Think Progress: Right-Wing Myths About Katrina, Debunked

[RSchewe]

Here is just the first few points of the post:

CLAIM — STATE AND LOCAL OFFICIALS WERE MOSTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR FAILURES: “White House Shifts Blame to State and Local Officials”

FACT – BUSH PUT FEMA IN CHARGE OF EFFORT BEFORE KATRINA STRUCK: “Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency.”

FACT — FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ABLE TO ACT WITHOUT PERMISSION FROM STATES: The Wall Street Journal: “Mr. Chertoff activated the National Response Plan last Tuesday by declaring the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina an ‘Incident of National Significance.’ The plan, which was rolled out to much fanfare in January, essentially enables Washington to move federal assets to the disaster without waiting for requests from state officials.”

CLAIM — NO ONE COULD HAVE PREDICTED BREACHED LEVEES: On ABC’s Good Morning America, Bush said, “I don’t think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees.”

FACT — LEVEE BREACH PREDICTED REPEATEDLY: Responding to Bush’s comments on Meet the Press, Dr. Ivor Van Heerden of the LSU Hurricane Center “I didn’t buy that because, you know, we had discussed on numerous occasions that a worst-case scenario would be if we had one of these major hurricanes and then we lost the levee systems.” A White House adviser sat in on the “Hurricane Pam Exercise,” a computer simulation of the possible effects of a Category 3 hurricane on New Orleans. The exercise found that “…a storm like Hurricane Pam would: cause flooding that would leave 300,000 people trapped in New Orleans, many of whom would not have private transportation for evacuation.”

CLAIM — GOV. BLANCO DELAYED STATE OF EMERGENCY DECLARATION: In a Sept. 4 Washington Post article, which was corrected hours later, an anonymous Bush administration source claimed Governor Blanco had not yet declared a state of emergency in Louisiana. The Post reported, “As of Saturday, Blanco still had not declared a state of emergency, the senior Bush official said.”

FACT — GOV. KATHLEEN BLANCO DECLARED A STATE OF EMERGENCY IN LOUISIANA ON AUGUST 26: Three days prior to when Katrina made landfall.

(...)

Source: Think Progress - http://thinkprogress.org/2005/09/13/katrina-myths-debunked/

Check out the post at the link above, it has links to the articles that support the facts. It's a good read and hopefully can put to rest many of the claims that keep getting repeated here.

[RSchewe]

1. The point made on the school buses was something I did not know n/t