Katrina Conference Calls

This is pretty amazing. Leading up to Katrina hitting the Gulf Coast, local, state, and federal officials held a series of conference calls to discuss emergency plans, evacuations, supplies, coordination, etc. The emergency manager for Jefferson Parish, Walter Maestri, recorded the calls and has given them to NPR.

On the way into work, I heard excerpts from some of the calls, which confirm that the problems were on every level of government. Perhaps the most amazing thing, however, was listening to what I think was the last call before the storm hit, during which Jeff Smith, the deputy director of Louisiana's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (whose role is to coordinate between the Military Department in New Orleans, the Governor's Office, the Legislature, our Congressional staff, State officials, Parish and City officials, Parish Emergency Directors, individual citizens and FEMA), tells them to request everything they need on some computer program designed for that purpose, and they’ll get it. The next call doesn’t happen until Sept. 9, and when Maestri asks where the FEMA generator packs they were promised are, Smith tells him “that’s a good question,” and when Maestri then angrily complains about how FEMA ballyhooed during planning exercises that they would be ready in a moment’s notice but “now that we’re on our knees” they’re nowhere to be found, Smith assures him “there will be time for that kind of rhetoric later.” It’s really unbelievable. NPR’s got all the calls available (or will have soon).