Grover's Bathtub. The Musical Tragi-Comedy.

(Due to unforeseen circusmtances, tonight, the part
of "Paul Bremer" will be played by Michael Chertoff.)


Okay, earlier I promised a bit about LA Governor Blanco's response to this bit of unpleasantness, along with a tease about a very interesting document called the National Response Plan.

But first, let's set the reason for this post:

If you pay even half-close attention to cable news and newspapers, you will note an eerie sameness to the framing of the story evolving. The players doing the framing will run the gamut from Joe Scarborough, O'Reilly and the usual Fox reliables. You'll hear from a raft of elected partisans and pundits from nowhere close to LA, MS, AL but attached like alien larvae to the face, or the hindparts, of the Republican Party--the Big Guy himself. (Did that come out right? Whatever.) Simple reason, obviously, is because he, and his policy choices, is their mast, or their anvil, so everybody's gonna be treading water real hard in the toxic soup.

(Alright, I started this Monday but got bagged by work -- blame game, and finger-pointing have already crept into the memepool, and by their sophomoric and parrot-like nature only prove the premise that it's Bush and Co, not "elite liberals" who think Americans are morons.)

What you'll be hearing and seeing (are seeing) as chyron fodder:

A failure of Bureacracy?
Too much red tape?
The mayor did it.
Did the Mayor have a plan?
The Governor didn't do anything
The dog ate my homework
Bungled local response?
Blanco AWOL?

I like the irony in that last one. Anyway, what we're witnessing is the mad scramble to claim some high and dry ground in what was, by culpability margins of say 20% New Orleans Mayor's responsibility, 20% to Louisiana Gov Blanco, and the remaining 60% to the chain of FEMA to DHS to SECDEF/POTUS and back again. Not quite as poetic as Tinker to Evers to Chance, nor as skillful, and that's the point.

Why those ratios? Because I'm being generous to the feds; because of one simple document, the Rosetta Stone of the "I will protect you America" Administration. The document itself contains 114 pages in executive summary form, sans footnotes; the full deal, 450+ pages. It's called the National Response Plan and it's been mentioned in posts here since last weekend, or thereabouts. I covered some of the details of how it came to be, in its final December 2004 form, here. Below, you'll find the pertinent details from the document that specifically assume responsibility for things like Katrina, under certain conditons that were met.

Anyway, before we cover those timelines and lift up some rocks using the NRP...

Mayor Nagin? The generalized accusation against him is he did nothing, except pen up people in the Superbowl and Convention Center. Or that his police force went AWOL. And hey, what about all those school buses?!

1. The Superbowl and Convention center were LZs and extraction points, just like they have on real battlefields. In NOLA's Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan (CEMP) parlance, they were shelters of last resort--not the place you expect to vacation, but the only place you go if you want to get picked up. This was known to FEMA, even if they can't lay their hands on the exact post-it note at this time. It was certainly known to every on-air broadcaster, including Fox News' Shepard Smith and Geraldo Rivera, who tore their in-studio counterparts, such as Sean Hannity, a new one, ON-THE-AIR, when he insisted on soft-pedalling the Lord of The Flies scene of trapped people. (C&L has the compelling Fox video.)

1a. That brings us to why they remained trapped, and here Mayor Nagin deserves a swift kick in the nads, but only one of them. His CEMP delineates strict evacuation procedures, but only notes Cat 3 hurricanes. That means he had no "Holy Shit! The Big One!" contingency. Bad mojo not to at least try the impossible. To those who say "what about the 500 sunk buses?" 2 things: First, Mayor Nagin is not mayor of America. Where would you have him send the buses full of wet, sick, pissed and dying people? Your town? Unannounced and uninvited? (More on this a few paras down.) Second, at 40 passengers per bus times 500 buses, in one 24-hour hour period you may be able to get 20,000 people safely away and perhaps be on your way back for more. NOLA's CEMP states that 100,000 New Orleaneans have no personal means of transport. The definitive word on Cat 4 came Sat PM/Sun AM. Screwed, and stuck.

Now, say you're Mayor. Start picking the 1 in 5 you are going to remove from harms way. Elderly first? Kids? What about their parents? Who's going to disagree with you? Not so easy is it? Once again, the precise reason why the full weight and resources of a federal, FEMA-coordinated, NRP-dictated effort is required. And exactly the reason Governor Blanco triggered that cavalry-call with her Declaration of a State of Emergency on Thurdsay, August 26. She deployed the National Guard to NOLA and around the state as best was possible. But many vehicles, and boots, are not in Louisiana they're in Iraq. Ooops. (Numbers via various media reports put about 250 Guardsmen in and about the center city, oscillating between the Dome, Convention Center, French Quarter and thereabouts. Time will tell.)

Yes, Nagin and Blanco should have had a better plan. But, as Donald Rumsfeld so famously said, "you fight with the army you have." Overwhelmed Mayors and Governors and infrastructures at crisis point are precisely one of the reasons DHS' vaunted National Response Plan was thunk up. Remember, Dubya won in November by saying he/they were the pros, that they were on top of this Daddy thing--"Trust me, I'll protect Americans. John Kerry won't." Or, words to that effect. Now, go find me a mayor in any town of half a million or better who's got a plan to evacuate his city in anything under 10 days -- under her own municipal resource stream. Can't do it in NOLA. They have the least cops per capita of any comparably sized city in America. Why? The tax base won't fund it: Mostly po' folk and working poor, remember? Heavy on the social services. Again, that's why he was begging for help--manpower and materiel, buses, blimps, hang gliders, anything--and a safe place to point his evacuees, location decided on by FEMA, so nobody complains about inheriting the aforementioned exodees.

As to percentages on that voluntary mass evacuation, call up the Public Adminisitration Hall of Fame. They will tell you don't expect to get anything more than 50%-60% compliance. That latter number is about what you get in all but radiological table-top disaster projections, or, again, using a federally militarized coordinated sweep of house to house checks. Most certainly 30+% or so is the usual number of folk who ride out hurricanes like idiots on the outer Banks of North Carolina, say, and they've only got a 100+ mile long, 1/4 mile wide teeny strip of sand to stand on between two very angry bodies of water when the wind decides to blow hard. Oh, and by the way--90% white folks, there. I know this because I've been one of the idiots, twice.

Lastly, and potentially most perverse. See this guy?



You may have watched him break down out of frustration and grief on NBC's Meet the Press, last Sunday. He's Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish, which contains a town called Gretna, right across the river from the Morial Convention Center via the Rte-90 Crescent City Connector. Here's a map:



The orange areas are, from left to right, the Superdome, and the Morial Convention Center (strip next to river). The red dog-leg at bottom is Rte-90 leading to the divided bridge Crescent City Connector. Left of the River is NOLA, right is Gretna. On that East bank, where the Connector's twin spans enter Gretna, some as yet unknown genius decided to set up a checkpoint with armed public safety officials. Lots of guns, and guys. Big ones of both. Gretna/Jeff Parish is somewhat paler-skinned than NOLA-proper if you get my meaning.

When Mayor Nagin got tired of waiting for the feds to show, when things were looking their bleakest, around Wednesday, he tried sending his people, on foot, across that bridge to safety. The guards turned them back; sent them back to the Convention Center and Superdome and told them to wait.

They were trapped by water on 3 sides, and the threat of bullets on the fourth. Their only option? The cesspools of the Convention Center and Superdome, with the dying and dead, and no electricity and overflowing toilets.

Try that one in West Palm Beach, Gulfport, Pensacola or Cape Hatteras. Who do we need to see about our impromptu border guard? Let's start with the grieving Jefferson Parish President, Aaron Broussard.

What's next? Ah...

2. Governor Blanco. She put the call out for a State of Emergency on the 26th of August. As mentioned, that's the trigger for FEMA to shift into high gear with i's NRP, especially given advance warning of Katrina's burgeoning magnitude by FEMA's cousins NOAA and the National Weather Service. (An actual NWS warning--a screamer--below.) But one little-mentioned aspect of this Keystone Cops debacle is this: Mississippi and Alabama were in the strike zone too. FEMA officials should have known they were about to become very desirable individuals. So, Thursday the 26th, Louisiana shouts "Help!" The White House reciprocated same day, but here's the rub: Their official WH notification has the Parishes affected as:

The President today declared an emergency exists in the State of Louisiana and ordered Federal aid to supplement state and local response efforts in the parishes located in the path of Hurricane Katrina beginning on August 26, 2005, and continuing.... Allen, Avoyelles, Beauregard, Bienville, Bossier, Caddo, Caldwell, Claiborne, Catahoula, Concordia, De Soto, East Baton Rouge, East Carroll, East Feliciana, Evangeline, Franklin, Grant, Jackson, LaSalle, Lincoln, Livingston, Madison, Morehouse, Natchitoches, Pointe Coupee, Ouachita, Rapides, Red River, Richland, Sabine, St. Helena, St. Landry, Tensas, Union, Vernon, Webster, West Carroll, West Feliciana, and Winn.

Umm, notice anything missing? Maybe Orleans, Jefferson, Plaquemines, St Bernards, and all the other parishes that comprise the NOLA and seaboard parts of Louisiana? Yep, not there. FEMA's own site makes the same mistake here in outlining counties of jurisdiction for their efforts, or, as they confidently put it

FEMA intends to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act to save lives, protect property and public health and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in the designated areas....

And they then proceed--until it was changed on Monday--to NOT list the most affected seaboard parishes, NO included. (Hat tip to chicagochamp)

Right state, wrong parishes? Could this actually be a contributing factor? Who knows, but it sure would help explain the vaporous pre-positioned provisions and phantom boots on the ground. I'd probably say "no way," except for similar surreal but fundamental stuff like this:

CNN -- Right City, Wrong State

Add geography to the growing list of FEMA fumbles

A South Carolina health official said his colleagues scrambled Tuesday when FEMA gave only a half-hour notice to prepare for the arrival of a plane carrying as many as 180 evacuees to Charleston.

But the plane, instead, landed in Charleston, West Virginia, 400 miles away.

It was not known whether arrangements have been made to care for the evacuees or transport them to the correct destination. A call seeking comment from FEMA was not immediately returned.

Okay, so they eventually found people to rescue, and eventually transport to the wrong places. But with all the trigger effects going off, and the wall-to wall TV covergae of a disaster in the making, why the laggard response?

Those damn lawyers. The White House may want tort reform, but it's not because they can't stand lawyers.

It seems White House lawyers were worried about 18-19 year old guardsmen not having the requisite skills. So they dithered. About chains of command, and about federal liability over soldiers potentially "going cowboy." Yes, the White House and FEMA would not start advancing supplies or revving up the humvees til the paperwork was ironed out. Take it away MSNBC, via Jurist:

...President Bush could have "federalized" the National Guard in an instant. That's what his father, President George H.W. Bush, did after the Los Angeles riots in 1992.... But after Katrina, a strange paralysis set in. For days, Bush's top advisers argued over legal niceties about who was in charge, according to three White House officials who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the negotiations. Beginning early in the week, Justice Department lawyers presented arguments for federalizing the Guard, but Defense Department lawyers fretted about untrained 19-year-olds trying to enforce local laws, according to a senior law-enforcement official who requested anonymity citing the delicate nature of the discussions.

Add in a very nasty state-to-federal fight: Even though FEMA was snoozing and way late, when they finally realized how badly they were shooting themselves in the foot, they barreled into Blanco's office, so to speak, and, after essentially asking Blanco to publicly kiss dear leader's ring for "saving her state," they insisted on complete and total control, and therefore, total credit (yes, a hoot, I know.) She wanted 24 hours to collect herself and, possibly, find the number of an assualt hotline. (Don't ask where this came from, I think I made it up;-)

Okay, so the nice lady Governor is a rookie, and, probably called in James Lee Witt a bit late, but lets look closer at the National Response Plan, the document she expected to save her state and her bacon.

DHS.gov- National Response Plan

The NRP sets protocols, as they put it, to...

# Save lives and protect the health and safety of the public, responders, and recovery workers;
# Ensure security of the homeland;
# Prevent an imminent incident, including acts of terrorism, from occurring;
# Protect and restore critical infrastructure and key resources;
# Conduct law enforcement investigations to resolve the incident, apprehend the perpetrators, and collect and preserve evidence for prosecution and/or attribution;
# Protect property and mitigate damages and impacts to individuals, communities, and the environment; and
# Facilitate recovery of individuals, families, businesses, governments, and the environment.

Mega! You said we were having turkey, and I can smell it cookin..

DHS Secretary at the time, Tom Ridge, penned a nice one page intro to the NRP, available here. [pdf 2.o mb] Roughly distilled, its management-speak says, in his words:

The President directed... a new National Response Plan (NRP) to align Federal structures, capabilities, and resources into a unified, all discipline, and all-hazards approach... Unique and far reaching, ... eliminates critical seams and ties together a complete spectrum of incident management preparedness for, response to... major natural disasters.... The end result is vastly improved coordination among Federal, State, local, and tribal organizations to help save lives and protect America's communities by increasing the speed, effectiveness, and efficiency of incident management.

Operational and resource coordinating structures... support existing White House... decisionmaking... response to a specific threat. It serves to unify and enhance... management capabilities and resources... in response to a wide array of potential threats

Double Mega. Wow! I'm sold. Boy, when a Major National Disaster hits, I sure am glad the Pros from Dover are gonna chopper in. Sure, you're saying, this is probably some white paper crafted by a wonk in some basement, yes?

Nope. Lookit these names, flashily paraded in 4 pages of big bold signatures, right up front:

Ann M.Veneman, Secretary, Department of Agriculture
Donald L. Evans, Secretary, Department of Commerce
Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary, Department of Defense
Rod Paige, Secretary, Department of Education
Spencer Abraham, Secretary, Department of Energy
Tommy G.Thompson, Secretary, Department of Health and Human Services
Tom Ridge, Secretary, Department of Homeland Security
Alphonso Jackson, Secretary, Department of Housing and Urban Development
Gale A. Norton, Secretary, Department of the Interior
John Ashcroft, Attorney General, Department of Justice
Elaine L. Chao, Secretary, Department of Labor
Colin L. Powell, Secretary, Department of State
Norman Y. Mineta, Secretary, Department of Transportation
John W. Snow, Secretary, Department of the Treasury
Anthony J. Principi, Secretary, Department of Veterans Affairs
Porter J. Goss, Director of Central Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency
Michael O. Leavitt, Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency
Robert S. Mueller, III, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation
Michael Powell, Chairman, Federal Communications Commission
Stephen A. Perry, Administrator, General Services Administration
Sean O'Keefe, Administrator, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Ellen Engleman Conners, Chairman, National Transportation Safety Board
Nils J. Diaz, Chairman, Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Kay Coles James, Director, Office of Personnel Management
Hector V. Barreto, Administrator, Small Business Administration

Now, in their very impresive document--and I won't bore you any more with the beauracratese, read it yourself--they document and describe how they've got it knocked. Even to the definition of when this grand plan kicks in. It's a thing called an Incident of National Significance

The NRP bases the definition of Incidents of National Significance on situations related to the following four criteria set forth in HSPD-5:

1. A Federal department or agency acting under its own authority has requested the assistance of the Secretary of Homeland Security.
2. The resources of State and local authorities are overwhelmed and Federal assistance has been requested by the appropriate State and local authorities. Examples include:
■ Major disasters or emergencies as defined under the Stafford Act; and
■ Catastrophic incidents (see definition on page 43).

Now, see item 2? "The resources of State and local authorities are overwhelmed and federal assistance has been requested..."

Cue the quavering rookie Governor from Lousiana...

gov.louisiana

Date: 8/26/2005

GOVERNOR BLANCO DECLARES STATE OF EMERGENCY

BATON ROUGE, LA--Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco today issued Proclamation No. 48 KBB 2005, declaring a state of emergency for the state Louisiana as Hurricane Katrina poses an imminent threat, carrying severe storms, high winds, and torrential rain that may cause flooding and damage to private property and public facilities, and threaten the safety and security of the citizens of the state of Louisiana The state of emergency extends from Friday, August 26, 2005, through Sunday, September 25, 2005, unless terminated sooner.

The cavalry then sez: whitehouse.gov

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
August 27, 2005

The President today declared an emergency exists in the State of Louisiana and ordered Federal aid to supplement state and local response efforts in the parishes located in the path of Hurricane Katrina beginning on August 26, 2005, and continuing. The President's action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts...

Go time! Like they said, it's not a case of if, but when. Grab your socks and drop your, well, you know...

To digress for a moment, as we can surmise, especially if you wade through all 400+ pages, the NRP is a centerpiece of the the newest oldest version of top-down, we-know-best management, via the vaunted CEO administration. You remember, the guys who weregonna bring the efficiences of the proivate sector to bear on a lumbering, underperforming government. There are multiples of billions in whiz bang tech invested in this plan--just not any considerations against downed land lines or fried cellular towers, it seems. There are thousands of NEW hires at FEMA, DHS and other agencies invested in this. Many at the managerial level know little about Emergencies beyond the politiacal kind, but can find plenty of ways to get in the way of longtime professionals who do know. There are pretty trucks everywhere, laminated to-do-lists and manuals, lots of manuals.. Everybody has a fresh, confidence-inspiring logo, a shiny new hard hat, and their own spoon.

Alfred Sloan would be proud. Wait, no he wouldn't. The mythical founder of GM would have said it was a masterpiece of hubris, and a disaster waiting to happen. Of course, being an all-too-rare REAL grownup with real skeelz, and an eye for talent, HE might have made it work.

So, therein, lays a large part of the answer to "What was Governor Blanco doing?" The simple answer is: not enough. The longer answer is, she was making do with what she had, cash and materiel-wise, as head of one of the poorest states in the union. The blunt answer is: She was believing too readily in the Over-promise, Under-deliver Administration. Where was the National Guard? The units she had at her command, those not deployed to Iraq, were in N.O., making themselves most definitely known to the folk of the superdome and elsewhere throughout the state.

Understand, the important part of this to remember is that looting occured after innundation, not before. She, and the mayor, lost control, AFTER they lost their city to Poseidon and Neptune.

Okay, let's wrap up our story...

NRP's a big document, sure. And we've established it's for big things, and for men and women of bold action and flinty resolve. For the Titans of Global-Scale Challenge. What they need is a test of wills--(R) against Nature, (R) against Terra. Bring it on!

Hmmm. Who do you call when you need a little benchmarking? Why, it's these guys:

URGENT - WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW ORLEANS LA
1011 AM CDT SUN AUG 28 2005

...DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED...

HURRICANE KATRINA...A MOST POWERFUL HURRICANE WITH UNPRECEDENTED STRENGTH...RIVALING THE INTENSITY OF HURRICANE CAMILLE OF 1969.

MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...PERHAPS LONGER.

AT LEAST HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL...ALL WOOD FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED...ALL WINDOWS WILL BE BLOWN OUT.

THE VAST MAJORITY...OF TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING...BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED.

POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS...AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.

Definitely an all-caps kind of message,the usual NWS vernacular. But the prose--Goodness gracious--not your typical NWS drollery.

If memory, and my read of the ORG chart serves me well, DHS, FEMA, and the White House are NWS subscribers and fans.

Devastating damage. Uninhabitable for weeks...perhaps longer. Human suffering incredible by modern standards.... Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Call the fleet! Scramble the Air Force! Get me the CEOs of Trailways, Amtrak, Greyhound, UPS and FedEx. Seize WalMart and commandeer every blimp, jitney and unicycle you can find!

...

crickets

...


FOUR YEARS.

They've had four years. And they come up with a document.

Rapid response instinct? Giving a good tinker's damn? Only when their own political survival is at stake.

Call it what it is: A Lame Game.