AddieStan

It appears that FEMA is doing a good job in Louisiana. Of course, the real test is yet to come, since FEMA's real job is to deal with the post-disaster issues of housing and general survival of storm survivors and evacuees. Your blogstress hopes the administration truly learned its lessons and has heeded the advice of what career civil service employees remain in its ranks. What happened during FEMA was not some sort of general incompetence on the part of FEMA's rank and file; it was the result of the politicization of the agency by the Bush administration. Indeed, well ahead of Katrina, FEMA workers tried to turn the attention of Congress to the lack of readiness created by political decisions made by the administration, but found no takers for the suggestion of an investigation. Here's Siobhan Gorman of the Wall Street Journal 's Storm Tracker blog: After overseeing one of the largest evacuations in U.S. history, the Federal Emergency Management Agency will now sh...

This is a problem for everyone in Lousiana, since Baton Rouge is the staging area for first response elsewhere in the state. Accoring to CNN, the FEMA command center lost power temporarily, and may now be running on emergency generators. Your blogstress was in Baton Rouge less than two weeks after Hurricane Katrina, and it's hard to overstate the role of the Red Stick in managing such a crisis. UPDATE: Turns out, according to CNN, that a transformer was blown, and the power company was able to reroute power to the command center.

Over at Democracy Arsenal, Moira Whelan asks why the military appears to be in charge of the management of the areas expected to be slammed by Hurricane Gustav. After all, this is supposed to be a matter for FEMA and the governor of the affected state: I just noticed that the daily brief customarily done in advance of a hurricane is happening because Gustov is bearing down on the Gulf Coast…but a big shift here: the briefing is being given by NORTHCOM. So what does this tell us and why does it matter? It tells us that things are as broken as they were before Katrina. The military, like EPA, Commerce, or anyone else, is only involved in emergency management to the point that they are requested to do so by the governor or the FEMA director (who acts on behalf of the President). CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF 'WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS HURRICANE?'