My apologies in advance if this was already posted--searched and didn't find it--comment from Rick Lowry at The Corner:
Was just talking to someone who knows military matters and disaster relief, and has been following the situation on the Gulf Coast very closely. Several points (excuse the repetitions):
--“The mayor and the governor are negligent and incompetent. The administration has tried to smooth out the chain of command, but she won't do it. The constitution says that the governor is in charge of the Guard.” (The Washington Post wrote about this on Saturday--and KJL excerpted the relevant bit in here.)
--“None of those poor people were moved prior to the storm. They were told to go to the Superdome, but they had to walk there. Whose responsibility is that?”
-- “General Honore in one day got 20,000 people evacuated from the convention center with a ground and air evacuation. Have you heard about that in the media?”
--“The DoD has been tasked with 40-50 missions here. DoD is the go-to organization for DHS. DHS is trying to build the capacity, but doesn't have it yet. DHS is all brain power and no brawn.”
--“Michael Brown has not done a good job and is in over his head. But, in fairness, FEMA is not organized to handle a catastrophe of this size.”
--“There will be 50k troops there by mid-week, a combination of active duty and National Guard. Including elements of 82nd Airborne Division, First Cavalry Division, and two Marine brigades. That's in just over a week. That's amazing. But no one realizes it. They had to trot General Honore out this morning to try to explain to the media how you move troops. There were National Guard pre-positioned in the north part of Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana two days the storm, watching the storm, seeing which way it was going to go, and once the storm hit, moving troops in immediately. There was a flow-plan that's been working since.”
--“The constitution says the governor is in charge of the Guard. The president would have to invoke the Insurrection Act to over-ride that. No president has done that since the Civil War. And he would have to do it over the head of the governor. Bush is not there yet.”
--“The military is there anyway on the principle: 'It's better to beg forgiveness than ask permission.' Federal troops can't do law enforcement. So they are being creative. National Guard will embed in active military units and be there to make actual arrests. That's very similar to what has been done in past hurricanes and the Coast Guard has done the same thing with the Navy in the past.”
--“There are no law enforcement problems in Mississippi. They have been acting there with the cooperation of the governor. In New Orleans, they don't have the same kind of cooperation from the governor or the mayor. It's not as stream-lined or as effective as it could be.”
--“The New Orleans police disintegrated. The national response plan calls for state and local to be the first on the scene. But the catastrophe wiped out the whole local infrastructure and the emergency communications. 80% of the police disintegrated and they are just not beginning to re-constitute.”
Why not?
Larry King: Barbara - what do you think about your husband and Bill Clinton working together.
Barbara: It's good for the country and the world. They have a cause, no matter what party, and can get things done. I dislike the political side of this disaster. I think it's wonderful that Bill and George are working for a great cause.
Larry: Bill Clinton isn't prone to criticism. Why is that important -- that presidents don't criticize? (Larry - what planet do you live on?)
Hi Folks. I made it.
We just had our internet service and television restored today.
Our town is messed up but nothing like the Ms. Gulf Coast.
We were very blessed.
so true, so true.
The Red Cross has collected over $400,000,000 for Disaster Relief so far
the Times picyune had a lengthy article in 2002 on what could happen with a significant hurricane, and evacuation was discussed. One problem with using school buses was there were not enough and not enough drivers...obviously more planning could have been taken but wasn't it was not like this disaster was not thought about before hand.
lengthy article here : "WASHING AWAY":
Don’t bank on shelters
The American Red Cross, which runs federally designated emergency shelters, changed its policy in the mid-1990s after a shelter in South Carolina flooded and people inside nearly drowned. Now the agency bars shelters in areas that can be inundated by a storm surge from a Category 4 hurricane -- which is all of south Louisiana.
Local parishes plan to shelter only those with "special needs," people who cannot be moved. In New Orleans, the Superdome will be used for this purpose.
In lieu of traditional shelters, which offer food and bedding, some parishes plan to open "refuges of last resort" -- buildings that are not safe but are safer than homes. They can house at most a few hundred people per parish, officials say. Most others will be on their own, meaning that in a catastrophic storm more than a 200,000 people could be left at the mercy of the elements.
Faced with those numbers, New Orleans officials have backup plans to move people without transportation: Regional Transit Authority buses and National Guard vehicles would take people out of the city. But the untested plan has raised serious questions from critics who say it could endanger hundreds of thousands of residents.
In an evacuation, buses would be dispatched along their regular routes throughout the city to pick up people and go to the Superdome, which would be used as a staging area. From there, people would be taken out of the city to shelters to the north.
Some experts familiar with the plans say they won’t work.
"That’s never going to happen because there’s not enough buses in the city," said Charley Ireland, who retired as deputy director of the New Orleans Office of Emergency Preparedness in 2000. "Between the RTA and the school buses, you’ve got maybe 500 buses, and they hold maybe 40 people each. It ain’t going to happen."
The plan has other potential pitfalls.
No signs are in place to notify the public that the regular bus stops are also the stops for emergency evacuation. In Miami Beach, Fla., every other bus stop sports a huge sign identifying it as a hurricane evacuation stop.
It’s also unclear whether the city’s entire staff of bus drivers will remain. A union spokesman said that while drivers are aware of the plan, the union contract lacks a provision requiring them to stay.
But RTA safety director Joseph Dorsey said the requirement is part of an operator’s individual contract with the RTA. "Basically, when an operator is hired, there are certain things they agree to, such as working overtime hours when necessary and doing this job," Dorsey said. "They will participate."
A similar plan in Monroe County, Fla. -- the Florida Keys -- failed during Georges when drivers opted out. "The problem is that we may have the buses but we don’t have the drivers," said Irene Toner, director of the county’s emergency management office. "In Hurricane Georges we had 25 people on our bus-driver list and only five showed up."
http://www.nola.com/hurricane/index.ssf?/washingaway/leftbehind_4.html
Just WOW. The whole post is required reading.
BTW, my CG unit was under Navy command during my year in Nam. Worked just fine.