Another TPM Reader, JW, responds to <$NoAd$> the Times article …
I read the Times article before getting to TPM this morning and as I read the section you quote and the rest of the piece what became obvious to me is that the staff work for the executives was abysmal on all sides. First of all the Feds, and I mean FEMA especially, should have had a check list of the things that must be in place: proclamations made, signatures, documents, forms etc. Second, the governor should have had staff people telling her what was needed and making certain that everything was prepared and in a folder if not weeks and months in advance certainly in the days before the storm hit. And if the state people did not have everything in place the FEMA people should have had senior experienced staff people knowledgeable in the machinery who could speak to their counterparts and to the Governor and the President or at least to Andrew Card and make sure it all happened. For that matter why isn’t there a kit or a plastic weather tight box that all of this stuff can be placed in and sent by Fedex to the governor with explicit instructions at the onset of this kind of thing. Or even better a kind of two week out of the box course that all governors and presidents (and staff ) take at the beginning of an administration that covers what to do in case of emergency.
I mean this stuff should never have to be made up on the spot as if no one had ever seen an emergency before. In fact, as I think of it wasn’t this the rationale put forth for the Homeland Security Department in the first place? I was never enamored of the plan even though it was a Democratic idea and now I am less enthusiastic but I don’t think there is any putting that genie back in the bottle.
