The Media Is Missing An "Incident of National Significance"

It sure seems like the national press corps could benefit from a careful reading of the Catastrophic Index to the National Response Plan.  So far, Knight Ridder seems to be the only national media outlet that gets the importance of Chertoff's role in Katrina. 

The Catastrophic Incident Annex of the the National Response Plan provides that once an incident of national significance like Katrina has been established, Chertoff's roles and reponsibilities expand exponentially.

The Catastrophic Incident Annex of the National Response Plan provides:

The Catastrophic Incident Annex to the National Response Plan establishes the context and overarching strategy for implementing and coordinating an accelerated, proactive national response to a catastrophic incident.

And according to the National Reponse Plan:

Only the Secretary of Homeland Security or designee may initiate implementation of the NRP-CIA (National Response Plan-Catastrophic Incident Annex)

Knight Ridder has another story on this from over the weekend.

Two days after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, President Bush went on national television to announce a massive federal rescue and relief effort.

But orders to move didn't reach key active military units for another three days.

Once they received them, it took just eight hours for 3,600 troops from the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C., to be on the ground in Louisiana and Mississippi with vital search-and-rescue helicopters. Another 2,500 soon followed from the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood, Texas.

Frank Rich briefly mentions it in his NYT column over the weekend.

The cashiering of "Brownie," whom Mr. Bush now purports to know as little as he did "Kenny Boy," changes nothing. The Knight Ridder newspapers found last week that it was the homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, not Mr. Brown, who had the greater authority to order federal agencies into service without any request from state or local officials. Mr. Chertoff waited a crucial, unexplained 36 hours before declaring Katrina an "incident of national significance," the trigger needed for federal action. Like Mr. Brown, he was oblivious to the humanitarian disaster unfolding in the convention center, confessing his ignorance of conditions there to NPR on the same day that the FEMA chief famously did so to Ted Koppel. Yet Mr. Bush's "culture of responsibility" does not hold Mr. Chertoff accountable. Quite the contrary: on Thursday the president charged Homeland Security with reviewing "emergency plans in every major city in America." Mr. Chertoff will surely do a heck of a job.

Isn't it time for other media outlets to pick up the story?