First I need to mention, that the primary blame regarding any issues during/after hurricane Katrina falls on the heads of the people who did not leave as they were told to do. And while the local government could have offered transportation, I do not feel the government has a “duty” to be anyone’s chauffeur. To me it would have been a nice thing to do, but government’s primary requirement was to give the warning and that was done. Government has been offering cradle to grave services for far too many people for so long that many expect government to ride them out of town and baby sit them too. Sorry, but individuals must do for themselves. It would have been much easier to walk out of New Orleans before the storm, than it was to wade through all the water afterwards. And if we saw lines of people walking before the storm, then more private support probably would have come to their aid. But many did not want to leave and others did not take the initiative to leave.

The actual tapes that have been leaked to the media regarding the White House’s handling of hurricane Katrina, actually absolve President Bush and former FEMA Director Michael Brown of blame. The media spin has been that Bush lied and knew the levees would break. And there have also been claims that President Bush was not fully engaged and concerned. The actual tapes, minus the media commentary show just the opposite. I’m starting to think that I was wrong about Michael Brown. The FEMA-Gate e-mails make it appear that Michael Brown was not on the job. But the video shows HE WAS ON THE JOB. The problem was that people between himself and President Bush were not acting on his recommendations as he requested. This is why it appeared that Michael Brown was not doing enough. Overall the federal government did arrive in the average response time for this kind of disaster. Michael Brown probably should have informed President Bush that there was a disconnect in the level of response requested by himself versus what was actually being done.

Also Louisiana officials passed the White House bad information. This shows that Governor Kathleen Blanco had some obvious disconnects in her own chain of command. Because she told the White House that there were no levee breaks, when there had already been some breaks spotted.

Check out this video at Expose the Left. It shows Blanco passing the bad information to the White House about the levees. Of course if the issue here was Weapons of Mass Destruction and not levees and Blanco was President Bush, people would be saying that she LIED about the levees.

The video shows White House Deputy Cheif of Staff, Joe Hagin asking Governor Blanco about the levees and the roof of the Superdome.

Governor Blanco responds by saying the Superdome structure is sound. There is some material coming off the roof that is causing some leaking onto the floor of the dome. She mentions that people were on the floor of the dome it’s self, but they’ve been moved into the upper areas of the dome. And she adds:

No mentions of “crisis at the Superdome”. Sounds as if some people are being moved around and there is plenty of space.

Then she talks about the condition of the levees and mentions:

So she told the White House there were no levee breaches. She mentioned some flooding in areas. And that she was still very concerned. But has there ever been a major hurricane with no flooding? Considering the size of the strom, at this point everything looks pretty good according to Governor Blanco’s report.

This AP video of the events attempts to paint a different picture. The announcer claims that Bush saying:

Was something different from what he was told. Well here is what he was told.

Max is talking about the levees being topped. Blanco reported some levees were topped. Nobody said the levees would actually break! The entire nation did know that the levees were supposed to be able to handle a category 3 storm and reports were that Katrina would hit land as a category 5. But no, the video does not show Bush being told that the levees would break. And there is a big difference between levees being topped and levees breaking. That difference can be measured in tens of feet of water. Since the entire nation knew that the levees were not made for that level of storm, it is amazing that people in New Orleans did not all take the initiative to leave. Given the grave forecast, they should have been leaving by foot if by no other means.

Even ABCNews is reporting that Michael Brown was trying to warn officials and that President Bush was very much concerned. The announcer in the video linked above tries to make Bush look stupid for not asking questions, but Michael Brown says Bush was very engaged and the video shows the President was getting updates as new information came in. I don’t expect Bush to be a flood expert. That’s what his advisers are for. So I don’t see any problem with the President not asking a bunch of questions and simply accepting the information he was being given.

First in the ABCNews article, it mentions Blanco passing bad information to the White House.

Page 2 of the report mentions Michael Brown’s actions and his thoughts on President Bush’s concern.

Col. Jeff Smith, Louisiana’s emergency preparedness deputy director, felt FEMA was doing a great job.

As things were going on there was concern, but everybody felt things were being handled OK until it was too late! That is, everybody in Louisiana.

You don’t see any country singers going around crying “Bush does not care about White people”. All the focus was on Louisiana and specifically New Orleans. There were mistakes made and yea mistakes were made even on 9/11. It happens. (When you have time you can read in the 9/11 report about how fighter jets were flying out over the ocean with no instructions on where to go until it was too late.)

I say Bush and Brown were engaged and on the job. Bush was being passed too little and bad information. Michael Brown was not getting the level of cooperation he probably should have received. And Nagin did not use the buses, Blanco could have worked better with the Red Cross and President Bush. And if everybody had left when they were told, there would have only been a very small number of very sick people that needed to be removed, because they could not move well on their own.

I still don’t understand why anybody would live below sea level in the first place.