Sunday, September 04, 2005

Chertoff: yet another administration official who doesn't read the news

Michael Jerk-Chertoff claims the government did not expect anything more than an overflow or small break in the levee because government planners never predicted such a disaster.
"That 'perfect storm' of a combination of catastrophes exceeded the foresight of the planners, and maybe anybody's foresight," Chertoff said.
Nope, no foresight here (nobody had so much as a clue). And, of course,with such a lack of information, how could one expect the government to plan appropriately? [emphasis added]
But engineers say the levees preventing this below-sea-level city from being turned into a swamp were built to withstand only Category 3 hurricanes. And officials have warned for years that a Category 4 could cause the levees to fail.

Last week, Michael Brown, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told CNN his agency had recently planned for a Category 5 hurricane hitting New Orleans.

Katrina was a Category 4 hurricane when it struck the Gulf Coast on September 29.

Speaking to "Larry King Live" on August 31, in the wake of Katrina, Brown said, "That Category 4 hurricane caused the same kind of damage that we anticipated. So we planned for it two years ago. Last year, we exercised it. And unfortunately this year, we're implementing it."

Chertoff passed the buck by noting that the Federal Government, for its part, has done everything properly and acted as quickly as necessary given that responsibility really lies with the local government.
In a Washington briefing, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said one reason federal assets were not used more quickly was "because our constitutional system really places the primary authority in each state with the governor."
I know there were more than three stooges. . .but I'm starting to wonder how many of them found jobs in the Bush Administration.

Photo credit: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/Associated Press

Tags: ; , ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;

Sphere: Related Content

No comments: