In case you didn't see Meet the Press, one of the guests was the President of Jefferson Parish (parishes are counties, so he's equivalent to a county manager). Here's part of what he said:
MR. AARON BROUSSARD: We have been abandoned by our own country. Hurricane Katrina will go down in history as one of the worst storms ever to hit an American coast, but the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina will go down as one of the worst abandonments of Americans on American soil ever in U.S. history. I am personally asking our bipartisan congressional delegation here in Louisiana to immediately begin congressional hearings to find out just what happened here. Why did it happen? Who needs to be fired? And believe me, they need to be fired right away, because we still have weeks to go in this tragedy. We have months to go. We have years to go. And whoever is at the top of this totem pole, that totem pole needs to be chain-sawed off and we've got to start with some new leadership.It's not just Katrina that caused all these deaths in New Orleans here. Bureaucracy has committed murder here in the greater New Orleans area, and bureaucracy has to stand trial before Congress now. It's so obvious. FEMA needs more congressional funding. It needs more presidential support. It needs to be a Cabinet-level director. It needs to be an independent agency that will be able to fulfill its mission to work in partnership with state and local governments around America. FEMA needs to be empowered to do the things it was created to do. It needs to come somewhere, like New Orleans, with all of its force immediately, without red tape, without bureaucracy, act immediately with common sense and leadership, and save lives. Forget about the property. We can rebuild the property. It's got to be able to come in and save lives.
We need strong leadership at the top of America right now in order to accomplish this and to-- reconstructing FEMA.
MR. RUSSERT: Mr. Broussard, let me ask--I want to ask--should...
MR. BROUSSARD: You know, just some quick examples...
MR. RUSSERT: Hold on. Hold on, sir. Shouldn't the mayor of New Orleans and the governor of New Orleans bear some responsibility? Couldn't they have been much more forceful, much more effective and much more organized in evacuating the area?
MR. BROUSSARD: Sir, they were told like me, every single day, "The cavalry's coming," on a federal level, "The cavalry's coming, the cavalry's coming, the cavalry's coming." I have just begun to hear the hoofs of the cavalry. The cavalry's still not here yet, but I've begun to hear the hoofs, and we're almost a week out.
Let me give you just three quick examples. We had Wal-Mart deliver three trucks of water, trailer trucks of water. FEMA turned them back. They said we didn't need them. This was a week ago. FEMA--we had 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel on a Coast Guard vessel docked in my parish. The Coast Guard said, "Come get the fuel right away." When we got there with our trucks, they got a word. "FEMA says don't give you the fuel." Yesterday--yesterday--FEMA comes in and cuts all of our emergency communication lines. They cut them without notice. Our sheriff, Harry Lee, goes back in, he reconnects the line. He posts armed guards on our line and says, "No one is getting near these lines." Sheriff Harry Lee said that if America--American government would have responded like Wal-Mart has responded, we wouldn't be in this crisis.
But I want to thank Governor Blanco for all she's done and all her leadership. She sent in the National Guard. I just repaired a breach on my side of the 17th Street canal that the secretary didn't foresee, a 300-foot breach. I just completed it yesterday with convoys of National Guard and local parish workers and levee board people. It took us two and a half days working 24/7. I just closed it.
MR. RUSSERT: All right.
MR. BROUSSARD: I'm telling you most importantly I want to thank my public employees...
MR. RUSSERT: All right.
MR. BROUSSARD: ...that have worked 24/7. They're burned out, the doctors, the nurses. And I want to give you one last story and I'll shut up and let you tell me whatever you want to tell me. The guy who runs this building I'm in, emergency management, he's responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said, "Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?" And he said, "Yeah, Mama, somebody's coming to get you. Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody's coming to get you on Friday." And she drowned Friday night. She drowned Friday night.
MR. RUSSERT: Mr. President...
MR. BROUSSARD: Nobody's coming to get us. Nobody's coming to get us. The secretary has promised. Everybody's promised. They've had press conferences. I'm sick of the press conferences. For God sakes, shut up and send us somebody.
What the transcript doesn't show is that he broke down while saying that. Video here.
Posted by Linkmeister at September 4, 2005 03:47 PM | TrackBackI saw that live. I broke down, too. There just aren't words, Linky. No words.
Posted by: CNL at September 4, 2005 04:27 PMhttp://www.americaswetland.com/article.cfm?id=241&cateid=2&pageid=3&cid=16
Broussard was a prophet (scroll down):
Parishes Against Coastal Erosion (PACE) Response to the Bush Administration's June 14, 2005 Policy Statement on the Proposed Energy Act of 2005
By Parishes Against Coastal Erosion
Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey, NOAA and other federal and state agencies along with university experts agree that nowhere in the world is a coastal region losing wetlands and protective barrier islands faster than Louisiana. About this there is no doubt. It is predicted that by 2050, one third of coastal Louisiana will have vanished into the Gulf of Mexico. Our coast and its wetlands is a system on the verge of collapse. Without wetlands to buffer storms, our people and property and the nation's energy supply are at risk. Oil and gas pipelines and facilities, which provide 25% of the Nation's energy needs, are more vulnerable with each storm. Oil and gas activities and federal actions to control the Mississippi River for navigation and flood control are largely responsible for the drastic loss of our coastal. PACE believes we are completely within our right to ask the federal government to share money generated from offshore oil and gas revenues with the coastal states that bear a disproportionate burden in supporting this nation's energy needs.
Louisiana's congressional delegation has urged Congress for more than a decade to return to the state a fair share of the revenue from the production of offshore oil and gas both because of the impact of offshore production on Louisiana and because interior states get 50% of revenues from oil and gas production on federal lands.
The president has supported the concept, but has backed off when it comes to funding the restoration effort. PACE believes Louisiana can no longer afford to wait. Louisiana urgently needs guaranteed resources to thwart a catastrophe that is not being given the sense of urgency that it demands.
We believe the case has been made. Louisiana's wetlands - America's WETLAND - is crucial to the nations oil and gas production, commercial fisheries, navigation and commerce and national security. Restoring the damage hastened by years of inland and offshore drilling is clearly a national responsibility.
The President, in this Policy Statement, has failed us. To sidestep this as a key issue would be a serious deficiency, in the Energy Bill, and the entire nation will suffer as a consequence.
Our Louisiana legislature this month passed a constitutional amendment requiring any new offshore oil and gas revenue to be put in a trust fund dedicated to coastal erosion.
Louisiana has made a commitment. Now, it's time for the President to step up to the plate and support funding to prevent the untold damage to the ecology, economy and potential loss of life in large numbers.
With the National Hurricane Center predicting another active hurricane season, PACE President Aaron Broussard said he fears that it is going to take a major storm and significant loss of life before the nation acts responsibly.
The PACE organization's frustration with the Administration's Statement was reflected in St. Bernard Parish President, Henry "Junior" Rodriguez's comment that "Louisiana contributes much to this Nations energy needs. It's time we take a hard look at our alternatives and consider whether we want to keep up this level of oil and gas production. "
If you have any questions, please contact Jefferson Parish President and PACE President, Aaron Broussard at (504) 736-6400.
Posted by: Tim F. at September 4, 2005 05:22 PMSteve--
I'm awfully glad you're referring to Mr. Potatohead and MTP, there... because today, I finally saw what old Buffalo Tim is about... Yes, Aaron Brousard made me want to cry... I wanted to give him a hug, and the President a slug... naturally, Russert was desperate to get him off of the emotional show he was on, essentially that the President of the United States deliberately abandoned tens of thousands of (poor, Black) American people to die, as if this were 1912 and New Orleans the Titanic (which, apparently, it is and it is).
Russert asked what SEEMED like hard-hitting questions of Bush-toadie and apologist HSC Sec. Michael Chertoff... but they were actually bullshit softballs. He kept asking "when will there be resignations, when will the heads roll..." giving Chertoff the soft-ball response of "we have no time for that... too much ongoing crisis/clean up..."plenty of time for after-action reports later"...
The logical follow up-- if Russert were being (you know)... a journalist...-- was "why should the American people trust the same incompetents who got us this far one day longer?" Or, perhaps, why didn't the president order a few hundred buses to New Orleans for evacuation purposes? Was brush clearing too important last weekend? Are most Americans correct that our best first responders are off supporting the President's fantasy war over in Iraq? The AMerican people demand answers!
It was quite a performance, but it takes KNOWING that there is a waltz between Timmy and the Bushmen to realize that this is why he appears to be tough, when he is simply serving the will of his GE masters and the government that gives them lucrative contracts.
Man, one must feel horrible for the remaining first responders; the N.O. police have suffered hundreds of resignations and a few suicides... I'm going to stop now, before I start crying (again).
Posted by: the talking dog at September 4, 2005 06:54 PMI'd read about this all day, but I hadn't seen it until MSNBC replayed it this afternoon. I couldn't believe how insensitive Russert was to the man after he broke up. I guess I'm not a talking head; I'd have gone off on the Administration in a NY (Buffalo?) minute.
Posted by: Linkmeister at September 4, 2005 08:06 PM