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October 19, 2005

"Not a Hurricane Expert."

O
n September 4, 2005, as New Orleans was in chaos, I wrote that some part of the ongoing problem stemmed from the fact that Mike Chertoff, my former boss and the head of the Department of Homeland Security, is a career prosecutor, not a natural-disaster guy.

Mike Chertoff, testifying before the congressional Katrina committee today: "I am not a hurricane expert."

A couple of interesting items from the story: On Saturday, August 27, Katrina was a Category 3 storm, and forecasters were predicting it would go to Category 4 and make landfall in Louisiana or Mississippi. Chertoff stayed home that day. On Tuesday, with 80% of New Orleans under water and without power or utlities, Chertoff made a previously scheduled trip to Atlanta.

Would the tragedy have been averted if Chertoff had spent the 27th at the office, or cancelled his travel on August 30? No, of course not. But Chertoff's actions, seen together with the President's guitar-strumming and Mike Brown's "doin' a great job," certainly contribute to a general picture of not-fully-engaged national leadership.

Posted by Eric at October 19, 2005 7:58 PM

Comments

The problem runs much deeper than that, Prof. Muller. Exactly ZERO of the Republican presidential candidates since WWII have been hurricane experts, and a quick glance at potential candidates for 2008 reveals a continued disregard for hurricane expertise. And throughout the party's leadership: DeLay? Frist? You guessed it -- NOT EXPERTS. Throw the bums out!

Posted by: Lance McCord at October 19, 2005 8:47 PM

I worked for many years as a process plant "staff engineer". I was not an expert on any of this things I was asked to do, but I was expected to (1) rapidly learn as much as I needed to know to get a particular job done (2) recognize when I was in over my head and call for expert help. But hey, I was just a lowly engineer, not the world's most intelligent lawyer heading the US' second largest Cabinet Agency.

I am not a hurricane expert either, but by reading the National Hurricane Center /discussions/ (not just the forecast summaries), I knew Thursday afternoon that trouble was looming for LA, MI, and AL, and I knew early Saturday morning that New Orleans was in BIG trouble. But again, I am just a guy scanning the Internet; I don't have a huge staff of experts or an open hotline to the National Weather Service. As Mr. Chertoff did.

Cranky

Posted by: Cranky Observer at October 20, 2005 7:19 PM