Red Cross not allowed into New Orleans by government

Several states ready and willing to send National Guard troops to the rescue in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans didn't get the go-ahead until days after the storm struck — a delay nearly certain to be investigated by Congress.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson offered Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco help from his state's National Guard on Sunday, the day before Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana. Blanco accepted, but paperwork needed to get the troops en route didn't come from Washington until late Thursday.

California troops just began arriving in Louisiana on Friday, three days after flood waters devastated New Orleans and chaos broke out.

In fact, when New Orleans' levees gave way to deadly flooding on Tuesday, Louisiana's National Guard had received help from troops in only three other states: Ohio, which had nine people in Louisiana then; Oklahoma, 89; and Texas, 625, figures provided by the National Guard show.

Maj. Gen. Thomas Cutler, who leads the Michigan National Guard, said he anticipated a call for police units and started preparing them, but couldn't go until states in the hurricane zone asked them to come.

"We could have had people on the road Tuesday," Cutler said. "We have to wait and respond to their need."

The Michigan National Guard was asked for military police by Mississippi late Tuesday and by Louisiana officials late Wednesday. The state sent 182 MPs to Mississippi on Friday and had 242 headed to Louisiana on Saturday.

With many states' Guard units depleted by deployments to Iraq, Katrina's aftermath was almost certain from the beginning to require help from faraway states.

Republicans and Democrats alike in Congress are just beginning to ask why one of the National Guard's most trusted roles — disaster relief — was so uneven, delayed and chaotic this time around.

Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., said the situation has shown major breakdowns in the nation's emergency response capabilities. "There must be some accountability in this process after the crisis is addressed," he said.

Democrat Ben Nelson, Nebraska's other senator, said he now questions National Guard leaders' earlier assertions that they had enough resources to respond to natural disasters even with the Iraq war.

"I'm going to ask that question again," Nelson said. "Do we have enough (troops), and if we do, why were they not deployed sooner?"

President Bush was asked that question Friday as he toured the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast area and said he disagrees with criticism the military is stretched too thin.

"We've got a job to defend this country in the war on terror, and we've got a job to bring aid and comfort to the people of the Gulf Coast, and we'll do both," he said.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., plans to make oversight of the Defense Department, the National Guard and their assistance his top priority when he returns to Washington next week from an overseas trips, spokesman John Ullyot said Friday.

Bush had the legal authority to order the National Guard to the disaster area himself, as he did after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks . But the troops four years ago were deployed for national security protection, and presidents of both parties traditionally defer to governors to deploy their own National Guardsmen and request help from other states when it comes to natural disasters.

Though slow at the beginning, out-of-state Guard help was markedly increasing by the start of the weekend. As of Friday, nearly half the states had Guard members in Louisiana, boosting the total to at least 5,600 from out of state. Hundreds more were on the way.

Michigan, which was ready to help before the storm began, was sending 500 National Guard troops Friday and Saturday to help with water purification in Mississippi and police duty in New Orleans.

Arizona didn't get a request for military police until Thursday, when it received an urgent message sent to all state National Guards by the National Guard Bureau at the request of Louisiana, said Capt. Paul Aguirre. He said the unit cannot leave Phoenix until Sunday because arriving units must arrive at a pace the receiving end can handle.

Among those headed in were several hundred from Wisconsin, where the governor took the unusual step of declaring a disaster outside his state to activate his Guard.

"This was the first time a governor ever declared a natural disaster in another state and activated to that other state," said Gov. Jim Doyle, who issued his order Wednesday. "We were ready to be deployed within 24 hours of that order."

In addition to Guard help, the federal government could have activated, but did not, a major air support plan under a pre-existing contract with airlines. The program, called Civilian Reserve Air Fleet, lets the government quickly put private cargo and passenger planes into service.

The CRAF provision has been activated twice, once for the Persian Gulf War and again for the Iraq war.

NEW ORLEANS, United States (AFP) - A top New Orleans police officer said that National Guard troops sat around playing cards while people died in the stricken city after Hurricane Katrina.

New Orleans deputy police commander W.S. Riley launched a bitter attack on the federal response to the disaster though he praised the way the evacuation was eventually handled.

His remarks fuelled controversy over the government's handling of events during five days when New Orleans succumbed to lawlessness after Katrina swamped the city's flood defenses.

The National Guard commander, Lieutenant General Steven Blum, said the reservist force was slow to move troops into New Orleans because it did not anticipate the collapse of the city's police force.

But Riley said that for the first three days after Monday's storm, which is believed to have killed several thousand people, the police and fire departments and some volunteers had been alone in trying to rescue people.

"We expected a lot more support from the federal government. We expected the government to respond within 24 hours. The first three days we had no assistance," he told AFP in an interview.

Riley went on: "We have been fired on with automatic weapons. We still have some thugs around. My biggest disappointment is with the federal government and the National Guard.

"The guard arrived 48 hours after the hurricane with 40 trucks. They drove their trucks in and went to sleep.

"For 72 hours this police department and the fire department and handful of citizens were alone rescuing people. We have people who died while the National Guard sat and played cards. I understand why we are not winning the war in
Iraq if this is what we have."

Riley said there is "a semblance of organisation now."

"The military is here and they have done an excellent job with the evacuation" of the tens of thousands of people stranded in the city.

The National Guard commander said the city police force was left with only a third of its pre-storm strength.

"The real issue, particularly in New Orleans, is that no one anticipated the disintegration or the erosion of the civilian police force in New Orleans," Blum told reporters in Washington.

"Once that assessment was made ... then the requirement became obvious," he said. "And that's when we started flowing military police into the theatre."

On Friday, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin denounced the slow federal response as too little, too late, charging that promised troops had not arrived in time.

"Now get off your asses and let's do something and fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country," the mayor said in remarks aired on CNN.

Blum said that since Thursday some 7,000 National Guard and military police had moved into the city.
President George W. Bush on Saturday ordered an additional 7,000 active duty and reserve ground troops.

Blum said any suggestion that the National Guard had not performed well or was late was a "low blow".

The initial priority of the Louisiana and Mississippi National Guard forces was disaster relief, not law enforcement, because they expected the police to handle that, he said.

The police commander was unable to give a death toll for New Orleans.

"We have bodies all over the city. A federal mortuary team was supposed to come in within 24 hours. We haven't seen them. It is inhumane. This is just not America."

Riley said he did not even know how many police remained from a normal force of 1,700.

"Many officers lost their homes or their families and there are many we have not heard from. Some officers could not handle the pressure and left. I don't know if we have 800 or thousands today."

Be All You Can Be. Aim High. Army of One. and so on

people dieing in America? don't bother me

From all corners of this country, hundreds of would-be rescuers are wending their way to the beleaguered Gulf Coast in buses, vans and trailers. But government red tape has hampered many who ache to help Katrina's victims.

Louisiana's Jefferson Parish is desperate for relief, but parish President Aaron Broussard says officials of the Federal Emergency Management Agency turned back three trailer trucks of water, ordered the Coast Guard not to provide emergency diesel fuel and cut emergency power lines.

Why? FEMA has not explained. But the outraged Broussard said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" that the agency needs to bring in all its "force immediately, without red tape, without bureaucracy, act immediately with common sense and leadership, and save lives."

The government says it is doing the best it can in the face of a massive and complicated disaster.

"Even as progress is being made, we know that victims are still out there and we are working tirelessly to bring them the help they need," said Michael Brown, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Some of the delays can be explained by the need to control a volatile situation. Long lines of volunteers are being stopped on freeways on their way into New Orleans.

"Anyone who self-responded was not being put to work. The military was worried about having more people in the city. They want to limit it to the professionals," said Kevin Southerland, a captain with Orange Fire Department in Orange County, Calif., a member of one of eight 14-member water rescue teams sent to New Orleans at FEMA's request.

Even skilled volunteers with the best intentions can be more trouble than help if they arrive needing food, shelter or fuel, some say.

"Our biggest problem has been trying not to put more stress on the community, particularly with regards to gasoline. We want to make sure we've got enough gas for chain saws and transportation," said Larry Guengerich of the Mennonite Disaster Service, a Pennsylvania-based relief organization that has three small crews currently working along the Gulf Coast, cutting and clearing downed limbs and covering damaged roofs.

There are, at this point, several federal emergency command centers, as well as state and local command centers where coordinators are working to match nonstop requests with the appropriate nonstop offers of help.

...

Hospitals around the country were standing by with empty beds, staff, triage centers and air transportation to fetch patients, she said. But they couldn't launch the rescue flights without requests for help, and those requests never came.

"These victims could have been here a week ago, and now they're spending a lot of time and money making triage centers? In situations like this every minute counts, not every day counts. Why not get them to these open beds?" she said.

Frank Russo of the Chicago Ambulance Alliance said his organization was ready to send help immediately. But the request didn't come until Thursday, three days after the hurricane struck.

"We didn't want to just up and go like everyone did after 9-11. We learned from that. After 9-11 everybody just went to New York and then they just sat there, they had no where to go."

Early Saturday, ten Chicago ambulances and their medical staff finally headed south with orders to report to a command center set up outside of New Orleans. By Sunday the Chicago ambulances were delivering patients from the New Orleans airport to regional hospitals.

"It makes sense to go through the government and have things set up," said Russo.

Others were still waiting for the official request. In New Jersey, for example, Gov. Richard Codey said he had a task force of 105 police officers and 55 vehicles and a medical task force of 55 physicians and 43 nurses standing by.

But other rescuers simply couldn't, or wouldn't, wait.

Early Sunday morning, for example, a convoy of more than 35 fire, police, transportation and public works vehicles left Baltimore for an 1,100-mile drive to Gretna, La.

Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley decided to send the help, including 40 firefighters and 28 police officers, without consulting FEMA "as a direct response to a direct request from the mayor of Gretna," said O'Malley's spokesman.

On Friday, Gary Maclaughlin of Santa Cruz, Calif., flew to Nashville, Tenn., where he bought a diesel-powered 1990 yellow school bus for $2,000. He charged $1,500 worth of water, diapers, granola bars and peanut butter crackers on his credit card and headed straight for the shelters.

By Sunday evening he was driving loads of evacuees from the New Orleans Airport to a rescue shelter in Covington, La.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/09/05/katrina/main816611_page3.shtml

“As the National Guard delivered food to the New Orleans convention center yesterday, American Red Cross officials said that federal emergency management authorities would not allow them to do the same.”

There are understandable security concerns, but the main reason seems to be the following: “The goal is to move people out of an uninhabitable city, and relief operations might keep them there.”

Disaster FAQs

Hurricane Katrina: Why is the Red Cross not in New Orleans?

* Acess to New Orleans is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities and while we are in constant contact with them, we simply cannot enter New Orleans against their orders.

* The state Homeland Security Department had requested--and continues to request--that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans following the hurricane. Our presence would keep people from evacuating and encourage others to come into the city.

* The Red Cross has been meeting the needs of thousands of New Orleans residents in some 90 shelters throughout the state of Louisiana and elsewhere since before landfall. All told, the Red Cross is today operating 149 shelters for almost 93,000 residents.

* The Red Cross shares the nation’s anguish over the worsening situation inside the city. We will continue to work under the direction of the military, state and local authorities and to focus all our efforts on our lifesaving mission of feeding and sheltering.

* The Red Cross does not conduct search and rescue operations. We are an organization of civilian volunteers and cannot get relief aid into any location until the local authorities say it is safe and provide us with security and access.

* The original plan was to evacuate all the residents of New Orleans to safe places outside the city. With the hurricane bearing down, the city government decided to open a shelter of last resort in the Superdome downtown. We applaud this decision and believe it saved a significant number of lives.

* As the remaining people are evacuated from New Orleans, the most appropriate role for the Red Cross is to provide a safe place for people to stay and to see that their emergency needs are met. We are fully staffed and equipped to handle these individuals once they are evacuated.

http://www.redcross.org/faq/0,1096,0_682_4524,00.html

It was FEMA of the state of Louisiana who denied the Red Cross from entering New Orleans. Louisiana FEMA wanted people to go from the city not stay.

strangely enough, quite a number of people have acted unilaterally to bring food and water into the city since it was flooded last week, despite FEMA

but, then, why would the Red Cross want to enter the city and face the people that they abandoned there by deliberately refusing to open shelters and provide for transportation out of the city?

after all, it was much easier for them to echo calls for poor people to evacuate the city despite the knowledge that many of them lacked vehicles to do so

http://amleft.blogspot.com/archives/2005_09_01_amleft_archive.html#112603278097236475

Firsthand account from a FEMA detention center:
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/fema.html

Google "Rex84," "Operation Garden Plot" for more details.

Please note that the LA Homeland Security Department is not part of the US Department of Homeland Security and as such, operates independently. In other words. It was the State of Louisiana who prevented the red cross to enter New Orleans...

You all act as if we lived in a dictatorship, that all Bush has to do is wave his hand and it's done. New Orleans Municipal employees take their orders from Nagin, State employees and the Guard get theirs from the Gov. FEMA, fuck ups go to Bush, but all are guilty. All. white governer, black mayor, white president. All bear some blame.

It was NOT the feds that told the red cross no. It was the STATE homeland security office - it is a state agency that reports to the Govenors office in LA. Point your fingers at the St of LA.

Well now we know it wasn't the "Bushies" Homeland Security but a Democratic state Governor's Homeland Security.

Where is the headling "Liberal starves African Americans"?

You are totally wrong. The Red Cross was told by the Louisiana Dept. of Homeland Security that they couldn't enter. This department is NOT part of the Federal Dept. of Homeland Security.

Check your facts before spewing your idiocy.

The Governor's office of LA gave that order to the LA department of homeland security. That is a state office, not federal one, it is not the DHS that is federal. It was a state issued order that said they did not want food and water drops because they did not want anyone else to go to the convention center or superdome. Do you understand?? Bush did not have the authority at that point and LA's governor made a disasterous call.

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana (CNN) -- Louisiana officials rebuffed American Red Cross requests to enter New Orleans with relief supplies last week because of concerns over logistical difficulties, Red Cross and state officials said Thursday.

The Red Cross never launched its relief effort in the city.

The national president of the American Red Cross, Marsha Evans, first made the request to undertake the operation during a visit to the state on September 1, three days after Hurricane Katrina struck, a local Red Cross chapter official said.

Read More
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/08/katrina.redcross/index.html

The Homeland Security office that ordered the Red Cross to stay out of New Orleans was the State of Louisiana Homeland Security office not the Federal Government. The order came from the Governors Office.
Get your facts straight.

The ignorance and hatefulness of the anti-Bush crowd continues to amaze me. Not a word from them about the almost total failure of the NO mayor to implement that city's detailed disaster plan. Not a word about the incompetent response by the Governor of La. and her failure to act in a timely way. All we hear is one lie after another about the slow response of FEMA, no doubt on the personal order of Bush, to the catastrophe. The charge that the feds refused the Red Cross admittance to NO is a lie. It was in fact the state authorities who did that. It was the state authorities who failed to request federal troops in a timely way, and it is now, and has traditionally been, the responsibility of the individual states to call out their National Guard, according to the Associated Press. In fact, it has been the near total failure of government at every level in the first few days prior to and after the Hurricane that led to this mess.

It is time, therefore, for all you venomous leftists to get on with your lives and accept the fact that Bush and the Republicans won the last election. Go see a therapist and GET OVER IT!

Republicans *stole* the last election.

As stated on the Red Cross web site's FAQ:

Hurricane Katrina: Why is the Red Cross not in New Orleans?


Acess to New Orleans is controlled by the National Guard and local [not Bush, not Washington] authorities and while we are in constant contact with them, we simply cannot enter New Orleans against their orders.

The state [ie State of Louisiana] Homeland Security Department had requested--and continues to request--that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans following the hurricane. Our presence would keep people from evacuating and encourage others to come into the city.

The Red Cross has been meeting the needs of thousands of New Orleans residents in some 90 shelters throughout the state of Louisiana and elsewhere since before landfall. All told, the Red Cross is today operating 149 shelters for almost 93,000 residents.

The Red Cross shares the nation’s anguish over the worsening situation inside the city. We will continue to work under the direction of the military, state and local authorities and to focus all our efforts on our lifesaving mission of feeding and sheltering.

The Red Cross does not conduct search and rescue operations. We are an organization of civilian volunteers and cannot get relief aid into any location until the local authorities say it is safe and provide us with security and access.

The original plan [that was not followed by local authorities] was to evacuate all the residents [including those w/o transportation] of New Orleans to safe places outside the city. With the hurricane bearing down [read: since the local authorities acted too late], the city government decided to open a shelter of last resort [where they told everyone to bring your own food/water] in the Superdome downtown. We applaud this decision and believe it saved a significant number of lives.

As the remaining people are evacuated from New Orleans, the most appropriate role for the Red Cross is to provide a safe place for people to stay and to see that their emergency needs are met. We are fully staffed and equipped to handle these individuals once they are evacuated.

--------------------------------

It is not the federal governments job to care for you. First, learn to take care of yourself and your own family w/o relying on the government or any other external organization. When you live in a place prone to huricanes, be prepared (I survived huricane Camille in '69 because my parents understood this). Second, help out when/how you can; life is hard, but each of us can all handle it when we all do "our" part.
- Bushie -

And speaking of orders, click here:

http://xymphora.blogspot.com/2005/09/new-orleans-hostage-crisis.html

it was the state department of homeland security that told the red cross to stay out not the federal homeland security. each state has its own homeland security dept. i imangine it was made by the same idiot that left some 250 school busses at the bus yard instead of using them to evacuate the city before the hurricane hit.

the Red Cross is lying, trying to conceal their collaboration in the abandonment of the poor people of New Orleans:

[The Red Cross does not conduct search and rescue operations. We are an organization of civilian volunteers and cannot get relief aid into any location until the local authorities say it is safe and provide us with security and access.

The original plan [that was not followed by local authorities] was to evacuate all the residents [including those w/o transportation] of New Orleans to safe places outside the city. With the hurricane bearing down [read: since the local authorities acted too late], the city government decided to open a shelter of last resort [where they told everyone to bring your own food/water] in the Superdome downtown. We applaud this decision and believe it saved a significant number of lives.]

In fact, as I posted on the American Leftist blog:

[As Will Bunch has written in the Philadelphia Daily News, the Red Cross collaborated in the abandonment of the poor people of New Orleans before the storm struck:


"You're responsible for your safety, and you should be responsible for the person next to you," local Red Cross executive director Kay Wilkins explained to the Times-Picayune just six weeks ago. "If you have some room to get that person out of town, the Red Cross will have a space for that person outside the area. We can help you. But we don't have the transportation.”



Ironically, the Red Cross has run a network of shelters in New Orleans in the event of hurricane warnings. But it decided several years ago not to open them for a Category 3 or stronger storm that it was more important to get people out of the below-sea-level area - despite the lack of any organized system for transporting them.



Translation: the Red Cross will house and feed you if you don't drown, starve or die from lack of medical care on your way out of town. Apparently, the Red Cross agreed with local officials who, according to Bunch and the New Orleans Times Picayune, communicated the following approach in a DVD distributed to the public a few months ago:

"City, state and federal emergency officials are preparing to give the poorest of New Orleans' poor a historically blunt message: In the event of a major hurricane, you're on your own."



When it came to the poor of New Orleans, where, again, according to Bunch, an estimated 134,000 people lacked vehicles, the Red Cross' decision to refuse to open shelters and organize transportation takes on a decidedly Mathusian cast. To put it bluntly, it failed New Orleans, and now it wants you and me to give them money to confront the consequences of their failure. I'm not very confident the Red Cross will overcome the racial and class bias that caused it, so I suggest that people look for alternatives.]

http://amleft.blogspot.com/archives/2005_09_01_amleft_archive.html#112603278097236475


--Richard

Here is an interesting examination of the shifting of blaim for the Feds failing in NOLA:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200509090002