MR. BROUSSARD: Sir, they were told like me, every single day, "The cavalry's coming," on a federal level, "The cavalry's coming, the cavalry's coming, the cavalry's coming." I have just begun to hear the hoofs of the cavalry. The cavalry's still not here yet, but I've begun to hear the hoofs, and we're almost a week out.
Let me give you just three quick examples. We had Wal-Mart deliver three trucks of water, trailer trucks of water. FEMA turned them back. They said we didn't need them. This was a week ago. FEMA--we had 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel on a Coast Guard vessel docked in my parish. The Coast Guard said, "Come get the fuel right away." When we got there with our trucks, they got a word. "FEMA says don't give you the fuel." Yesterday--yesterday--FEMA comes in and cuts all of our emergency communication lines. They cut them without notice. Our sheriff, Harry Lee, goes back in, he reconnects the line. He posts armed guards on our line and says, "No one is getting near these lines." Sheriff Harry Lee said that if America--American government would have responded like Wal-Mart has responded, we wouldn't be in this crisis.
But I want to thank Governor Blanco for all she's done and all her leadership. She sent in the National Guard. I just repaired a breach on my side of the 17th Street canal that the secretary didn't foresee, a 300-foot breach. I just completed it yesterday with convoys of National Guard and local parish workers and levee board people. It took us two and a half days working 24/7. I just closed it.
MR. RUSSERT: All right.
MR. BROUSSARD: I'm telling you most importantly I want to thank my public employees...
MR. RUSSERT: All right.
MR. BROUSSARD: ...that have worked 24/7. They're burned out, the doctors, the nurses. And I want to give you one last story and I'll shut up and let you tell me whatever you want to tell me. The guy who runs this building I'm in, emergency management, he's responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said, "Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?" And he said, "Yeah, Mama, somebody's coming to get you. Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody's coming to get you on Friday." And she drowned Friday night. She drowned Friday night.
MR. RUSSERT: Mr. President...
MR. BROUSSARD: Nobody's coming to get us. Nobody's coming to get us. The secretary has promised. Everybody's promised. They've had press conferences. I'm sick of the press conferences. For God sakes, shut up and send us somebody.
MR. RUSSERT: Just take a pause, Mr. President. While you gather yourself in your very emotional times, I understand, let me go to Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi.
(Emphasis Mine)
The government (Bush Administration) ignored their own National Response Plan in this disaster. Read this fantastic blog entry for more on the breakdown of the NRP and how this Administration should be, must be, held criminally accountable for their actions.
More blogs about Katrina.
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1 comment:
An organized effective response includes relief personnel dedicated to specific tasks performed in a simutaneous manner, ie: 5000 doing rescue, 1000 doing security, 200 doing logistics (people and aid), 1000 repairing breach in levees, 500 collecting dead in staging areas, 200 doing forensics related to cause of levee breaches, etc. etc. It is clear that deaths, economic impact, criminal accountibility, etc. all are contained if proceeding in this manner. I beleive the FEMA plan had to have been similar, however the reasons why it didnt play out are too numerous and complex to contemplate now.
Of particular interest to me is the specific forensics related to the breaches. It needs to be investigated for criminal intervention. All avenues to investigate include natural causes (as we all hope is the reason), terrorism, environmental activism, and local N.O. political and economic interests. After reading about the pre-disaster scenarios, the efforts (passions and politics) by the local authorities to gain funding, together with the penchant for corruption in N.O., and the overly dramatic and sometimes personalized verbal responces of several officials following disaster, have made me at the most suspicious. All I am saying is it needs to be investigated equally as terrorism, natural causes, etc., to quell any doubts.
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