiences with FEMA. I live in a hurricane area, and I have never known FEMA to "act fast". the two biggest examples that come to mind are Hurricane Hugo in 1989 and Hurricane Floyd in the late 90s. nobody during that time pointed fingers or blamed a racist administration for not taking care of things. and these two hurricanes were nowhere near the threat that Katrina was since South Carolina is above sea level and only has a major body of water on one side. it just seems to me that the whole Louisiana attitude before this hurricane was "oh well, a hurricane's coming". considering the long known threat of the damage a major hurricane could do, why was there no major plan in place BEFORE the hurricane? I'm not saying the federal government doesn't bear some of the responsibility here, but imo, not as much as the state government. SC may not be the greatest state in the country, but we DO know the threat of hurricanes and have major evacuation plans in place. I'm sure this is also true for NC, Georgia, and Florida. so why not Louisiana?

 

[nigerfish]

I have said this from day one, why is it the governments responsibility to take care of us? We are more than able to take care of ourselves. Second there were over 150 school buses which were lined up to get people out of the city but no one wanted to leave, and it was not that they did not have drivers, they in fact had a surplus of drivers. Third if people choose to stay it is there own fault and the government should not be responsible for getting the people out. And last but not least a mandatory evacuation means just that, and if you dont leave, oh well its your fault.
David

 

[nigerfish]

One last note, big government= disaster, the fact is people need to take care of themselves and not always take handouts.
David