Project Katrina

I don’t have a lot of praise myself for Obama’s early efforts, but it would seem the Governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal has more then a few nice things to say:

As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama pledged to right the wrongs he said bogged down efforts to rebuild the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina. Seven months into the job, he’s earning high praise from some unlikely places.

Gov. Bobby Jindal, R-La., says Obama’s team has brought a more practical and flexible approach. Many local officials offer similar reviews. Even Doug O’Dell, former President George W. Bush’s recovery coordinator, says the Obama administration’s “new vision” appears to be turning things around.

Not too long ago, Jindal said in a telephone interview, Louisiana governors didn’t have “very many positive things” to say about the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

But Jindal said he had a lot of respect for the current FEMA chief, Craig Fugate, and his team. “There is a sense of momentum and a desire to get things done,” the governor said.

It would seem that years and years after Katrina hit the Washington Post is just catching on that almost nothing has been changed to ensure similar events don’t occur again:

Almost four years after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has failed to clarify the responsibilities of different agencies that would respond to such disasters, according to a recent report by the Government Accountability Office.

One result is that FEMA lacks assurances that the agencies have improved preparedness since the deadly hurricane in August 2005 exposed numerous flaws in the nation’s readiness for large-scale catastrophes.

[....]

The GAO conceded that FEMA lacks authority to compel other agencies to act but said FEMA should nonetheless “instill a shared sense of responsibility and accountability on the part of all stakeholders for the successful development and implementation of the national preparedness system.”

The report noted that although the post-Katrina legislation requires FEMA to track corrective actions taken in response to training exercises, it has not done so effectively.

The story goes on to highlight that FEMA has almost no communication with other government agencies that might be called on during a disaster much less defined how improvements will be monitored.

Update: Reading the report in more detail, the GAO Report found 68 percent of the plans needed to implement a national preparedness system have not yet been completed, although 41 of the 50 policies needed to define the roles and responsibilities of those who must implement the plan have been completed.

The Rockefeller Institute of Government released a report last week calling for drastic legislative change that would authorize a presidential appointee to take charge of the government’s response to major disasters like Hurricane Katrina.

The report, Who’s in Charge? Who Should Be? The Role of the Federal Government in Megadisasters: Based on Lessons Learned from Hurricane Katrina, suggests amending the Stafford Act so that it better serves those affected by natural disasters, creating a central body and/or governmental leader—an “Officer-in-Charge”—with the authority to make plans actionable at a federal level in order to better coordinate federal, state, and local governments’ responses. The Officer-in-Charge would report directly to the POTUS and could “enable the president and Congress to consider extraordinary national action.” I think it is safe to say this is a change that is needed sooner rather than later.

Some recent stats from the Institute for Southern Studies:

• May 1 marked the end of the Temporary Housing Program for Katrina victims, and FEMA told residents they must vacate the trailers by May 30.
• Nearly 5,000 FEMA trailers continue to provide housing to residents displaced by Hurricane Katrina.
• Some 2,800 FEMA trailers remain occupied in Louisiana, with 1,000 of those trailers located in Orleans Parish, and some 2,000 FEMA trailers remain occupied in Mississippi.
• Most FEMA trailer occupants are elderly and/or disabled persons in desperate need of effective support and case management services to stabilize their housing and well-being.
• FEMA trailer occupants are displaced homeowners and renters still struggling to rebuild their homes or secure affordable housing after Katrina and Rita. In fact, 80 percent are homeowners, and most of them told FEMA in a survey this year they want to return to their storm-damaged homes.

The Times-Picayune recently reported the story of Earnest Hammond:

A spry 70, Hammond likes to stay busy. So he putters in his sprawling garden. Pulls mildewed drywall out of his 7th Ward house. Smashes thousands of aluminum cans he has collected, hoping they will provide the rehab money the Road Home program hasn’t.

But he worries that FEMA might tow away his trailer at any time. Technically, it is no longer his: Last month, the Federal Emergency Management Agency ordered him, by letter, to leave his “FEMA-furnished manufactured-housing unit” by this past Friday.

Like Hammond, those remaining in trailers across the region are mostly people who lived on their own before Hurricane Katrina: Eighty percent were homeowners, and most of them told FEMA in a survey this year they want to return to their storm-damaged homes.

But last week, as the deadline approached, FEMA issued conflicting messages. Some caseworkers told occupants their possessions would be put on the street if they were not out by Friday. Others told elected officials and legal advocates that FEMA would work with trailer occupants on a case-by-case basis and remove only trailers that are vacant or housing unauthorized occupants.

But officials at the top levels of FEMA in Washington, D.C., would offer no assurances. Instead, they said their hands were tied. Friday marked the end of the Temporary Housing Program for Katrina victims, including about 2,000 families in trailers and 54 more in local hotels.

Think Progress has put together a list of 43 Bush appointees that worked so very hard to make him the worse president in the history of our nation. “Brownie” made a very impressive showing in the fifth spot:

5. Michael Brown — This former commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association was appointed by Bush to head FEMA in 2003. After Katrina made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane, Brownie promptly did a “heck of a job” bungling the government’s relief efforts, and was sent back to Washington a few days later. He was forced to resign shortly thereafter.

And think, he was only in the public eye for a few weeks. Imagine his ranking if he’d been around for a few years.

Former FEMA director Michael Brown was driven from his Boulder home by a wildfire today. His money quote:

We never think of the fact that something like this can happen.

Let me see if I have this right. The state of Louisiana had asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for $492 million to rebuild Charity Hospital. FEMA said basically, “well how does $23 million sound?” As you might expect the State was not happy. So years after Katrina hit FEMA has said they’ll give the state $150 million. Now I am no expert at negotiations, but who, you would have think the State could have least got something like half, or $247 million of what they asked for.

After years of haggling with state officials, the Federal Emergency Management Agency announced late Friday that it has approved $150 million for hurricane-related damage to Charity Hospital. The amount is far less than the $492 million that the state claims the damage is worth but considerably more than the $23 million that FEMA previously had said it was willing to pay.Rather than bring the long-running dispute to an end, FEMA’s announcement merely moves the issue to the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama.

Even before the storm, they were some of the country’s neediest kids. Now, the children of Katrina who stayed longest in ramshackle government trailer parks in Baton Rouge are “the sickest I have ever seen in the U.S.,” says Irwin Redlener, president of the Children’s Health Fund and a professor at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. According to a new report by CHF and Mailman (direct link to PDF) focusing on 261 displaced children, the well-being of the poorest Katrina kids has “declined to an alarming level” since the hurricane. Forty-one percent are anemic—twice the rate found in children in New York City homeless shelters, and more than twice the CDC’s record rate for high-risk minorities. More than half the kids have mental-health problems. And 42 percent have respiratory infections and disorders that may be linked to formaldehyde and crowding in the trailers, the last of which FEMA finally closed in May.

The “unending bureaucratic haggling” at federal and state levels over how to provide services and rebuild health centers for the Gulf’s poor has made a bad situation much worse, says Redlener: “As awful as the initial response to Katrina looked on television, it’s been dwarfed by the ineptitude and disorganization of the recovery.”

More findings from the report (direct link to a PDF) that should make every single American sick to their stomach include:

• 55% of elementary school age children had a behavior or learning problem.
• 42% of children were diagnosed with allergic rhinitis and/or upper respiratory infection and 24% had a cluster of upper respiratory, allergic, and dermatological diagnoses. These high rates of diagnoses could reflect the harsh environmental conditions at shelter, such as exposure to formaldehyde which was found to be present in the trailers.
• 41% of children under four years of age were diagnosed with iron deficiency anemia. This is twice the rate for homeless children in shelters in New York City.
• 27% were diagnosed with a hearing or vision problem.
• Nearly one-half of the children required at least one specialty medical visit and 12% required two or more specialists.

Iraq was and is a terrible thing. And many folks tell me decades from now it is be the biggest failure of George Bush’s eight years in office. Well I beg to disagree, and studies like this just show how right I am.

Saying the response of the Federal government to Gustav was superior to Katrina really isn’t saying much of anything is it. From the Associated Press:

Relieved and upbeat, President Bush declared Monday that the government had responded “a lot better” to Hurricane Gustav than it did to deadly Hurricane Katrina, which obliterated the Gulf Coast three years ago and damaged his administration’s credibility for handling major crises.

Eager to show that officials had learned the tragic lessons of Katrina, Bush scrapped an opening-night speech at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., and flew instead to emergency command centers in Texas. He landed shortly after a weakened Gustav hit Cocodrie, La., 72 miles southwest of New Orleans. Once feared as a monster storm more frightening than Katrina, Gustav struck only a glancing blow on New Orleans.

“The coordination on this storm is a lot better than on—than during Katrina,” said Bush, who left a hurricane briefing in Austin smiling, shaking hands with emergency workers and posing for pictures.