This Washington Post big picture chronology of government preparation and response to Katrina and its aftermath documents how at every turn, FEMA and DHS were unaware of the mangitude of what was happening, literally days behind -- it took them five days after the Hurricane struck to begin delivery of what they had promised local and state officials (buses, MREs, water, ice), lacked sense of urgency, failed to get information from the field and get it to those above, failed to act as a coordinator between federal state and local officials, lacked competent delivery, lacked a brain. The federal government seemed to not be hearing the multiple requests and signed declarations from state officials begging for everything they've got:

Around midnight, at the last of the day's many conference calls, local officials ticked off their final requests for FEMA and the state. Maestri specifically asked for medical units, mortuary units, ice, water, power and National Guard troops.

"We laid it all out," he recalled. "And then we sat here for five days waiting. Nothing!"

Monday, Aug. 29

'We need everything you've got.'

Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Louisiana around 6 a.m. Central time, and within an hour, New Orleans Mayor Nagin was hearing reports of water breaking through his city's levees. At 8:14 a.m., the National Weather Service reported a levee breach along the Industrial Canal, and warned that the Ninth Ward was likely to experience extremely severe flooding. A protective floodwall along Lake Pontchartrain had given way as well, which meant that billions of gallons of water were draining into the city.

This was the worst of the worst-case scenarios. New Orleans is a soup bowl of a city, most of it well below sea level; everyone knew a serious crevasse could fill it with 20 feet of water. Even the gloomy Hurricane Pam drill had optimistically assumed the levees would hold, but they were designed to withstand only a Category 3 storm, and Katrina created at least five breaches at three locations. Now the waters were rising.

And nobody in charge seemed to know it.

On Saturday, according to Army Corps homeland security chief Ed Hecker, the corps had warned FEMA that Katrina would probably send water over the levees, and quite possibly breach them. On Sunday, the Army Corps's Riley had told the FEMA videoconference that a plan was in place to repair levee damage once the storm passed.

But now the power was out, roads were unnavigable, and communication was practically nonexistent; even Nagin's aides had to "loot" an Office Depot for equipment to install Internet phone service...

The federal disaster response plan hinges on transportation and communication, but National Guard officials in Louisiana and Mississippi had no contingency plan if they were disrupted; they had only one satellite phone for the entire Mississippi coast, because the others were in Iraq. The New Orleans police managed to notify the corps that the 17th Street floodwall near Lake Pontchartrain had busted, and Col. Richard Wagenaar, the top corps official in New Orleans, tried to drive to the site to check it out. But he couldn't get through because of high water, trees and other obstacles on the road...

At 11 a.m., ABC News reported that some New Orleans levees had been breached, and a few other outlets broadcast similarly sketchy reports that day...

At the White House, one official recalled, "there was a general sigh of relief." On a trip to Arizona, the president shared a birthday cake with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who was turning 69. During a speech about the Medicare drug plan, Bush noted that he had just spoken to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff -- about immigration.

The federal interagency team seemed to recognize the urgency of the crisis at a meeting that morning, discussing the potential for six months of flooding in New Orlean... But before noon, FEMA's Brown sent a remarkably mild memo to Chertoff, politely requesting 1,000 employees to be ready to head south "within 48 hours." Brown's memo suggested that recruits bring mosquito repellent, sunscreen and cash, because "ATMs may not be working."

"Thank you for your consideration in helping us meet our responsibilities in this near catastrophic event," Brown concluded...

As water poured into the city, as many as 20,000 more residents poured into the Superdome. "People started coming out of the woodwork," Ebbert said. The stadium was hot and fetid, and tempers were flaring. Ebbert said he told FEMA that night that the city would need buses to evacuate 30,000 people. "It just took a long time," he said...

Around 6 p.m., as Governor Blanco was about to hold a news conference in Baton Rouge to discuss the damage, Blanco's communications director whispered that the president was on the line. The governor returned to a windowless office in her situation room and pleaded with the president for assistance.

"We need your help," she said. "We need everything you've got." ...

FEMA managed to deliver 65,000 meals to the Superdome, but by the end of the day, water was rising so fast that the agency was unable to unload five more truckloads of food and water. That evening, in a belated bow to televised reality, Chertoff declared the unfolding disaster an "incident of national significance," triggering the government's highest level of response for the first time since the new post-9/11 system had been designed. He did not publicly announce the move until the next day.

Wednesday, Aug. 31

...Dawn found a handful of buses outside the Superdome, and an estimated 23,000 people clamoring for a ride. FEMA had promised hundreds of buses, but they were arriving, Louisiana's Smith recalled, "in a trickle." And unbeknownst to FEMA, a new circle of hell was opening downtown, as the New Orleans convention center filled with an estimated 25,000 evacuees, many of them unable to get to the flooded area around the Superdome. There was no food, no water and no feds. A spree of robbery, looting and gunfire erupted inside as police dispatched to the center stayed almost exclusively on the perimeter, according to police and witnesses, outnumbered and unable to quell the mayhem.

New Orleans as a city had all but ceased to exist. Nagin spoke of "thousands" dead. Blanco publicly pleaded for 40,000 National Guard troops. In a conference call with Guard officials in the region, Blum asked if they had what they needed. They said no.

"They said that this is bigger than anything we've ever seen or imagined," Blum recalled. "This had touched them personally. Even at that time they didn't have a full sense of what they were dealing with." Blum immediately arranged a videoconference with every adjutant general around the country, and 3,000 Guard troops streamed into New Orleans over the next 24 hours, enough to replace the entire city police force. By Saturday, the Guard would have 30,000 troops in the region.

Bush, winging his way back from vacation, paused to swoop low over the prostrate city on Air Force One. Back in Washington, he convened a stunned Cabinet.

That was on WEDNESDAY -- two days after the hurricane had struck, that business really seemed to start in Washington, signalled from the very top by a president who was on vacation. The only agency that comes off remotely well is the National Guard which it is clear from this piece was hampered by significant resource-loss to Iraq (only one satellite phone for the Guard available in Alabama - the rest were in Iraq). which at least sent in Guard without an order from above. The president cannot run the government from his five week vacation in Texas after all. The government cannot be run by Bush-Cheney campaign hacks. Hundreds of lives were lost because of the way the Bush administration neglected its solemn responsibilities, to protect American lives.

A certain amount of improvisation and ingenuity is always needed in crises, but some basic crisis management contingencies are utterly predictable and were predicted. How four years after 9/11 some basic lessons had not been identified and worked out is staggering:

1) a clear plan for coordination between federal, state, and local authorities has to be worked out ahead of time (this does not mean days of philosophical discussions between the White House and Department of Justice and the Pentagon about only offering federal troops to aid in a humanitarian mission by wresting control from state officials, but coordination, who does what...)

2) plan that communications systems will fail and set up reliable alternatives. Those comms should be interoperable. The Guard's comms didn't work, the mayor's telephone lines went out, FEMA did not know what was going on on the ground, even what was on TV, etc.

3) plan to maintain order and prevent breakdown of law and order (this does not mean letting police block people from evacuating the flooded city to wealthier neighborhoods -- those Gretna police should be prosecuted). As in Baghdad, a little control at the beginning sets a signal that prevents a total breakdown, something the Bush administration has failed to learn apparently in Iraq, but Gen. Bill Nash knew from the first steps NATO took into Bosnia in '95.

And a lesson unique to natural disaster with advance warning unlike a terrorist attack:

4) prepare for getting people out who can't or don't know to leave on their own. It was always anticipated that about 20% of New Orleans wouldn't or couldn't evacuate, which sounds about right for most any city, given human nature, means, etc. And people being people, plan to sustain the people left behind, who will be there in almost every case. There is never going to be a total evacuation. In the case of a crisis with no advance warning, you are going to have to deal with doing all of this with the whole population in place. So New Orleans was in some ways an easier situation, given that an estimated 80% of the population had already evacuated by the time the hurricane hit. It's terrifying when you realize how utterly unprepared the government is for dealing with a catastrophic attack in a US city.

You can't do this without professionals. You can't do this with your top guys on vacation, or with their boss on vacation, in a passive, back burner way. You can't do this in a politicized way. All factors which epitomize how the Bush administration does business.

Posted by Laura at September 11, 2005 08:50 AM