FEMA Pulling Out Of Ninth Ward For Threats Not Reported To City Of New Orleans?

by Steve

More than three months after Katrina hit, and after FEMA allowed residents of New Orleans’ largely-black Ninth Ward to return to their homes much later than residents in other wards, FEMA has now announced that it is pulling out of the Ninth Ward due to threats against its staff and that of the Corps of Engineers. The only problem is that the local police and Mayor Ray Nagin’s office have no idea what FEMA is talking about, since they have received no reports of such threats or apparently any requests for assistance from FEMA.

Of course, if you really don’t want to be there in the first place helping to clear and rebuild a largely-minority neighborhood, then you’ll reach for any excuse to slow down and eventually stop your work, so that you can justify the need to bulldoze the area, evict the residents, and turn the ward over to other more politically-friendly purposes, right FEMA?

Note that FEMA is getting out first, before even requesting more security from the locals. Now, FEMA can take its sweet time in returning, holding off until they are satisfied that the locals have met some hard-to-achieve requirement. FEMA, for its part said that their staff and the Corps have encountered “numerous threats”, but didn’t provide the Post apparently with any details. The Post story reports that federal agents have made six arrests in recent weeks of locals for making threats against FEMA workers, and yet FEMA acts like there is no law enforcement activity or presence at all in the area.

And a question for Nagin’s office: If the feds have arrested six locals for threats against FEMA workers, how can you say that your police have received no reports of these threats? Are you lying, or is this the first time you heard that the feds had made six arrests?

And to jump ahead of the likely right-wing talking points, which will blame the victims for their plight and the media for covering only bad news here, it's not like things are going peachy for FEMA, as this New York Times story indicates today. When you read the story, you come away with the sense that more than 90 days after Katrina, the agency is still overwhelmed and seemingly more concerned with preventing reporters from talking to the victims than they should be.