Thursday, December 15, 2005

Congressional Katrina Hearings and Bush throwing money at New Orleans

C-SPAN has the recent House Hearing on Hurricane Katrina available in their video archive (uses Real Player). Governor Blanco is asked some tough questions:

In a hearing by a special House committee investigating the preparations and response to Hurricane Katrina, Republicans repeatedly asked Governor Blanco, a Democrat, why she had not ordered a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans 48 hours before the storm's landfall. An earlier evacuation, they said, might have forced poor, elderly and hospitalized people to leave the city.

"You are aggressively making an excuse when no excuse should be given," Representative Christopher Shays, Republican of Connecticut, said in one of several heated exchanges between committee members and Ms. Blanco. "It should have been mandatory. It should have happened sooner. And I think that the fact that you don't recognize that is more troubling to me than I can express."
Committee questioning of the panel starts at about 1:15:30 into the video.

At 1:19:00 into the video Blanco is asked specficially why Louisiana didn't follow their own evacuation plan.

At 1:26:55 Blanco starts laying out the B.S. with this response:

I'm very happy to talk about our evacuation process because it is the one thing that we did masterfully.

That woman has on set of cohones on her.

Several times in her testimony Governor Blanco uses an excuse many have denied to former FEMA director Mike Brown: "We did the best we could".

Congressman Chris Shays starts his tough questioning at about 1:49:13 asking Blanco why she didn't call for a mandatory evacuation. Blanco punts and says that Mayor Naggin could better respond to that! Have you seen any of this in the MSM!?!

The New York Times conveniently overlooks this 'buck-passing':
Ms. Blanco fiercely defended the evacuation effort, saying it moved 92 percent of the region's population to safe ground in barely 24 hours. And she questioned whether an earlier order - New Orleans ordered a mandatory evacuation the day before the storm hit - would have helped, asserting that many who stayed behind believed "they were tougher than the storm."
Chris Shays is relentless on his questioning. He basically tells her, "You don't get it".

'Must See TV: Blanco Lied, People Died' has a clip of Governor Blanco in a debate during her run for Governor. She addresses a specific question on what she would do in th event of a Cat 5 Hurricane. You simply will not believe your eyes on this one.

Related: In what appears to be an effort to stem unjustified criticism, Bush is asking for $3.1 billion before it has even been determined if New Orleans should be rebuilt or not.

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