was the delay with help intentional ??, page-26

re: grant62 was the delay with help intentional ? Grant,

You might well attempt to whitewash your way through this blunder with some completely unjustified distinctions. Where is your proof that the Louisiana emergency management officials have been at all tardy in their requests?

You falsely claimed that a State of Emergency and a Request for Assistance was not made by the State of Louisiana until after Tuesday. That was obviously something you made up. A person with an ounce of humility might admit that as a serious mistake instead of going on to post more BS.

A request for Federal Assistance and a declaration of a State of Emergency is certainly ALL that is required to trigger a number of US Acts of Congress, including disaster relief OF ANY SCALE. The ball is then in the Federal Government's court to assess and ACT. I am not sure whether a seperate request is necessary to trigger Defence Aid to the Civil Power as we call it here in Australia (ie troops). Maybe maybe not, but all it would take is a phone call from the relevant authorities (or the Governor) backed up by an almost instantaneous email/fax to the Department of Defence. The same happens here in Australia (I worked on the Sydney-Hobart rescue where military/naval assets were used). The Louisiana State authorites were certainly pro-active in declaring the state of emergency and requesting assistance WELL BEFORE the hurricane even hit, so why would they be so lazy or re-active afterwards??

Last Thursday 1st Sep, the Governor formally requested thousands of troops in response to what was becoming realised as a massive break down of law and order. Whether she requested troops earlier I dont know.

None of this derogates from the fact that this is a Federal government Whitehouse/FEMA/Defence/Treasury stuff up, and in the absence of any evidence to the contrary (which you have not provided) it will remain that way.










The difference is between the (1) FEMA response which Louisana sought and received, and (2) the subsequent Presdiential declaration which was required in order to fully deploy troops, and release billions in Federal funding relief (this was dependent upon the proper legal channels which Louisana did not implement until well after the 27th).