And there are people -- Democrats, no doubt -- who say that Republicans haven't learned anything about disaster management

Galveston after the storm Saturday -- what aren't we seeing?

by Ken

This is kind of nauseating, and not easy to document, but it seems there's reason to believe that Texas Gov. Rick Perry -- by general account at least as dim a bulb as his predecessor, Tiny George Bush -- imposed a media blackout on the worst of the damage from Hurricane Ike, notably on Galveston Island, by denying media access to those areas. The speculation, naturally, is that we might be seeing scenes reminiscent of the TV coverage of post-Katrina New Orleans, which marked the beginning of the end of the credibility of the Bush regime.

Our Texas colleague Vince Leibowitz blogged yesterday on Capitol Annex:

Is Texas Governor Rick Perry Imposing A Media Blackout In Areas Hardest Hit By Hurricane Ike?

By Vince Leibowitz

During a press conference today, Texas Governor Rick Perry was accused of impsing a media blackout on some of the areas hardest hit by Hurricane Ike on the Gulf Coast of Texas–specifically Galveston’s West End and Bolivar. (VIDEO HERE)

At today’s briefling, Houston TV reporter Wayne Dolcefino posed some hard questions to Perry, who dodged many, offered some Nixonian answers on death tolls, and blamed city, county, and federal officials for lack of access to the areas in question.

When asked by Dolcefino about the death toll in Bolivar, Perry gave a somewhat odd answer:

I don’t think there has been any fatalities confirmed. And, I think that’s a very important issue until next of kin has been notified of, if there has been fatalities, that is appropriate. I don’t think you or your firends in the media would want to go out on a limb before that, would you?

When Dolcefino pressed Perry on fatalities, Perry denied knowing of fatalities in Bolivar. “There have been none confirmed, to me,” Perry said.

Dolcefino went on to compare the media’s lack of access to the situation in Myanmar, where the media was denied access to many areas hit hard by disaster there.

In addition, some sources tell Capitol Annex that local government leaders and some legislators have already begun to criticize both the state response and FEMA’s response to Ike, although none of that has been covered by the media yet.

Vince told me yesterday:

I've requested the e-mails from the governor's office that would document it, but they have 10 days to turn them over. However, he's being assailed by the media at every turn over this -- especially as he leaves press conferences. I've talked to enough local officials and covered enough disasters in this state to know, though, that if someone is keeping people out of those two areas, it's Perry, not the mayors, etc.

And malicious people say that Republicans are so uninterested in governing that they don't learn from their past disasters.

Meanwhile, Matt Glazer is reporting on another Texas blog, Burnt Orange Report, that the state may have screwed up disaster relief plans by abruptly and without explanation pulling out of the PODs (points of delivery) program for distribution of emergency relief supplies, which was to have been a joint effort by city, county, state, and federal officials. State Sen. Mario Gallegos, a Democrat "whose senate district included the hardest hit areas of Harris County and Houston," told Burnt Orange Report that an unidentified state official phoned word of the state's decision not to participate just before a 3pm Sunday press conference.

Gallegos, a former Houston firefighter who "has worked many hurricanes," also criticized the state's disaster preparation efforts, saying resources were deployed way too early, as much as a week ahead of the storm's actual arrival -- far too early for accurate storm-path prediction. As a result, Gallegos told BOR, "By the time we knew that the storm would strike Houston and Galveston, 60 percent of the state's assets had been deployed somewhere else." The BOR report continues:

"If they had waited 72 hours, there still would have been time to do the evacuations. They could have got the people out of the hospitals, got the buses ready, had the assets in place," [Gallegos] said.

"I have been in contact with emergency response professionals who have been involved in the planning of the response since it began. They've been on the conference calls, and they will tell you that this was not done the way it should have been."

#