Oval Office has the helicopters to save every one in New Orleans
Louisiana National Guard and NORTHCOM, what should have happen?
By IR Scott
In a political full court press manipulation that only Nazi informational minister Joseph Goebble would have used, the Republican Party has opened a multi level disinformation attack on the Democrat Governor Katathleen Babineax Blanco of Louisiana and the state National Guard for their reportedly poor preparation and slow response to Katrina and the flooding of the city of New Orleans.
The centerpiece of the Republican current manipulation and misinformation campaign is the creation of the false notion that the under manned and unequipped Louisiana National Guard could have alone saved more of the 300,000 Black people stranded in New Orleans by forcing the poor, elderly and hospitalized people to leave the city.
The Republican Party is trying to get the Governor of Louisiana to share some of the blame alone with President Bush for he failure to provide aid in a timely manor to the Black and poor people left behind in New Orleans.
Critical missing from the post-Katrina Republican-control Congressional debate on the preparation and slow response is the fact that the US military had a locked and loaded stand-by fleet of 2,500 US military helicopters ready to deploy a week to get ready. President Bush refused to allow the Louisiana National Guard to integrate this life saving federal helicopter force into the initial rescue effort.
The Louisiana state National Guard, working with NORTHCOM could have easily evacuated a total of 140, 500 citizen from the New Orleans region before the 17th Street levee ruptured. According to Helicopters centric search rescue model (see below) over 140,000 people could have been evacuated to safety the first day and 250,000 every day there after until the whole region was empty and safe.
In exchange for deploying critical elements of Louisiana National Guard in Iraq, the US NORTHCOM army and Homeland Security signed agreement with the state of Louisiana to provide immediate helicopters and other critical support to the National Guard hurricane rescue operations. This aid was willfully withheld for days for political not military reasons.
Ms Blanco fearing lost of critical needs federal funding has to date refused to release to the press, the Presidential private communications on federalization of the Louisiana National Guard before, during and after Katrina struck New Orleans region.
One of the critical questions that still lack a comprehensive analysis for the Black Community is whether there was a functional plan in place and enough military assets between the National Guard and the US military (i.e.NORTHCOM) to physically rescue tens of thousands of people stranded in New Orleans.
As many as 300,000 citizens of the 1.3 million or 1 in every 4 citizens may have been left behind or stranded in the New Orleans region, not just inside the city.
Was it really physically possible to evacuate hundred of thousands of people could have happened in New Orleans from a flooding city right after a massive storm.
According to the Pentagon, reported in the Wall Street Journal, the preparations for Katrina, personnel behind the massive military effort now on display in Louisiana—airlift evacuation, medical, supply, and National Guard - - was on alert a week before the hurricane. According to Assistant Secretary McHale, “ The US military has never deployed a larger, better-resourced civil support capability in the history of our country.
At the core of the massive NORTHCOM rescue force was assess to 2,500 federal military helicopters in North America.
Over 140,000 survivors could have been evacuated the first day alone. Starting on the second day after the storm 250, 000 Evacuatee could have been move every day, even with the 17th Street levee rupture.
Helicopters centric search and rescue model
Number of helicopters victims transported Time (AM/PM) # Evacuatee
70 700 12:00 700
140 1,400 1:00 2,100
280 2,800 2:00 4,900
568* Federal forces deploy 5,600 3:00 10,500
1,000* 10,000 4:00 20,500
1,000* 10,000 5:00 30,500
1,000* 10,000 6:00 40,500
1,000* 10,000 7:00 50,500
1,000* 10,000 8:00 60,500
1,000* 10,000 9:00 70,500
1,000* 10,000 10:00 80,500
1,000* 100,000 next 6 hours 60,000
Total helicopter-based evacuations survivors before 17th Street rupture 140,500
Every 24 hours starting on the second day 250,000
* time when President starts to allow NORTHCOM military rescue forces deploy into New Orleans region
Note: These numbers and projections are based on each helicopter carrying 10 survivors to New Orleans International Airport triage center. The round trip time of each flight is hour.
Note: A force of 500 helicopter evacuating victims to triage centers and survivors camps in secured areas within the city, rather than to the international airport outside of the city, could have move the same amount or more people in the same or shorter time.
The Governor of Louisiana fiercely defended the evacuation efforts, saying the National Guard and local rescuers move 92 percent of the region’s population to sale ground in barely 24 hours. “You are aggressively making an excuse when no excuse should be given said Representative Christopher Shays, Republican of Connecticut.
Four days of critical evacuation time were waste and hundred of people remained stranded unnecessarily while President Bush and oil lobby fought with the Governor office to take control of the Louisiana National Guard and the New Orleans rescue effort.
More importantly by deploying the massive federal rescue immediately after the storm moves away from New Orleans the evacuation would have been reduced by days. What the world saw in Houston was the plan for New Orleans, before the Oval Office change things.
The emotional trauma to the stranded population of the region would have also been reduced. The early deployment of state and federal forces would have allowed for the creation of necessary physical infrastructure on the ground and operational to evacuate most of the city 22 hours ahead of the major levee failures.
The Republican control committee rejected for the second time a Democratic proposal to subpoena the White House for the record on the attempted federalization of the Louisiana Guard and the refusal of federal aid. Governor Blanco need only to make public the memorandum of federalization of the Louisiana National Guard, e-mails and date exchanged between the President and herself to show the nation what really happened the first days of Katrina.
According to Maureen Dowd in the New York Times article 9/3/05, “United States of Shame” the national Federal Emergency Management Agency officials practiced on a “fake hurricane that caused floods and stranded New Orleans residents. The fake hurricane called PAM outline details plans and tasks for the city of New Orleans, the National Guard and the US military.
The PAM FEMA plan was based on a direct hit by a Katrina like storm on the New Orleans region with a death tolls as high as 61,000 deaths.
Critically missing from the post-Katrina Congressional debate is the face that the NORTHCOM had a locked and loaded stand-by fleet of 2,500 US military helicopters in the lower 48 states to deploy and a week to get ready. The city of New Orleans is surrounded by a network of helicopter-ready US and National Guard bases and sea platforms able to handle hundreds of helicopters search and rescue operations.
President Bush ordered these mission critical assets not used to help the state of Louisiana or the other Gulf cities for in the first four days.
The FEMA master plan called for a initial army of 4,200 National Guard forces, growing as needed to a army of over 40,000 Guard and federal troopers within hours, if ordered by the Governor. This force was armed with the means to construct hundreds of forward gathering and triage centers within the city of New Orleans able to rapidly gather and evacuated thousands of citizen day or night.
More importantly the necessary assets would be either in the pipe line or on the ground in the city to immediate address any problem like fixing rupturing levees and building modular bridges to allow air, land and water evacuations.
Key to the FEMA evacuation strategy was the use of city schools and untrained suburban white female bus drivers, making unarmed and unescorted multi around trips in the flooding ghettos of New Orleans. The best scenario would require five rounds bus trips into unsecured areas of the city with spreading floodwaters. These false assumptions allowed the federal, state and local administrators to mask the need for a massive helicopter standby force to aliment the school bus primary evacuation fleet. These false assumption also allowed the US military to take and deploy to Iraq, mission critical Louisiana state National Guard forces and equipment need to fight storms like Katrina.
Losing the buses or land escape routes would mean that New Orleans and other Gulf cities would be almost totally dependent on federal helicopter-based rescue and transportation. The bus transportation element was the weakest aspect of the FEMA plan for New Orleans. The rupture and flooding of the 17th Street levee was one the of the wore case scenarios for African Americans, because the inundation of New Orleans by floodwaters took place in less than an hour, at 4:00 AM of the next day. The put the greatest stress on the unmanned National Guard force.
Official FEMA fake plan death projection
The official FEMA fake plan for New Orleans was based reportedly on maximizing saving life and leveraging the federal military forces to save the physical infrastructure of the city. Even with massive federal aid, the FEMA PAM projected losses of between 30,000 to 61,000 deaths. Without federal support, the protections would go much higher.
The stranded factor (130,000 to 300,000 citizens left behind) for the New Orleans region reflects many factors, such as; size of rescue military force, number and types of transportation units, level of shared communications, time of day, weather, and time of year.
The first few hours after Katrina
In the first few hours after Katrina came ashore hundreds of thousands of lives left behind were at serious risk. The FEMA plan called for the Louisiana National Guard and New Orleans Police forces to coordinate and leverage their small initial forces critical knowledge of southern Louisiana region by deploying to target areas to do crisis intervention and determine the immediate needs, and then rapidly communicate the situation back to central command in New Orleans. The force reconnaissance by the local and state forces would allow the maximization of the deployment of local, state and federal forces. That is, incoming federal forces and local forces already in the city and region would be redeployed base on the initial needs assessment and any change in the situation.
The massive NORTHCOM forces waiting for a week would deploy under National Guard command into the landing zones created by the National Guard and forward federal forces and communications teams using advanced US Space Command satellites reconnaissance real-time data. This would allow National Guard commanders to better leverage the reaming infrastructure within New Orleans and other Gulf cities.
Federal forces under the command of the NORTHCOM and other federal agencies would then deploy massive force to the areas determined by the Louisianan National Guard and the city of New Orleans.
The first mission critical task would be to set up forward operational command centers in the flooded areas of the city. Strategically located command and control centers within the city would vastly reduced the round trip time of land, water and air rescue operations.
The northern section of New Orleans northwest of the 17th Street never flooded and was ideal for forward basing, along with the various university campus and parks in the city. With state and federal forces (air, land and sea) on the ground minutes after the storm passed, the infrastructure necessary to deal with the mass evacuation of New Orleans would be operational.
Analysis: The negative impact of the Oval Office refusal to help the state of Louisiana and city of New Orleans begins to come into clearer view when viewed via the: Helicopters Centric Search Rescue Model..
Above is a raw simulation model analysis for an evacuation of the New Orleans region using helicopter-based evacuation model as the primary mode of transportation in the first 24 hours after Katrina.
The model clearly shows the immediate life saving potential of the US military helicopter.
The model also make very clear the cost in terms of human life in each day in the failure of President Bush to order the deployment of NORTHCOM forces into the New Orleans region.
According to the Helicopter Centric Search and Rescue Model (HCS&R model) in the first hours after the storm moved away 7,700 survivors could have been evacuated. By 4:00 PM or five hours after the storm, 20,500 evucautees could have been transported to the New Orleans International Airport or other locations outside of the city. By Sunset over 50,500 survivors could have been evacuated outside the city.
Deploying night operations teams, 80,000 evacuatees could have been moved out of the flooded areas of the city by 10:00 PM. Over 140,000 survivors could have been removed from the city New Orleans and other cities within the region before the 17th Street levee ruptured inundating 80 percent of the city.
The initial flooding from Katrina was localized to the area near the Industrial Channel or 20 percent of the city around the Lower 9th Ward. Most of the city streets and highways were useable. Teams of Army Engineers and a small helicopter could have created an integrated land, water and air escape routes.
The HCS&R model includes these factors in the analysis.
The central point of the HCS&R model and analysis is that every day the President had a window of opportunity to rescue 140,000 to 250,000 suffering flood victims every day. During a four-day period 480,000 stranded citizens could have been rescued.
While the New Orleans Police Department relation with the Black community, like most urban police departments, was stringed, but it was functional. The critical factors like EMT, 911 and fire alarm response times were in national urban parameter.
The missing factor in the on going debate about Presisent failure is the 2,500 search and rescuer helicopters in the US not deployed.
According to mainstream media, 80 percent of the New Orleans regional population has been account for; almost 300,000 are not accounted for or were left behind. The Financial Times suggest that 40,000 people remain stranded in the city days after Katrina had left.
In either case, the number of stranded is very high, particularly days after the Katrina passed.
According to the Wall Street Journal, NORTHCOM, and US Space Command units were on the ground and in position in the Northern Gulf of Mexico a week ahead of the storm Katrina.
According to the New Orleans master plan the first few hours would set the matrix of the rescue and very much determines how many people would be saving. The first few hours after Katrina would be critical to setting up the ground and water forward evacuation and triage centers within the city.
During this critical period escape routes would have to be cleared for the rescue and rapid deployment of forces into hard hit locations. Northern New Orleans ghettos and primary gathering and landing zones like the Super Dome and Convention Center would be set up. Using the powerful US Space Command communication Grid and the 101st and 82 the Airborns, Marine and Navy units, 50 local landing zones could have been set up and functional by 2:00 or two hours after the storm moved away.
The Superdome and Convention Center would have functioned as field triage centers, rather than the New Orleans International Airport, way out of town. A force of 20,000 local, National Guard and federal troops would have been deployed to the 50 landing zones, that were transformed into dual command and control centers. According to the model, Sunset 50,000 would have removed stranded flood victims from the northern ghettos near the levees.
Because most of the Louisiana and other Gulf regional National Guard forces most advanced communication equipment was in use in Iraq, the state was overly dependent on the US military communication network. The local forces and National Guard would be forced to operate in the dark; this would necessitate special night operational equipment and communication that only the US Space Command could provide. In the first days of the rescue operations the scale of the night missions was forced to be very limited because of the lack of mission critical night operational equipment.
Given the spreading nature of lake flood waters, the forward landing zones (LZ) would be moving in front of the rising floodwaters. There were over 100 dry LZ’s points in and around the city of New Orleans for rapid evacuations of thousands of at risk populations. The US Space Command Communication uplink would allow the Louisiana National Guards commands the means to deploy incoming Guard units and federal aid unit to target areas.
Hospitals, oil companies and even private hotels were allowed to used the US military network. The Louisiana National Guard, New Orleans Police and other local agencies were the primary target users. As part of the fake plan, the American Red Cross or Salvation Army forces would also be integrated into the communication system in New Orleans. This was done in part to leverage the space-based communication infrastructure of the two agencies to increase local access points.
This unified all weather New Orleans regional space based communication system was agreed to be functional before Katrina came ashore.
Over 1,000 helicopters would be needed to transport over 100,000 flood victims out of the city. A smaller force of 600 helicopters operating from bases within the city and nearby by cities could evacuate an equal number of survivors. The state of Louisiana could only deploy less than 60 helicopter; many could not operate at night. Most of the rescue operations would have to be performed in the dark of night and the early morning hours. Nighttime control of air traffic and water rescue teams would be very critical and stress the local National Guard communication grid.
The most mission critical elements of the fake FEMA plan were time management, a state-controlled unified command structure, and the creation of an all weather space-based communication interface before, during and immediately following the storm passing. Prepostioning of mission critical forces and assets in target local landing zones would give National Guard commanders the tools to deal with any situation.
Key to the FEMA plan was once the state request for federal help was made to the President, federal forces and agencies would rush into the crisis area to save as many lives and as much infrastructure as possible.
Critical pre Katrina preparation time was invested in planning and forward positioning of mission critical assists to deal with the storm both by the state of Louisiana and the NORTHCOM i.e. the federal force responsible for defending the American Home.
The key to the New Orleans fake plan or FEMA PAM master plan was to use local and State National Guard forces to identify and assess the storm impact and then to coordinate the deployment of the federal force of 40,000 troopers waiting in the Gulf region to join the rescue operations, minutes after the storm left the city and immediate area.
The fake FEMA plan stated clearly that a critical window of opportunity of 72 hours would open in which most victims would have to be rescued. To maximumize lives saved, the federal forces would have to be deployed sooner, not later within the window of opportunity. The rupture of the 17th Street levee dramatically increased the need for helicopter-based evucation and shortened the window of critical evacuation by days.
One of the mission critical elements driving the 72-hour window was the potential for alligator infestation of the city. As the 17th Street levee rupture opened a football field wide hole in the floodwall, thousands of alligators were allowed a free run of the city for days.
As the city flooded and land escape routes closed the window to rescue victims closed. Most operations would be increasing dependence on helicopter-.based rescued.
Everyone in hurricane planning and management knew that the Katrina would destroy most the New Orleans ground communication grid. Police and National Guard forces would need massive amount of bandwidth to communicate on what was left of the land –based communication infrastructure.
FEMA’s primary task was to assist in creating the communication uplink and conduct the initial federal needs assessment and crisis/ rescues interventions.
Other southern regional National Guards and federal forces would be immediately deployed to crisis areas as needed under the command and control of the Louisiana National Guard commanders in the area. A unified communications system was a mission critical aspect of integrating and deploying other states National Guard forces and federal units into the crisis region.
Katrina tracked from the west coast of Africa
US military GSP satellite networks had tracked Katrina from the west coast of Africa, over Florida to the point when the storm came ashore in the Gulf of Mexico in southern Louisiana. NORTHCOM under the command of the Florida National Guard general staff has fought Katrina in the Atlantic Ocean a week earlier, has it pass over the peninsula of Florida and entered the Gulf of Mexico. The fake FEMA plan called for US Space to collaborate actively with the Louisiana state National Guard. This did not happen.
The Florida State National Guard was interfaced to NORTHCOM and US Space Command military satellite via a system of statewide advanced satellite telephones and unified command structure interface. US Space Command, NORTHCOM, the oil companies and the Floridia National Guard has fought over ten of storms over the past two years.
The brother relationship, the war on drug/terrorism, and the Venezuelan Cuban crisis allowed Floridia a special military relation to both the oil companies and Oval Office. Floridia is also home to the infrastructure rich SOUTHCOM in charge of US military operations in the Americas.
The Floridia National Guard and US military interface is the model relationship the Oval Office would like for all National Guards.
Critical importance of uplink
This US Space Command uplink would allow the Louisiana National Guard command and control to leverage the multi billion US military Internet centric communication grids to coordinate and integrate the other deploying National Guard forces from Northern Louisiana and other states into New Orleans and other coastal cities under attack from Katrina.
Everyone knew, based on reports from the Floridia Keys, Katrina’s blastwinds would destroy most ground communication in southern Louisiana.
If necessary NORTHCOM field commanders would air drop satellites phones into New Orleans and other target areas.
Contrary to press reports, there was no confusion on the strategic importance of satellites in terms of the communication grid or access.
Admiral Keating, his general staff and other US base commanders knew the New Orleans military communication grid would not survive a direct hit by Katrina.
Real eyes in the sky GMTI
They could hear the New Orleans Police Department transmissions and 911 calls begging for help. The Oval Office knew the minute the 17th Street levee ruptured and did nothing but try to use the event to pressure the Governor to federalize her forces in exchange for immediate federal assistance.
More importantly, the GMITI allowed the Louisiana National Guard Commanders the ability to locate track and adjust deployment of all the rescue assets, i.e. boats, trucks and helicopters. This would be very critical has the rescue operations moved into the night hours.
The GMTI would also allow the National Guard field commanders to make field adjustments to deployment to maximize the effectiveness the 7,000 forces in the field while the NORTHCOM and other states National Guard s forces were joining the fight.
These facts are commonly known by the mainstream newspapers like the New York Times, but still remain blacked out of their coverage or analysis of what should have happened in New Orleans for fear of opening a serious discussion of the US Space Command role.
The New York Times and other press have focused attacks on Mr. Brown and the shell agency called FEMA, but not on the Oval Office and the over funded US Space Command that reports directly to the Joint chief of staff, secretary of Defense, the Vice President, secretary of Homeland security and sometimes to the President, never to FEMA.
The direct consequence of the Oval Office not to come to the aid of Louisiana and the city of New Orleans in the first days after the storm and levee rupture begins to come into clearer view when view via the: Helicopters centric search rescue model of what the first 24 hours should have been.
President Bush, the US military, Homeland Security and FEMA used the New Orleans uplink aboard Air Force One the morning Katrina hit New Orleans. The US military New Orleans uplink was used to show off the communication power of the NORTHCOM and US Space Command platform vs. the nearly collapsed Louisiana State National Guard communications network. This ruthless show of bandwidth power was after Katrina blasts winds had destroyed the New Orleans regional communication grid.
Oval Office negotiators tried and failed again the morning of the storm landing to pressure Governor Team into giving control of the Louisiana National Guard to the Oval Office. The Oval Office playing political hardball. Even after the city started flooding refused to allow the Louisiana National Guard to use the US military advanced communication grid or much needed US military helicopters to evacuate the city’s flooded ghetto population.
Mid-Morning after Katrina came ashore the President, Vice President, Secretary of Defense and NORTHCOM participated in a Katrina video conference with federal and state official from Air Force One, while thousand of New Orleans citizen were waiting on their roofs for rescue that would not come for many more days.
The Oval Office used this human drama of American children dying to try and pressure the Governor’s team to agree to federalization of Louisiana National Guard forces.
This refusal of federal helicopters, communications and other assets by the President became even more critical when the National Guard main forward operational center and critical transportation assets were flooded out in New Orleans. National Guard forces were to regroup and deploy with little communication as the flooding spread deeper into the city at night. The lost of the massive fleet of city school buses also increase the need for federal help, particularly helicopters transportation.
During the first hours after the 17th Street rupture, many citizens lives in New Orleans were unnecessary lost that could have been saved by US military advanced night operational helicopter search and rescue unit locked and loaded on standby in the New Orleans region. National Guard helicopters were unable to deploy very many helicopters because of the lack of night communication infrastructure and necessary numbers of helicopters. The Oval Office monitored the Louisiana National Guard struggles via illegal forward ground forces in New Orleans and US military spy satellites listening in on National Guard communications grids. The Oval Office did nothing to aid Louisiana’s struggle with Katrina.
Because of the Oval Office stand down orders, no federal helicopters, other transportation infrastructure or phones were given to Louisiana forces in the region; federal support was withheld for four days.
Thousand of lives would be lost because forces could not communicate with each other and did not have the number of helicopters to transport needed survivors to secure areas of the region. President, Vice President, Departmental Secretaries and insider like Cards, Libby and Rove and longtime Cheney aides David Addington and John Hannah are direct responsible for these needless deaths, not the storm Katrina.
The Helicopter Centric Search and Rescue Model clearly demonstrates that the where with all was in the New Orleans region to evacuate the people stranded by Katrina and left behind by the flooding of the city.
By IR Scott
In a political full court press manipulation that only Nazi informational minister Joseph Goebble would have used, the Republican Party has opened a multi level disinformation attack on the Democrat Governor Katathleen Babineax Blanco of Louisiana and the state National Guard for their reportedly poor preparation and slow response to Katrina and the flooding of the city of New Orleans.
The centerpiece of the Republican current manipulation and misinformation campaign is the creation of the false notion that the under manned and unequipped Louisiana National Guard could have alone saved more of the 300,000 Black people stranded in New Orleans by forcing the poor, elderly and hospitalized people to leave the city.
The Republican Party is trying to get the Governor of Louisiana to share some of the blame alone with President Bush for he failure to provide aid in a timely manor to the Black and poor people left behind in New Orleans.
Critical missing from the post-Katrina Republican-control Congressional debate on the preparation and slow response is the fact that the US military had a locked and loaded stand-by fleet of 2,500 US military helicopters ready to deploy a week to get ready. President Bush refused to allow the Louisiana National Guard to integrate this life saving federal helicopter force into the initial rescue effort.
The Louisiana state National Guard, working with NORTHCOM could have easily evacuated a total of 140, 500 citizen from the New Orleans region before the 17th Street levee ruptured. According to Helicopters centric search rescue model (see below) over 140,000 people could have been evacuated to safety the first day and 250,000 every day there after until the whole region was empty and safe.
In exchange for deploying critical elements of Louisiana National Guard in Iraq, the US NORTHCOM army and Homeland Security signed agreement with the state of Louisiana to provide immediate helicopters and other critical support to the National Guard hurricane rescue operations. This aid was willfully withheld for days for political not military reasons.
Ms Blanco fearing lost of critical needs federal funding has to date refused to release to the press, the Presidential private communications on federalization of the Louisiana National Guard before, during and after Katrina struck New Orleans region.
One of the critical questions that still lack a comprehensive analysis for the Black Community is whether there was a functional plan in place and enough military assets between the National Guard and the US military (i.e.NORTHCOM) to physically rescue tens of thousands of people stranded in New Orleans.
As many as 300,000 citizens of the 1.3 million or 1 in every 4 citizens may have been left behind or stranded in the New Orleans region, not just inside the city.
Was it really physically possible to evacuate hundred of thousands of people could have happened in New Orleans from a flooding city right after a massive storm.
According to the Pentagon, reported in the Wall Street Journal, the preparations for Katrina, personnel behind the massive military effort now on display in Louisiana—airlift evacuation, medical, supply, and National Guard - - was on alert a week before the hurricane. According to Assistant Secretary McHale, “ The US military has never deployed a larger, better-resourced civil support capability in the history of our country.
At the core of the massive NORTHCOM rescue force was assess to 2,500 federal military helicopters in North America.
Over 140,000 survivors could have been evacuated the first day alone. Starting on the second day after the storm 250, 000 Evacuatee could have been move every day, even with the 17th Street levee rupture.
Helicopters centric search and rescue model
Number of helicopters victims transported Time (AM/PM) # Evacuatee
70 700 12:00 700
140 1,400 1:00 2,100
280 2,800 2:00 4,900
568* Federal forces deploy 5,600 3:00 10,500
1,000* 10,000 4:00 20,500
1,000* 10,000 5:00 30,500
1,000* 10,000 6:00 40,500
1,000* 10,000 7:00 50,500
1,000* 10,000 8:00 60,500
1,000* 10,000 9:00 70,500
1,000* 10,000 10:00 80,500
1,000* 100,000 next 6 hours 60,000
Total helicopter-based evacuations survivors before 17th Street rupture 140,500
Every 24 hours starting on the second day 250,000
* time when President starts to allow NORTHCOM military rescue forces deploy into New Orleans region
Note: These numbers and projections are based on each helicopter carrying 10 survivors to New Orleans International Airport triage center. The round trip time of each flight is hour.
Note: A force of 500 helicopter evacuating victims to triage centers and survivors camps in secured areas within the city, rather than to the international airport outside of the city, could have move the same amount or more people in the same or shorter time.
The Governor of Louisiana fiercely defended the evacuation efforts, saying the National Guard and local rescuers move 92 percent of the region’s population to sale ground in barely 24 hours. “You are aggressively making an excuse when no excuse should be given said Representative Christopher Shays, Republican of Connecticut.
Four days of critical evacuation time were waste and hundred of people remained stranded unnecessarily while President Bush and oil lobby fought with the Governor office to take control of the Louisiana National Guard and the New Orleans rescue effort.
More importantly by deploying the massive federal rescue immediately after the storm moves away from New Orleans the evacuation would have been reduced by days. What the world saw in Houston was the plan for New Orleans, before the Oval Office change things.
The emotional trauma to the stranded population of the region would have also been reduced. The early deployment of state and federal forces would have allowed for the creation of necessary physical infrastructure on the ground and operational to evacuate most of the city 22 hours ahead of the major levee failures.
The Republican control committee rejected for the second time a Democratic proposal to subpoena the White House for the record on the attempted federalization of the Louisiana Guard and the refusal of federal aid. Governor Blanco need only to make public the memorandum of federalization of the Louisiana National Guard, e-mails and date exchanged between the President and herself to show the nation what really happened the first days of Katrina.
According to Maureen Dowd in the New York Times article 9/3/05, “United States of Shame” the national Federal Emergency Management Agency officials practiced on a “fake hurricane that caused floods and stranded New Orleans residents. The fake hurricane called PAM outline details plans and tasks for the city of New Orleans, the National Guard and the US military.
The PAM FEMA plan was based on a direct hit by a Katrina like storm on the New Orleans region with a death tolls as high as 61,000 deaths.
Critically missing from the post-Katrina Congressional debate is the face that the NORTHCOM had a locked and loaded stand-by fleet of 2,500 US military helicopters in the lower 48 states to deploy and a week to get ready. The city of New Orleans is surrounded by a network of helicopter-ready US and National Guard bases and sea platforms able to handle hundreds of helicopters search and rescue operations.
President Bush ordered these mission critical assets not used to help the state of Louisiana or the other Gulf cities for in the first four days.
The FEMA master plan called for a initial army of 4,200 National Guard forces, growing as needed to a army of over 40,000 Guard and federal troopers within hours, if ordered by the Governor. This force was armed with the means to construct hundreds of forward gathering and triage centers within the city of New Orleans able to rapidly gather and evacuated thousands of citizen day or night.
More importantly the necessary assets would be either in the pipe line or on the ground in the city to immediate address any problem like fixing rupturing levees and building modular bridges to allow air, land and water evacuations.
Key to the FEMA evacuation strategy was the use of city schools and untrained suburban white female bus drivers, making unarmed and unescorted multi around trips in the flooding ghettos of New Orleans. The best scenario would require five rounds bus trips into unsecured areas of the city with spreading floodwaters. These false assumptions allowed the federal, state and local administrators to mask the need for a massive helicopter standby force to aliment the school bus primary evacuation fleet. These false assumption also allowed the US military to take and deploy to Iraq, mission critical Louisiana state National Guard forces and equipment need to fight storms like Katrina.
Losing the buses or land escape routes would mean that New Orleans and other Gulf cities would be almost totally dependent on federal helicopter-based rescue and transportation. The bus transportation element was the weakest aspect of the FEMA plan for New Orleans. The rupture and flooding of the 17th Street levee was one the of the wore case scenarios for African Americans, because the inundation of New Orleans by floodwaters took place in less than an hour, at 4:00 AM of the next day. The put the greatest stress on the unmanned National Guard force.
Official FEMA fake plan death projection
The official FEMA fake plan for New Orleans was based reportedly on maximizing saving life and leveraging the federal military forces to save the physical infrastructure of the city. Even with massive federal aid, the FEMA PAM projected losses of between 30,000 to 61,000 deaths. Without federal support, the protections would go much higher.
The stranded factor (130,000 to 300,000 citizens left behind) for the New Orleans region reflects many factors, such as; size of rescue military force, number and types of transportation units, level of shared communications, time of day, weather, and time of year.
The first few hours after Katrina
In the first few hours after Katrina came ashore hundreds of thousands of lives left behind were at serious risk. The FEMA plan called for the Louisiana National Guard and New Orleans Police forces to coordinate and leverage their small initial forces critical knowledge of southern Louisiana region by deploying to target areas to do crisis intervention and determine the immediate needs, and then rapidly communicate the situation back to central command in New Orleans. The force reconnaissance by the local and state forces would allow the maximization of the deployment of local, state and federal forces. That is, incoming federal forces and local forces already in the city and region would be redeployed base on the initial needs assessment and any change in the situation.
The massive NORTHCOM forces waiting for a week would deploy under National Guard command into the landing zones created by the National Guard and forward federal forces and communications teams using advanced US Space Command satellites reconnaissance real-time data. This would allow National Guard commanders to better leverage the reaming infrastructure within New Orleans and other Gulf cities.
Federal forces under the command of the NORTHCOM and other federal agencies would then deploy massive force to the areas determined by the Louisianan National Guard and the city of New Orleans.
The first mission critical task would be to set up forward operational command centers in the flooded areas of the city. Strategically located command and control centers within the city would vastly reduced the round trip time of land, water and air rescue operations.
The northern section of New Orleans northwest of the 17th Street never flooded and was ideal for forward basing, along with the various university campus and parks in the city. With state and federal forces (air, land and sea) on the ground minutes after the storm passed, the infrastructure necessary to deal with the mass evacuation of New Orleans would be operational.
Analysis: The negative impact of the Oval Office refusal to help the state of Louisiana and city of New Orleans begins to come into clearer view when viewed via the: Helicopters Centric Search Rescue Model..
Above is a raw simulation model analysis for an evacuation of the New Orleans region using helicopter-based evacuation model as the primary mode of transportation in the first 24 hours after Katrina.
The model clearly shows the immediate life saving potential of the US military helicopter.
The model also make very clear the cost in terms of human life in each day in the failure of President Bush to order the deployment of NORTHCOM forces into the New Orleans region.
According to the Helicopter Centric Search and Rescue Model (HCS&R model) in the first hours after the storm moved away 7,700 survivors could have been evacuated. By 4:00 PM or five hours after the storm, 20,500 evucautees could have been transported to the New Orleans International Airport or other locations outside of the city. By Sunset over 50,500 survivors could have been evacuated outside the city.
Deploying night operations teams, 80,000 evacuatees could have been moved out of the flooded areas of the city by 10:00 PM. Over 140,000 survivors could have been removed from the city New Orleans and other cities within the region before the 17th Street levee ruptured inundating 80 percent of the city.
The initial flooding from Katrina was localized to the area near the Industrial Channel or 20 percent of the city around the Lower 9th Ward. Most of the city streets and highways were useable. Teams of Army Engineers and a small helicopter could have created an integrated land, water and air escape routes.
The HCS&R model includes these factors in the analysis.
The central point of the HCS&R model and analysis is that every day the President had a window of opportunity to rescue 140,000 to 250,000 suffering flood victims every day. During a four-day period 480,000 stranded citizens could have been rescued.
While the New Orleans Police Department relation with the Black community, like most urban police departments, was stringed, but it was functional. The critical factors like EMT, 911 and fire alarm response times were in national urban parameter.
The missing factor in the on going debate about Presisent failure is the 2,500 search and rescuer helicopters in the US not deployed.
According to mainstream media, 80 percent of the New Orleans regional population has been account for; almost 300,000 are not accounted for or were left behind. The Financial Times suggest that 40,000 people remain stranded in the city days after Katrina had left.
In either case, the number of stranded is very high, particularly days after the Katrina passed.
According to the Wall Street Journal, NORTHCOM, and US Space Command units were on the ground and in position in the Northern Gulf of Mexico a week ahead of the storm Katrina.
According to the New Orleans master plan the first few hours would set the matrix of the rescue and very much determines how many people would be saving. The first few hours after Katrina would be critical to setting up the ground and water forward evacuation and triage centers within the city.
During this critical period escape routes would have to be cleared for the rescue and rapid deployment of forces into hard hit locations. Northern New Orleans ghettos and primary gathering and landing zones like the Super Dome and Convention Center would be set up. Using the powerful US Space Command communication Grid and the 101st and 82 the Airborns, Marine and Navy units, 50 local landing zones could have been set up and functional by 2:00 or two hours after the storm moved away.
The Superdome and Convention Center would have functioned as field triage centers, rather than the New Orleans International Airport, way out of town. A force of 20,000 local, National Guard and federal troops would have been deployed to the 50 landing zones, that were transformed into dual command and control centers. According to the model, Sunset 50,000 would have removed stranded flood victims from the northern ghettos near the levees.
Because most of the Louisiana and other Gulf regional National Guard forces most advanced communication equipment was in use in Iraq, the state was overly dependent on the US military communication network. The local forces and National Guard would be forced to operate in the dark; this would necessitate special night operational equipment and communication that only the US Space Command could provide. In the first days of the rescue operations the scale of the night missions was forced to be very limited because of the lack of mission critical night operational equipment.
Given the spreading nature of lake flood waters, the forward landing zones (LZ) would be moving in front of the rising floodwaters. There were over 100 dry LZ’s points in and around the city of New Orleans for rapid evacuations of thousands of at risk populations. The US Space Command Communication uplink would allow the Louisiana National Guards commands the means to deploy incoming Guard units and federal aid unit to target areas.
Hospitals, oil companies and even private hotels were allowed to used the US military network. The Louisiana National Guard, New Orleans Police and other local agencies were the primary target users. As part of the fake plan, the American Red Cross or Salvation Army forces would also be integrated into the communication system in New Orleans. This was done in part to leverage the space-based communication infrastructure of the two agencies to increase local access points.
This unified all weather New Orleans regional space based communication system was agreed to be functional before Katrina came ashore.
Over 1,000 helicopters would be needed to transport over 100,000 flood victims out of the city. A smaller force of 600 helicopters operating from bases within the city and nearby by cities could evacuate an equal number of survivors. The state of Louisiana could only deploy less than 60 helicopter; many could not operate at night. Most of the rescue operations would have to be performed in the dark of night and the early morning hours. Nighttime control of air traffic and water rescue teams would be very critical and stress the local National Guard communication grid.
The most mission critical elements of the fake FEMA plan were time management, a state-controlled unified command structure, and the creation of an all weather space-based communication interface before, during and immediately following the storm passing. Prepostioning of mission critical forces and assets in target local landing zones would give National Guard commanders the tools to deal with any situation.
Key to the FEMA plan was once the state request for federal help was made to the President, federal forces and agencies would rush into the crisis area to save as many lives and as much infrastructure as possible.
Critical pre Katrina preparation time was invested in planning and forward positioning of mission critical assists to deal with the storm both by the state of Louisiana and the NORTHCOM i.e. the federal force responsible for defending the American Home.
The key to the New Orleans fake plan or FEMA PAM master plan was to use local and State National Guard forces to identify and assess the storm impact and then to coordinate the deployment of the federal force of 40,000 troopers waiting in the Gulf region to join the rescue operations, minutes after the storm left the city and immediate area.
The fake FEMA plan stated clearly that a critical window of opportunity of 72 hours would open in which most victims would have to be rescued. To maximumize lives saved, the federal forces would have to be deployed sooner, not later within the window of opportunity. The rupture of the 17th Street levee dramatically increased the need for helicopter-based evucation and shortened the window of critical evacuation by days.
One of the mission critical elements driving the 72-hour window was the potential for alligator infestation of the city. As the 17th Street levee rupture opened a football field wide hole in the floodwall, thousands of alligators were allowed a free run of the city for days.
As the city flooded and land escape routes closed the window to rescue victims closed. Most operations would be increasing dependence on helicopter-.based rescued.
Everyone in hurricane planning and management knew that the Katrina would destroy most the New Orleans ground communication grid. Police and National Guard forces would need massive amount of bandwidth to communicate on what was left of the land –based communication infrastructure.
FEMA’s primary task was to assist in creating the communication uplink and conduct the initial federal needs assessment and crisis/ rescues interventions.
Other southern regional National Guards and federal forces would be immediately deployed to crisis areas as needed under the command and control of the Louisiana National Guard commanders in the area. A unified communications system was a mission critical aspect of integrating and deploying other states National Guard forces and federal units into the crisis region.
Katrina tracked from the west coast of Africa
US military GSP satellite networks had tracked Katrina from the west coast of Africa, over Florida to the point when the storm came ashore in the Gulf of Mexico in southern Louisiana. NORTHCOM under the command of the Florida National Guard general staff has fought Katrina in the Atlantic Ocean a week earlier, has it pass over the peninsula of Florida and entered the Gulf of Mexico. The fake FEMA plan called for US Space to collaborate actively with the Louisiana state National Guard. This did not happen.
The Florida State National Guard was interfaced to NORTHCOM and US Space Command military satellite via a system of statewide advanced satellite telephones and unified command structure interface. US Space Command, NORTHCOM, the oil companies and the Floridia National Guard has fought over ten of storms over the past two years.
The brother relationship, the war on drug/terrorism, and the Venezuelan Cuban crisis allowed Floridia a special military relation to both the oil companies and Oval Office. Floridia is also home to the infrastructure rich SOUTHCOM in charge of US military operations in the Americas.
The Floridia National Guard and US military interface is the model relationship the Oval Office would like for all National Guards.
Critical importance of uplink
This US Space Command uplink would allow the Louisiana National Guard command and control to leverage the multi billion US military Internet centric communication grids to coordinate and integrate the other deploying National Guard forces from Northern Louisiana and other states into New Orleans and other coastal cities under attack from Katrina.
Everyone knew, based on reports from the Floridia Keys, Katrina’s blastwinds would destroy most ground communication in southern Louisiana.
If necessary NORTHCOM field commanders would air drop satellites phones into New Orleans and other target areas.
Contrary to press reports, there was no confusion on the strategic importance of satellites in terms of the communication grid or access.
Admiral Keating, his general staff and other US base commanders knew the New Orleans military communication grid would not survive a direct hit by Katrina.
Real eyes in the sky GMTI
They could hear the New Orleans Police Department transmissions and 911 calls begging for help. The Oval Office knew the minute the 17th Street levee ruptured and did nothing but try to use the event to pressure the Governor to federalize her forces in exchange for immediate federal assistance.
More importantly, the GMITI allowed the Louisiana National Guard Commanders the ability to locate track and adjust deployment of all the rescue assets, i.e. boats, trucks and helicopters. This would be very critical has the rescue operations moved into the night hours.
The GMTI would also allow the National Guard field commanders to make field adjustments to deployment to maximize the effectiveness the 7,000 forces in the field while the NORTHCOM and other states National Guard s forces were joining the fight.
These facts are commonly known by the mainstream newspapers like the New York Times, but still remain blacked out of their coverage or analysis of what should have happened in New Orleans for fear of opening a serious discussion of the US Space Command role.
The New York Times and other press have focused attacks on Mr. Brown and the shell agency called FEMA, but not on the Oval Office and the over funded US Space Command that reports directly to the Joint chief of staff, secretary of Defense, the Vice President, secretary of Homeland security and sometimes to the President, never to FEMA.
The direct consequence of the Oval Office not to come to the aid of Louisiana and the city of New Orleans in the first days after the storm and levee rupture begins to come into clearer view when view via the: Helicopters centric search rescue model of what the first 24 hours should have been.
President Bush, the US military, Homeland Security and FEMA used the New Orleans uplink aboard Air Force One the morning Katrina hit New Orleans. The US military New Orleans uplink was used to show off the communication power of the NORTHCOM and US Space Command platform vs. the nearly collapsed Louisiana State National Guard communications network. This ruthless show of bandwidth power was after Katrina blasts winds had destroyed the New Orleans regional communication grid.
Oval Office negotiators tried and failed again the morning of the storm landing to pressure Governor Team into giving control of the Louisiana National Guard to the Oval Office. The Oval Office playing political hardball. Even after the city started flooding refused to allow the Louisiana National Guard to use the US military advanced communication grid or much needed US military helicopters to evacuate the city’s flooded ghetto population.
Mid-Morning after Katrina came ashore the President, Vice President, Secretary of Defense and NORTHCOM participated in a Katrina video conference with federal and state official from Air Force One, while thousand of New Orleans citizen were waiting on their roofs for rescue that would not come for many more days.
The Oval Office used this human drama of American children dying to try and pressure the Governor’s team to agree to federalization of Louisiana National Guard forces.
This refusal of federal helicopters, communications and other assets by the President became even more critical when the National Guard main forward operational center and critical transportation assets were flooded out in New Orleans. National Guard forces were to regroup and deploy with little communication as the flooding spread deeper into the city at night. The lost of the massive fleet of city school buses also increase the need for federal help, particularly helicopters transportation.
During the first hours after the 17th Street rupture, many citizens lives in New Orleans were unnecessary lost that could have been saved by US military advanced night operational helicopter search and rescue unit locked and loaded on standby in the New Orleans region. National Guard helicopters were unable to deploy very many helicopters because of the lack of night communication infrastructure and necessary numbers of helicopters. The Oval Office monitored the Louisiana National Guard struggles via illegal forward ground forces in New Orleans and US military spy satellites listening in on National Guard communications grids. The Oval Office did nothing to aid Louisiana’s struggle with Katrina.
Because of the Oval Office stand down orders, no federal helicopters, other transportation infrastructure or phones were given to Louisiana forces in the region; federal support was withheld for four days.
Thousand of lives would be lost because forces could not communicate with each other and did not have the number of helicopters to transport needed survivors to secure areas of the region. President, Vice President, Departmental Secretaries and insider like Cards, Libby and Rove and longtime Cheney aides David Addington and John Hannah are direct responsible for these needless deaths, not the storm Katrina.
The Helicopter Centric Search and Rescue Model clearly demonstrates that the where with all was in the New Orleans region to evacuate the people stranded by Katrina and left behind by the flooding of the city.
posted by Nubianobserver at 2:30 PM
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