Gulf Officials Demand Local Leadership, Spill Emotions Like Oil

by Miles Wolf Tamboli - Talk Radio News Service

Local officials met with President Barack Obama’s special BP-Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling Commission in New Orleans Tuesday to deliver a strong message to Washington from Gulf Coast citizens.  

“The response needs to be driven locally,” said A.J. Holloway, Mayor of Biloxi, Mississippi.

Charlotte Randolph, President of Lafourche Parish, LA said that local residents can serve as guides to cleanup crews struggling to keep up with the spewing well.

“In a war, there are two things that happen. Number one, you find the people in that particular area who can speak the language, and number two, you find the people who know the terrain,” Randolph said. “It’s our territory, we know it. Let us advise you all the way in how to attack this.”

Local leaders compared the administration’s handling of the Macondo/Deepwater Horizon gusher to the federal response to Hurricane Katrina, during which the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which has since become somewhat of a dirty word on the Coast, was harshly criticized for having worked remotely and inefficiently.

“We’ve been through hurricanes, tropical storms, tornadoes, recessions, depressions and we survived it all,” Mayor Holloway said. “What we have trouble dealing with, is something that will not end. It’s a new oil spill every day, every single day.”

Mayor of Grand Isle, La. David Camardelle said that locals are standing strong and lending helping hands when needed, but is still uncertain as to what the future holds for the Gulf.

“We’re not gonna give up, but I can tell you one thing, by taking everything away from us, from the waters, I don’t know what the hell’s gonna happen to us,” said Camardelle.

Post-Katrina Recovery Still At Stake

By Michael Combier-Talk Radio News Service

Nearly four years after Hurricane Katrina hit the shores of Louisiana and Mississippi, affecting 90,000 square miles, there are still many people to relocate and solutions to be found. More than 4,000 temporary housing units continue to be in use in Louisiana while the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s housing program formally ended on May 1, 2009.

The Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management held an hearing this morning entitled “Still Post-Katrina: How FEMA decides when housing responsibilities end”.

“The situation we now face was both predictable and predicted. It has been clear from the recent FEMA hearings that those left in disaster housing would be the most vulnerable members of society, who may have had prior difficulties that have been exacerbated by the disaster. While these programs have formally ended, we still have families without a long term housing solution,” said Committee Chair Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC).

Ranking member U.S. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) told the subcommittee that it has been “44 months now that families and individuals have been living in travel trailers and hotel rooms and obviously never intended for long time use. But even after all this time, there seems to be no other solutions that has been developed. There has not been a real viable solution developed and implemented by the state and local governments to address long-time affordable housing needs for low income residents.”

The members of the subcommittee agreed that it is not FEMA’s duty to act indefinitely but that it was common sense to not leave people in the streets without any adequate housing.

Responding to the upcoming role of the FEMA for people still living in temporary housing units, David Garratt, Deputy Administrator of the FEMA, pointed out the activities made by the agency since Katrina. Garratt said that the “FEMA conducted the largest temporary housing operation in the history of the country” by providing temporary housing to more than 143,000 families across the Gulf Coast and more than $7.8 billion in housing and other needs assistance to around 2.4 million individuals.

However, Garratt said that the FEMA has provided long term housing units to individuals affected by Katrina but approximately 1,400 have refused to participate in those relocations and decided to stay in their temporary housing units which are often located near their home or even on their lots. These people still do not know whether or not their trailers will be taken away from them by the FEMA when its housing program ends.

Congress sees room for improvement in FEMA

The lack of disaster relief for victims of Hurricane Katrina were "a failure of the public sector," said Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.) in a hearing. The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee met to discuss how disaster relief went after hurricanes Ike and Gustav.

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) said that while there were major improvements in the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), some aspects of the response were not good enough. She said that 1,000 of the poorest citizens were put on buses with no idea where they were going before Hurricane Gustav hit. She said that FEMA and the Red Cross were unprepared for a "large-scale disaster."

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said that preparations for Hurricane Gustav were an improvement on Hurricane Katrina. She said that 97.5 percent of the population evacuated New Orleans this year while only around 90 percent were evacuated before Katrina. He also said that New Orleans was repopulated only four days after the disaster. However, he did mention that the city ran out of supplies that FEMA was supposed to provide including water and food. He said the United States was still playing "Russian roulette" with the lives of its citizens in the New Orleans region.

Deputy FEMA administrator Harvey Johnson said that Hurricanes Gustav and Ike posed "a worst nightmare scenario." Johnson said the response by FEMA as well as state governments restored the confidence of U.S. citizens in disaster relief.

Americans “deserve a better FEMA”

Almost three years after Hurricane Katrina, the government is still discovering critical governmental flaws, according to Congressman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) at a hearing before the Joint Homeland Security Committee to discuss the delivery of donated goods to catastrophe survivors. Thompson said that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) did not properly manage and distribute the donated supplies after Hurricane Katrina.

Senator Mary Landrieu (D-La.) said that it was important to ascertain why some goods purchased for Hurricane Katrina disaster relief were supposedly never delivered and failed to be used for their intended purposes. Landrieu conceded that FEMA has made some progress but said that FEMA must learn to be proactive and more collaborative. Landrieu said that Americans “deserve a better FEMA.”

Eric Smith, Assistant Administrator of Logistics Management at FEMA, said that there have been inaccurate reports of the lack of distribution of relief goods. According to Smith, the materials and supplies held in storage and deemed to be in excess of FEMA’s needs are valued at $18.5 million and not $85 million as reported. He attributed the error in value to a manual miscalculation. Smith said that FEMA continues to provide livings kits to help those in transition out of FEMA housing.

Carlos Castillo, Assistant Administrator of Disaster Assistance of FEMA, agreed that FEMA has encountered uncoordinated shipments and volunteers. Castillo attributed this to the volunteers being overwhelmed and the fact that many states may not have the proper infrastructure to support large donations. Castillo said that even with FEMA’s shortcomings, it has distributed more than $50 billion since Hurricane Katrina and has provided more than 90,000 units of temporary housing. Castillo added that FEMA remains committed to those affected by the disaster.

FEMA not the master of disaster

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) submitted a strategy plan which was a year overdue to the Disaster Recovery Subcommittee, according to Senator Mary Landrieu (D-La.). Landrieu added that not only was the strategy late but key annexes of the report, required by Congress, were nothing but blank pages.

In a hearing to discuss FEMA’s lack of an effective strategy for housing large numbers of citizens displaced by disaster, Landrieu said that FEMA’s failure to meet strategy needs was “absolutely unacceptable.” Landrieu noted that, after Hurricane Katrina and Rita, FEMA ordered travel trailers for people to live in. She cited reports that the trailers were full of formaldehyde and this caused great concern.

When asked why the strategy report was late and incomplete, Admiral Harvey Johnson Jr., Deputy Administrator of FEMA, said that FEMA would not have produced such a good report a few days ago. Johnson also said that the strategy report was late because of FEMA’s desire to produce a quality product, to be thoughtful in how the strategy could be accomplished and to be “truly collaborative” with agencies such as the National Advisory Council, Federal Departments and Agencies and the general public. Johnson would offer no definite deadline for the submission for the finalized strategy other than “early fall.”

Johnson explained the blank pages in the report were present because Landrieu was looking at a draft of the strategy and promised that the final publication would have all the blank pages filled in. Johnson said that the several other pages in the draft strategy offered a good foundation and compensated for the blank pages of the annex. In what seemed to be a rhetorical question, Landrieu asked why the 325 witnesses called, 22 public hearings and 833,000 pages of information gathered by the Congress were not good enough a foundation to allow for a complete strategy.