For many in the securitarrati the refrain, "We must never forget" means one thing that is obvious to everyone.  That's how great slogans work, they make the listener the accomplis in their arc of meaning.  The domestic counterpart of the terror threat level clique does not have a similar slogan.  If FEMA admin. David Paulison were to utter, "We must never forget" he would be replaced faster than Brownie.  That is because FEMA's culture, and its very structure are designed around ad hoc disaster response, not prevention.  Can FEMA be retooled to do more than just watch as rivers burst banks and cities drown?
   

Sine our focus is on our friends in the Gulf, and since we have a lot of rail buffs here at DailyKos, I was wondering what some of the engineers around here thought of rail’s place in hurricane evacuation efforts along the Gulf Coast.

We’re fortunate this time around that, not only does Gustav appear to be weakening (at one point last night it was projected to come ashore as a Cat 4), but that there has been a lot of advance notice. By comparison, Katrina didn’t blow up into a powerful storm until 72 hours before landfall.

But that still leaves the question of how to move very large numbers of people-in NO and southern LA in general-in a very short time. Rail would seem to be the primary remedy, by its very defintion.

Barack cannot afford to look as flat-footed in response to Gustav as he did in response to the Georgia invasion.  Some suggestions about what Obama can do to show how he would handle a crisis as President.

Senator McCain has now suspended all but the necessary business of the Republican National Convention.  He will now be seen as a man of bold action, while Obama will be portrayed as a typical Democrat, only capable of reacting, if that. Video of McCain's statment (which mirrors my suggestion for what Barack should have said) is below.

UPDATE:

Finally got an e-mail from the Barack campaign - clocked in at 1:51 pm, today, 9/1, with a link to the Red Cross.  I still think Barack was a day late (why couldn't this have been done yesterday?) but I made a donation using his link, so I was not a dollar short.

As Michael Moore so fittingly put it, Gustav bearing down on what "Mayor" Ray Nagin describes as "Chocolate City" during the Republican convention is proof there is a God.  Couple Nagin's incompetence with the incompetence of the Bush cabal and the FEMA the Republicans neutered, and we've got ourselves a Katrina 2 in the making.

I posted the following article on my now defunct blog on May 11, 2007.  It seems to me that events currently unfolding make this post pertinent as a Kos diary.

Now seems as good a time as any to reflect upon the danger represented by the over politicization of everything by this White House.  Currently the heat is on the administration for trying to politicize the Justice Department.  But let us recall the Federal response to Hurricane Katrina, because this serves to demonstrate the grim reality of how this administration plays politics with everything... even the lives of disaster victims.

I'm sitting here at DIA ready to board my flight back to Tennessee.  To be fair, I'm a member of the DNC's Veterans and Military Families Council and already lend my full-throated support to the incredible team of Obama/Biden who will do a tremendous job in meeting the 21st Century challenges facing America, both foreign and domestic.  In speaking to my two Iraq war vet sons, though, I try to tone down the rhetoric which makes them uncomfortable since they are ingrained in the apolitical mindest of the military, taught to follow the Commander-in-Chief's orders regardless of what party.

So it was incredibly telling when I spoke with my eldest yesterday.  It was our first phone conversation in more then a week since he's been out in the field training for a third tour in Iraq coming up.

This diary consists of verbal Ipecac.

Below the fold is a reprint of a three-part series I compiled three years ago called The Hurricane Katrina Hall of Shame.  It's a collection of quotes and goings-on by Bush administration officials, cronies, and other right-wing thugs over a period of three weeks after Katrina hit.  (Yes, even John McCain makes an appearance--he slept through the crisis with the rest of 'em.)

I haven’t revisited the quotes below for two years.  In 2006 I wrote: "Today they give off a stink worse than anything you’ve ever had to scrape off the bottom of your shoe."  Looking at them in 2008 they reek even worse, especially given how much rebuilding and healing remains to be done.  If for no other reason than preventing another train wreck of ineptitude like that which you see below, America needs grownups at the helm, starting with a FEMA director who knows something about FEMA'ing.

I pray that hurricane Gustav doesn’t deal an equally-severe blow to our Gulf Coast next week, not only because the last thing residents there need is another Cat-3 knocking on their door, but also because The Decider is still in charge of the show, and because our National Guard is still preoccupied "over there."

Perhaps the most depressing thought of all, though, is this: if Gustav does rip the South apart, we'll no doubt be treated to a whole new slew of comments like the ones below.  I ain't compilin' that list, though.  One was enough.

Oh, and if you do decide to proceed below the fold, barf bags are available in the gift shop.  They'll also come in handy during the RNC convention.

More >>>

Anybody remember FEMA Director Michael Brown?  He's the former volunteer fire department lawyer and Bush phone bank operator from Oklahoma who cocked up the Federal response to Katrina.  

After several weeks of lofty, doomcrying rhetoric in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 (back when "them goldurned terr'ists hated 'Murkans fer their freedoms and wanted to kill us all"), Bush nominated that hack to run FEMA, an organization with extraordinary responsibility and power in the field of mass disaster management, something which we were imminently facing each and every day - at least according to the chart.

In light of the seriousness of Our National Condition as is alleged by the conservatives, this pick is about equivalent.

Five day projections on the path of hurricane Gustav have it moving directly toward New Orleans.  It is expected to pick up significant strength during the next 5 days, and may reach category 4 strength by the time it makes land fall.

Given that the Bush Administration is still in charge of FEMA, and given that no indications are currently available that FEMA is making plans to anticipate this storm, it's time to think seriously about moving out.

Update:  With a HT to Wordie.  More urgency from the locals.

Study: New Orleans Repeating Deadly Levee Mistakes - AP Study Shows NOLA Could See Future Threats.

Three years after Hurricane Katrina plowed into New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast, thousands of people are still picking up the pieces. Despite some hopeful claims by a certain president, the situation on the ground is still a virtual housing crisis.

A new study released today by my organization, PolicyLink, shows that there are still far too few rental homes to come back to and homeowners are finding it nearly impossible to get enough money to actually rebuild.

And guess who's bearing the brunt of the problems? Low-income workers and residents of historically African American neighborhoods. Check out below the fold for some pretty sobering details from "A Long Road Home: The state of Housing Recovery in Louisiana 2008."

UPDATED with new title thanks to some smart folks in the comments...

This story has been covered already by a few blogs, but not here, and none seems to have presented the graphic shown below.

Jowie Chen, a doctoral student in political science at Stanford, obtained the records of 2.6 million applications for FEMA disaster assistance in Florida in 2004.  (This happened not because the Bush administration made them available voluntarily, but because four Florida newspapers won a Freedom of Information Act suit.)  Chen then mapped these applications and the subsequent FEMA grants into counties and precincts, added data on actual weather conditions in these locations, their demographic characteristics, and finally local voting patterns in recent Federal elections.  The paper can be found here.  The following map shows part of his results.

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If what I've just read is true, the John McSame Public Relations Department hasn't learned a thing. Or, they're honing in on those ignorance is bliss skills. Either way:

Marc Ambinder:

What's the wisdom in John McCain's pre-announcing, to conservative-friendly media, the date (August 29) and location (Dayton, Ohio) of your vice presidential announcement?...Next week, it ensures that the press pays at least mild attention to McCain.

Really, John McCain? REALLY? August 29? As in, the third anniversary of the worst natural disaster in U.S. history? The response to which the worst president in U.S. history botched?

The REPUBLICAN congressional years 1994 - 2006 (and 2000-2008 President Bush years) will be remembered for all they've accomplished...

Seven year war in Afghanistan, 5 year war in Iraq with close to 660 billion dollars spent, part of which we now owe China to pay for them.

North Korea, Iran and now Russia, are all greater powers then before the GOP took control of government. Pakistan with nukes is about to lose their (U.S. picked) leader. China is now listed as having the most manufacturing companies in the world.

August 13, An Undisclosed Location. Do you agree with Florida Democrat Robert Wexler and Ohio Democrat Dennis Kuchinich that Bush and Cheney should be impeached? Do you feel that the war in Iraq was conducted with the incompetence that rivals FEMA in New Orleans? Or that it was a mistake? Do you feel that rather than enhance our national security, the war - 4,000 dead, 19,000 wounded, and $1 Trillion spent, has strengthened Iran and weakened the United States? Do you feel that the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, should be an effective emergency response force, or an agency of incompetence and a gold mine of patronage? Do you believe that the Department of Justice should focus on race, religion, party and politics when hiring and firing staff and investigating and prosecuting corruption? Do you work? Do you need health care? Do you want your children to be able to get an education, then find rewarding work? Do you believe in "government of the people, by the people, and for the people?"  The "DemoPunks" don't.

After Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast in August 2005 the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) purchased more than $85M worth of basic supplies for storm victims. For more than two years, until last month FEMA let the supplies sit in warehouses at a cost of $1M/year.

During that two year period local government officials and non-profit relief organizations in Louisiana and Mississippi made repeated public pleas for donations of the exact sort of items FEMA had already purchased and were even stored locally.

That these supplies people have needed for years just sat in warehouses until mid-June of this year is bad enough, but FEMA was able to find a way to make this story even more sad and depressing the way only George Bush's administration can.

Attention all DKos members in the San Francisco and New Orleans areas!

Although this is my first post, I have been a long-time member of the DailyKos community. It is the rare day that I don't check in and find myself inspired, uplifted, outraged, or challenged by the words of so many inspired writers and progressive activists. I am posting today in the hopes that members of the DailyKos family can unite to reunite a man with his own family. I hope someone can help. In fact, I'm counting on it. (Please recommend to get the word out.)

My dearest friend in the world, Liz, a sassy Cajun woman from Lafayette, Louisiana, was in San Francisco last week enjoying a well deserved vacation. She and her husband found themselves one afternoon walking around Union Square when she noticed him...a man from Louisiana who, it was clear, had seen better times. She did what most people would not...she stopped, introduced herself, and asked him to tell her a little about himself. She hasn't been able to stop thinking about him since.

Follow me over the jump for her story...and his.

As the great wheel turns, and the gloaming fades into the summer night, I place my hands once more on the monitor. Once more, the distance between us dissolves, and I am overwhelmed by your insistent voices. Oh yes, I sense you out there in the dark American night, and yes, I still have my suspicions about you.

Not much to expand on here, so you will have to accept it for what it is.

CNN reports this morning on the value of supplies actually given to Katrina storm victims. The Bush Administration, GSA and FEMA proudly claimed they had given away $85 million in relief supplies, but apparently this total was accomplished by assigning the value of a crate of toilet paper to a roll of tp, etc. The real value was a paltry $18 million and not all of that was distributed. Imagine that! A whopping $18 million to an entire city destroyed with hundreds of thousands of people displaced, and much of it never distributed. How generous!

The General Services Administration, which manages federal property, over-counted cases of toilet paper, plastic sporks and other cutlery, by mistakenly counting a single item as being worth as much as multiple items contained in a package of goods.