Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard Slams FEMA, federal response (video)
Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard appeared on Meet the Press today where he slammed FEMA's response to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Some of the criticisms he leveled:
-- "It's not just Katrina that caused all of these deaths in New Orleans here - bureaucracy has commited murder here in the greater New Orleans area, and bureaucracy needs to stand trial before Congress, now."-- "Walmart delivered 3 trucks of water, FEMA turned them back, said we didn't need them."
-- "We had 1000 gallons of diesel fuel on a Coast Guard vessel, the Coast Guard said "come and get the fuel." When we got there with our trucks, they got a word, 'FEMA said don't give you the fuel.'"
-- "FEMA comes in and cuts all of our emergency communications lines [without notice]. The Sherriff ... came back in and re-connected them, and posted armed guards on the lines."
Broussard stated his opinion that FEMA needs to be an independent agency, and that whoever is currently "at the top of the totem pole" needs to be fired.
At one point, host Tim Russert asked, "Shouldn't the Mayor and Governor bear some responsibility? Couldn't they have been much more forceful & organized in evacuating the area?" Broussard, however, effectively dodged the question by focusing his response on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Zebrality has the video
Posted by jkhat at September 4, 2005 06:05 PM
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| # September 15th, 2005 1:24 AM Bob1772 |
| Interesting take on Broussard's performance on Meet the Press.
And finally, on the question I raised a few days ago about Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard’s tearful story about his emergency manager’s mother drowning in a St. Bernard nursing home, I think the evidence shows pretty clearly that Broussard was embellishing the story. Readers helpfully pointed me to the following news accounts: * New York Times: In nursing home, a fight lost to rising waters. * Newsday: Desperately seeking survivors. * MSNBC: This anger comes from watching death. From the MSNBC item: The man he was talking about is Thomas Rodrigue, who told “Dateline” that his 92-year-old mother was one of 32 elderly people found dead at the St. Rita’s nursing home. But the 32 people who died at St. Rita’s nursing home didn’t die on Friday; they died earlier in the week, when the floodwaters first inundated the low-lying facility. Rather than being attributable to the federal authorities’ slow response (which was pretty much the point of Broussard’s version of the story), the death of those senior citizens was more the fault of local authorities (who failed to evacuate them) than of federal officials (who wouldn’t have been there in time to rescue them under the best of circumstances). |
| # September 15th, 2005 1:27 AM Bob1772 |
| Link for above
or the post was from Lies.com blog 9-8-05 7:21 am Titled "Blame Game" |