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Jewish World Review Sept. 15, 2005 / 11 Elul, 5765 Brown may have been wrong man for the job but it's not reflection on the rest By Jack Kelly
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Sometimes a bum gets a bum rap.
The hapless Michael Brown has resigned as director of the Federal Emergency
Management Agency, a move which reinforced the view of his many critics that
the federal response to Katrina was unconscionably slow.
In a column last week, I described the relief operation after Katrina as
"the most monumental and successful disaster relief operation in history."
Everything I have seen in the week subsequent reinforces that view.
Last week I noted how 32,000 people had been rescued; that shelter, food and
medical care had been provided to 180,000 displaced persons; that the Corps
of Engineers had repaired the breach in the most important levee protecting
New Orleans.
Since then, electric power has been restored in most of Mississippi; and in
New Orleans, the seaport has reopened, the airport has reopened, and oil is
again being pumped from platforms in the Gulf.
Some — chiefly those irate because I did not call for George Bush's head on
a platter — assume I was praising FEMA in general, and Brown in particular.
This is not so.
I have few tears to shed for Brown, who was not qualified to have the job in
the first place. President Bush is rightly taken to task for having
appointed him.
If I were handing out interim grades, there would be As for the Coast Guard;
the Army Corps of Engineers; the military; the Red Cross, the Salvation Army
and the other private charitable groups that actually provide the help; the
mayor of Houston, the governor of Texas and the people of that great state,
and the American people, who have donated more than $700 million to help out
their distressed neighbors.
I'd give FEMA an incomplete, because we just don't know enough yet about the
extent to which FEMA coordination aided, or impeded, or was irrelevant to
the activities of the organizations mentioned above.
FEMA's role in disaster relief largely has been misrepresented in the media.
FEMA has Urban Search and Rescue Teams and Disaster Assistance Medical
Teams, many of which were pre-deployed to the region and went into action
within hours of the hurricane abating.
But FEMA's primary role is to coordinate the activities of the local, state
and federal agencies and private charitable groups who provide the relief
supplies and the bulk of the manpower.
There have been reports of FEMA bureaucrats impeding the provision of aid to
distressed communities. A thorough investigation should be made of these
complaints.
But pending that investigation, we should bear in mind that the tempers and
time horizons of people in distressed areas are short; that they are in a
poor position to see a larger picture (needs may be greater and more urgent
elsewhere); and that some complainers have powerful reasons for directing
anger away from themselves.
FEMA has been lambasted most for the plight of people who sought shelter in
the Louisiana Superdome. But this was a local, not a federal, failure.
There would have been fewer people to care for in the superdome had the city
utilized its municipal and school buses to evacuate people who had no cars,
as its emergency management plan called for.
I have no objection to the use of the Superdome as a place of refuge, but it
is hard to understand why no provision was made for food or water, or
adequate security, or for porta-potties.
Officials of both the Red Cross and the Salvation Army said they tried to
bring food and water to the Superdome, but were turned away by Louisiana
authorities. This has received little attention from the news media, perhaps
because it would be hard to pin the blame for the decision on President
Bush.
I've been critical of the coverage of Katrina, and I'm going to close with
criticism of one journalist in particular.
There were three errors of fact in my column last week.
I said the 17th street levee breached in the wee hours Tuesday, which was
what was being reported at the time I wrote the column. In fact, the breach
occurred mid-morning Monday.
I took the figure 2,000 for the buses available to Mayor Nagin from a column
written by another journalist without checking it myself. The actual figure
is closer to 600.
Finally, I knew Andrew struck in 1992, but inexplicably wrote 2002. I
regret the errors.
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© 2005, Jack Kelly |
Mitch Albom | |||||||||||
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