The Daily Background

I wrote this paper this past spring for my final exam in a natural disasters course in college. As dictated by the assignment, I read the paper aloud to the class, and when I was finished everybody just looked stunned and then slowly broke into loud applause. Later, the professor pulled me aside and told me I had done a phenomenal job and that without reading the bibliography or re-reading the paper that I was getting an A right then and there.

The paper may be slightly outdated, but the facts are still good. I’ve added a few links from my bibliograph, but since this was written several months ago some of them may no longer work. I’ve added a few titles in bold. Throughout the paper I’ve also included photographs of Katrina victims, because just without talking about specific people, it’s often hard to identify with them.

Several things which I was not aware of at the time I wrote it ought to have been included. For example, the fact that the President was off having fun with country music singers, Condi Rice was out shoeshopping, and Donald Rumsfeld was out at baseball games while Americans were dying. And of course later there was the leaked briefing video that showed President Bush being informed of exactly what was going to happen, and him doing nothing. And the President’s mother who was so oblivious to the suffering of hundreds of thousands of mostly poor African Americans that she said the storm “worked out pretty well for them.”

Still, I think it’s a compelling paper. The name of the piece was “Hurricane Katrina for Dummies, And Those Who Weren’t Paying Attention.”

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“Worst-Case Scenarios”
Specialists in natural disaster management prediction and aversion employed by the United States federal government have known for years of several possible catastrophes that could strike in each segment of the continental United States. Because of the alignment of volcano activity in the northern hemisphere of the globe, it has been long known that there is the potential for a very large volcano eruption in the north-western corner of the continent. The structuring of an unusually dense fault line across the western coast of the country suggests the possibility of an extended string of magnitude 7 or above earthquakes which would cause another type of worst-case scenario due to the heavy population in this part of the world. Another well known and heavily discussed worst-case scenario involves the eventual slide of the eastern coast of the largest Hawaiian island sliding into the Pacific Ocean and causing a tsunami which would rapidly move directly into the greater Los Angeles area. Parts of the midwest have long been known as Tornado Alley due to their proneness to the devastating natural occurrences. The east coast has its own potential disasters as well, and each of these are well known and oft-planned for by those whose profession it is to study these events.

This past fall, one of these “worst-case scenarios” occurred in the south-eastern United States. The scenario which played out was well known to and predicted by experts for decades in the past, and still this natural disaster was reacted to in a way which is now viewed by experts as probably the worst possible in such a situation.

Because of the placement of New Orleans, a densely populated city which has been slowly sinking into the Gulf of Mexico for the last several decades, it has long been regarded as a location for a potentially disastrous natural occurrence. The city itself sits an average of nearly 6-10 feet below sea level, and this has caused great concern amongst expert observers who have often voiced their fears and predictions in insider circles, until the issue became of mainstream American and international interest in the fall of 2005.

Early Warning
In late spring and early summer of 2005, the United States National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as well as numerous private consulting and prediction firms began to note that there were an unusually high number of indicators that seemed to forecast an abnormally active hurricane season in the upcoming fall. According to a top NOAA analyst and former Navy Admiral who spoke to the press on May 16th, there were likely to be “three to five major hurricanes” predicted in the upcoming season. And it wasn’t just top government analysts and officials that were predicting an unusually active hurricane season in the year to come; it was also noted in an official NOAA press release of the same date that “[private] forecaster confidence that [2005] will be an active hurricane season is very high.”

In other words, it had been known inside the forecast industry for decades that New Orleans was a city highly susceptible to hurricane and flooding activity, it was known and predicted that a worst-case scenario was entirely possible in that part of the country, and it was even widely predicted inside the public and private forecasting and natural disaster planning industries that 2005 was going to have an unusually active season.

Still, months later when a Cat-5 (the largest possible classification) hurricane struck dead on one of the most populated cities in the country, local and federal disaster management officials were woefully unprepared. This unpreparedness resulted in over 1000 deaths after the hurricane passed, with more than 5 thousand people reported still missing months later. How did this happen?

Sheer Incompetence
To understand the events that occurred during the early and mid weeks of fall 2005, it is crucial to know several key facts about the central characters in this dynamic saga. No character is more important than the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency at the time, a man named Mr. Michael D. Brown.

Brown was appointed to the most important Emergency Management Agency in the country by president George W. Bush in January of 2003, after an extended relationship with the agency which began in 2001 when entering the federal payroll after being hired as counsel in 2001, personally hired by former Bush campaign manager and then FEMA director Joe Allbaugh. Allbaugh hired childhood buddy and eventual college roommate Brown (who was also a signifigant Bush Campaign contributer), immediately after taking office. When Allbaugh retired to work for Halliburton in late 2002, Brown took over the job as FEMA director. Later after Katrina struck, a massive multimillion dollar no-bid contract was awarded directly from Brown to Allbaugh who was then operating a Halliburton subsidiary called “The Allbaugh Company.”

Of course, all of this is merely a footnote to the fact that Brown was woefully unqualified for the job he was appointed to by President Bush in 2003. It has been reported (most notably by TIME Magazine) that Brown exaggerated and perhaps may have even illegally falsified claims made on his resume, to get past already lenient senate confirmation hearings.

His only qualification that had anything remotely to do with public service (besides a spontaneous decision to run for congress in 1988– he was very easily defeated) was that he claimed he was an assistant to the city manager in a small town in Oklahoma. However later this claim was revealed to be not true. He also claimed that he was an “outstanding political science professor,” and this as well was later dismissed as being not true either, but even if his claims had been true, it would hardly have been a qualification for emergency management on a federal level. He also claimed to have been a director of a Christian league based in Oklahoma, another “credential” that has since been dismissed as being entirely untrue by the league itself. Claims were later circulated that Brown played an important role in the response to September 11, however after the passage of several years, these claims have yet to be backed up in any way whatsoever.

Wrong Man for the Job

Brown’s actual background had nothing in the least to do with public service, as he was in fact a private practice lawyer for several most of his professional life. Before being appointed to the the country’s top emergency management position, he was forced to resign his last job over widespread allegations of incompetence and eventual fraudulent misappropriation of funds from his former office. He was actually completely unqualified to lead that job as well, as it was the chairman of a Horse Show Association. Not exactly what you’d call a qualification for the most important emergency management position in the country.

While virtually all private and public weather forecasters, weather pattern analysts were aware of the approaching hurricane season and its possible consequences, because Mike Brown was not an industry insider- in fact he had never had any prior experience with emergency management even on a local level- not to mention a federal one- simply knew nothing about current and predicted weather trends. Nor did he know the best ways to manage disaster situations because he had no background in emergency management. He did not even know of the predictions that had been made for decades about a possible worst-case scenario involving a Cat-5 hurricane occurring near, if not directly upon New Orleans. He didn’t know any of these things because he was horribly unqualified for this crucial job.

Evacuation
Brown’s job became crucial when Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff designated him to be the “Principle Federal Official” in charge of hurricane relief efforts for Katrina. Prior to the hurricane hitting New Orleans (this near direct hit was anticipated days in advance, as evidenced by the president’s declaration of a State of Emergency in the area), few governmental preparations were made. These included such morbid tasks as readying refrigerated trucks to carry corpses once the storm had passed and people had died. Relatively few preparations were made however to aid those who would survive the storm.

Although a mandatory evacuation was called by New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin, with or without federal assistance was granted by FEMA. To compound the effects of the lack of governmental assistance, several privately owned companies normally providing transportation in and out of the New Orleans area closed down well before the Katrina hit, in anticipation of damage- including Greyhound, Amtrak and Illinois Central Railroad. Thus, because of the lack of alternatives, those who were able to drive themselves out of town in their own personal vehicles were largely able to escape the approaching category strength 5 hurricane.

Those who could afford to were able to evacuate. Large numbers of the New Orleans population were not able to escape however. Louisiana, as a state is ranked the second poorest state in the union, second only to another state hit by hurricane Katrina; Mississippi. According to the 2004 Census, greater than one fourth of New Orleans residents were living in poverty, and large segments of the population were very close to the poverty line. African Americans also made up disproportionately high percentages of victims of the storm. More than half of those living in poverty did not have access to an automobile with which to drive themselves and their families out of the city, something which Governmental evacuation plans relied almost exclusively upon.

Unable to Evacuate
Among those who were not able to evacuate were those in nursing homes and hospitals. Shortly before Katrina struck, several nursing homes and hospitals in danger of flooding were unable to evacuate because of a lack of governmental assistance. Unable to evacuate many elderly residents, employees simply left them there as flooding approached. Days later after the storm, police discovered dozens of bodies in hospitals and nursing homes, either apparently left to die of flooding and lack of food and care- or because they had been the victims of mercy killings. As many as 100 bodes were found by police, and are under investigation.

Upon recognizing that there were still tens- if not hundreds of thousands of alive residents still in New Orleans unable to evacuate, and still in the city himself, Mayor Nagin named several locations as “refuges of last resort.” Among these, the Louisiana Super-Dome serves as an illustrious example.

Supplies

The Louisiana National Guard was able to provide food and water for 15,000 people for three days at the Superdome on August 28th, right before Katrina hit. During the hurricane, slightly less than 10,000 people took refuge in the Super-Dome (16). As soon as the storm passed, taking two sections of the roof with it, as many as 60,000 people arrived hoping for shelter at the football stadium. With very little food left, no medical supplies, and only a few hundred police and National Guard soldiers, the situation remained chaotic for days. Unconfirmed reports of enclosed mayhem; lawlessness, rapes, robberies, and beatings began to appear in the media almost immediately. With no plumbing, sanitation was impossible, and officials and experts have even discussed demolishing the huge structure which is considered now to be a “potential biohazard“.

Shortly following reports of severe overcrowding and atrocious conditions, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco ordered that the Super-Dome be evacuated immediately, and pleaded with FEMA for help transporting refugees out of the Super-Dome. After FEMA pledged to cooperate, and promised that it would have all refugees out of the stadium in two days, it then did not deliver the promised transportation and actually help evacuate refugees for nearly a week. A FEMA National Situation Update published on September 3, cheerfully dismissed refugees questions of “What took you so long” as simply “catcalls.”

Leaked Emails
Private emails leaked to the press reveal what was going on in the minds of a local emergency management official on the ground in the Super-Dome, FEMA chairman Mike Brown, and even President Bush during this time.

Brown for his part, seemed completely unaware of ongoing evacuation efforts at times, often joking around (more here. CBS News wrote:

“Correspondent Bob Orr reports that an hour later, as thousands of evacuees huddled in the Superdome “shelter of last resort,” Brown fired off another email: “If you’ll look at my lovely FEMA attire you’ll really vomit. I am [a] fashion god.”

Ignoring Calls for Action
When asked by FEMA subordinates stationed in Louisiana for support and advice, he said he could “tweak” federal response. Marty Bahamonde, a FEMA employee in the Super-Dome wrote: “the situation is past critical,” and proceeded to list specific life-threatening problems that thousands of people were facing at this time, the entire text of Brown’s response was: “Thanks for the update. Anything specific I need to do or tweak?“.

President Bush’s response was just as asinine. He ordered emergency tax cuts in the Gulf Coast area, and promptly began working to decrease the minimum wage in areas effected by the hurricane. Corporations involved in “Hurricane Rebuilding” profited greatly during this time, most noticeably Halliburton (20, 22).

Resignation
After Brown emailed President Bush offering his resignation, the President refused it, replying in a response email: “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.” As more evidence surfaced that Brown had not been reacting appropriately the President continued to support Brown. At other times, Brown took two hour lunches with friends at upscale restaurants and refused to take emergency cell phone calls from locally stationed FEMA employees were trying to contact him.

Ten days later, President Bush finally accepted Brown’s resignation.
However, the president ensured that Brown be kept on his 150,000 dollar salary as a consultant to the investigation of what ‘went wrong’ with FEMA’s reaction to hurricane Katrina. Before an investigation panel, he deflected blame and admitted that his big mistake was “not noticing” that the state of Lousianna was in his words “dysfunctional.”

In the weeks following the governmental reaction to Hurricane Katrina, polling firms worked on re-polling the African American population in America. What they found was startling. Although the Bush Administration had never been known as one with close African American ties- they had hit a record low (presumably since slavery). WSJ’s and NBC’s polling departments found that the Bush administration had a shockingly low approval rating among African Americans of only 2%.

Approval
After Hurricane Katrina, there was an outstanding amount of talk amongst politicians about how Katrina was a wake-up call about how Hurricane Evacuation was now so crucial. Of course it had been regarded as crucial before Katrina, parts of Florida are routinely evacuated for hurricanes. Days later, Hurricane Rita struck in Texas, and a massive evacuation was launched. However, it turned out that the evacuation itself killed more people than Hurricane Rita did, at a total of 6… to 113. Mike Brown meanwhile has decided that he would be good at helping people plan for hurricanes in the private sector, having opened his own private disaster planning firm. No word on how long it will be until he is hired by the next FEMA crony for subcontracting.

Inside the superdome as the storm raged

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