O'Malley Pats Himself on Back for Irene Response

...I guess he wasn't one of the nearly 90% of Harford County BGE customers that lost power in a "slightly less than category 1 hurricane" (~50 mph winds)... 15% of whom still don't have power 3 days later.

from the Baltimore Sun

In addition to the national attention lavished on Gov. Martin O'Malley and other state leaders for their handling of Hurricane Irene, Maryland's governor got a nod from inside-the-beltway publication Politico.

The politics-obsessed news organization listed O'Malley among four East Coast governors who passed an executive leadership test administered by Irene.

"With the memory of Hurricane Katrina forever serving as an object lesson in crisis management gone awry, the group of potential 2016 contenders whose states stud the coastline—Republicans Bob McDonnell and Chris Christie and Democrats Andrew Cuomo and Martin O’Malley—appear to have endured Hurricane Irene with burnished reputations after an uncommonly ferocious storm where executive missteps could have cost even more lives," according to Politico's Maggie Haberman.

The Sun wrote today about the hurricane's silver lining, which also illuminated Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown and Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. The hurricane was the topic of O'Mallely's first appearance on NBC's Meet the Press, which he did from storm-watch headquarters at the Maryland Emergency Management Agency.

Of course Irene's test is not quite over. Hundreds of thousand of Marylanders remain without power and are losing patience. O'Malley and Brown are spending the day in Southern Maryland, the hardest hit part of the state, to assess damage.

O'Malley's office asked us to note that the power outages will affect the state redistricting meeting originally scheduled for this afternoon at the Anne Arundel Community College. The hearing has been moved to the Joint Hearing Room in the Legislative Services Building at 90 State Circle, Annapolis. The meeting will be at 4:30.

...Lots of the Emergency Operations Centers Lost Power (admission in the video above)? And all, by now (August 30, 3 days later), have emergency generators? Wow. What foresight. And O'Malley PASSED the so-called "leadership test". What would it take to FAIL it? Imagine if it had been a Katrina... I think I see underwater busses...e-r-r-r-r, generators in Maryland's future. I can guarantee you one thing, they'll cost more than nuclear, coal-fired and or natural gas powered ones if Maryland's "long sighted" Democrats have any say in it.