Bush Failed to Consider Louisiana's Incompetence?

In what I would have to classify as the strangest anti-Bush piece yet, ABC News notes the dysfunctional incapacity of Louisiana and New Orleans to deal with emergencies and is actually criticizing the Bush administration for failing to take that incompetence into account in its own disaster plannning.

""What troubles me the most is the fact that they knew the potential impact, knew the potential loss of life, knew how many people would be stranded," said Jerry Hauer, a former emergency management official. "And they did not use every resource humanly possible to get people out of the city."

ABC News has learned that the disaster plan was sent to FEMA and Louisiana state officials this past January after a hurricane simulation in July 2004. In this simulation, a Category 3 hurricane named Pam slammed New Orleans with sustained winds of 120 mph. Water from Lake Pontchartrain poured over the levees and the entire city was quickly under water.

"The fact that the exercise predicted this kind of an outcome makes this response even more, just incompetent, at all levels of government" Hauer said.



Under the disaster plan, preparations for the storm should have begun at least three days before it made landfall. With Katrina, New Orleans ordered a mandatory evacuation 20 hours before the storm struck. FEMA officials were supposed to have critical resources in place before landfall.

When one figures that it takes a few days to move all that stuff, FEMA would have had do know where the hurricane would hit about a week in advance. In other words, FEMA would have had to anticipate a direct hit on New Orleans before Katrina hit Florida as a category 1.