Posted on 09/05/2005 10:19:31 AM PDT by axes_of_weezles
PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. – As directed by the Secretary of Defense and in accordance with the National Response Plan, U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) is supporting the Dept. of Homeland Security/Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) disaster relief efforts in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
USNORTHCOM is providing and/or coordinating the following support: New
• FEMA authorized up to $1 billion of logistical support from DoD to transport food, water and medical supplies. o For the next three to five days, 480,000 Meals, Ready to Eat will be delivered daily to increase supplies in the area. In addition, DoD is providing bulk potable water to meet requirements. DoD is also surging personnel and equipment to the area to aid logistics support.
• Five Air Force C-17 and six C-5 transports flew into New Orleans to deliver support items including a USNORTHCOM command element, air base tent packages and power generators. Five additional C-5 flights will deliver MREs to Gulfport, Mississippi by morning.
• USNS Altair and USNS Pollux arrived in New Orleans. Altair will provide 130 tons of water, and Pollux will provide 1.5 million gallons of fuel to support relief operations by National Guard troops and emergency service workers.
Katrina
![](http://www.northcom.mil/images/photos/news-resized/10387.JPG")
New Orleans (Sept. 3, 2005) Army National Guard members help injured New Orleans citizens into waiting buses after being stranded for three nights at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown New Orleans. The Army National Guard have been mobilized to take part in Joint Task Force Katrina, a humanitarian assistance operation in a joint effort led by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in conjunction with the Department of Defense. U.S. Navy photo by Photographer’s Mate 1st Class Brien Aho
Updates • More than 8,790 active duty members are currently supporting the disaster relief efforts in the U.S. Gulf Coast. Additional forces continue to arrive by air and ground transportation. DoD expects to have over 14,600 in the area by Tuesday. This is in addition to the 30,188 Army and Air National Guard members supporting operations in the area.
• As of 2 p.m. Sept 4, more than 63,000 people have been evacuated from New Orleans since beginning of operations.
• Firefighting efforts are being supported by National Guard aviation. Two specially equipped Air Force C-130 aircraft are at Naval Air Station Pensacola and will be available to fly firefighting missions beginning Monday.
• 23 ships (17 Navy, 6 Coast Guard) are on station in the affected area, with three additional ships en route – USS Whidbey Island due Sept. 5; USS Grapple due Sept. 6; and USNS Comfort due Sept. 8
• In addition to Coast Guard aviation, the total number of helicopters participating in humanitarian operations along the Gulf Coast is about 190.
Ongoing
• 5th Army is assisting with reception and relocation of evacuees in Texas • A contingent of USS Bataan medical staff is currently deployed to the New Orleans Convention Center. • Cruise ships contracted through Military Sealift Command to support FEMA’s request to relocate evacuees from the U.S. Gulf Coast area: o Two ships scheduled to arrive in Galveston, Texas, Sept. 5 with a total capacity of 2634 o One ship scheduled to arrive in Mobile, Ala., Sept. 8 with a capacity of 1,848 • Approximately 1,600 members of the 1st Cavalry Division are en route by bus from Ft. Hood, Texas, to Hammond, Louisiana. • The Dept. of Health and Human Services moved 10 mobile Federal Medical Shelter facilities to military installations along the Gulf Coast. Each facility can accommodate 250 patients. Four facilities are located at Ft. Polk, Louisiana; two at Naval Air Station Meridian, Miss.; two at Air National Guard Station Meridian, Miss.; and two at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. • USNORTHCOM established Joint Task Force (JTF) Katrina to act as the military’s on-scene command in support of FEMA. Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, commander of the First Army in Fort Gillem, Ga., is the JTF-commander. JTF Katrina is currently based out of Camp Shelby, Miss. • Joint Forces Command is providing Department of Defense leased property at the former England AFB in Louisiana as an intermediate staging base to support hurricane response in the state of Louisiana. This will serve as a staging point for National Guard personnel arriving from other states to support the Louisiana relief efforts. • JTF-Civil Support (JTF-CS) is providing a joint planning augmentation cell to provide domestic chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or high-yield explosive (CBRNE) consequence management planning capabilities to JTF-Katrina. • Defense Coordinating Officers (DCOs) and Defense Coordinating Elements (DCEs) in Baton Rouge, La. and Jackson, Miss., to liaison between U.S. Northern Command, FEMA and the Department of Defense. • Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.; Naval Air Station Meridian, Miss.; Barksdale Air Force Base, La.; Alexandria, La.; Ft. Polk, La.; and Keesler AFB, Miss., have been designated as operational staging areas to expedite the movement of relief supplies and emergency personnel to affected areas. • USNORTHCOM’s 24-hour Joint Operations Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., has been augmented with additional personnel to facilitate any additional requests for assistance that may come from FEMA representatives.
The impact of providing such assistance will not adversely affect military preparedness. The DoD is fully engaged in supporting the massive interagency effort to save lives, reduce suffering and protect the infrastructure of the homeland. For more information on USNORTHCOM involvement in national disaster relief efforts, log onto our website at www.northcom.mil or contact USNORTHCOM Public Affairs, at 719-554-9618.
That is a massive response.
It takes a week to start to deliver MREs?
MRE's, water and Baby Formula were being delivered on the coast on TUEASDAY of last week.
You ought to go to the Northcom Website and see what the military is authorized to do, prior to whining about the timeliness of military response.
The National Guard and Active forces can do squat until tasked by civilian agencies, not Bush, not Dod.
You should be asking the simpering clods in charge of LA those questions.
So Bush can't get Brown, Chertoff, and Rumsfeld on a phone call, and tell Brown to ask Chertoff to ask Rumsfeld for assitance?
If you click on the link you will see that this was issued on Sept 4th. That is only 5 days after the flooding started. If I remember correctly a week is seven days.
Only nine months after his second nomination to President, Hurricane Katrina and Flooding in New Orleans 
Can't you just imagine what it would have been like if this happened on Clintons watch while getting a BJ in the oval office?
One of my best friends is one of the C17 pilots He called his wife yesterday to tell her that the effort is absolutely MASSIVE and to not believe the trash that is being reported by the MSM and even FOX. Geraldo is extermely myopic!
I stand corrected. But it is still too slow.
My recollection of events is that on 9/11, Bush fled Floriday for Barksdale AFB, LA, and then went on to tour Offut AFB in Omaha before returning to Washington late in the evening.
He did essentially nothing while NYC coped with the first day of the disaster.
“Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.”
The PCA does not apply to the U.S. Coast Guard in peacetime or to the National Guard in Title 32 or State Active Duty status. The substantive prohibitions of the Posse Comitatus Act (PCA) were extended to all the services with the enactment of Title 10 USC, Section 375. As required by Title 10 USC, Section 375 the secretary of defense issued Department of Defense Directive 5525.5, which precludes members of the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps from direct participation in a search, seizure, arrest, or other similar activity unless participation in such activity by such member is otherwise authorized by law.
The PCA generally prohibits U.S. military personnel from direct participation in law enforcement activities. Some of those law enforcement activities would include interdicting vehicles, vessels, and aircraft; conducting surveillance, searches, pursuit and seizures; or making arrests on behalf of civilian law enforcement authorities. Prohibiting direct military involvement in law enforcement is in keeping with long-standing U.S. law and policy limiting the military’s role in domestic affairs.
The United States Congress has enacted a number of exceptions to the PCA that allow the military, in certain situations, to assist civilian law enforcement agencies in enforcing the laws of the U.S. The most common example is counterdrug assistance (Title 10 USC, Sections 371-381). Other examples include:
* The Insurrection Act (Title 10 USC, Sections 331-335). This act allows the president to use U.S. military personnel at the request of a state legislature or governor to suppress insurrections. It also allows the president to use federal troops to enforce federal laws when rebellion against the authority of the U.S. makes it impracticable to enforce the laws of the U.S.
* Assistance in the case of crimes involving nuclear materials (Title 18 USC, Section 831). This statute permits DoD personnel to assist the Justice Department in enforcing prohibitions regarding nuclear materials, when the attorney general and the secretary of defense jointly determine that an “emergency situation” exists that poses a serious threat to U.S. interests and is beyond the capability of civilian law enforcement agencies.
* Emergency situations involving chemical or biological weapons of mass destruction (Title 10 USC, Section 382). When the attorney general and the secretary of defense jointly determine that an “emergency situation” exists that poses a serious threat to U.S. interests and is beyond the capability of civilian law enforcement agencies. DoD personnel may assist the Justice Department in enforcing prohibitions regarding biological or chemical weapons of mass destruction.
Military support to civilian law enforcement is carried out in strict compliance with the Constitution and U.S. laws and under the direction of the president and secretary of defense.
""Heavy Lifters of Last Resort"
U.S. Northern Command is the "heavy lifter of last resort." If and when local communities and federal agencies need additional support -- in the form of equipment, expertise, manpower, plans, organization, communications, and training -- the men and women in uniform are prepared and ready to lend a helping hand.
U.S. Northern Command provides defense support of civil authorities in accordance with U.S. laws and as directed by the President or Secretary of Defense. Military assistance is always in support of a lead federal agency, such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
Military civil support includes domestic disaster relief operations that occur during fires, hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes. Support also includes counter-drug operations and consequence management assistance, such as would occur after a terrorist event employing a weapon of mass destruction.
Generally, an emergency must exceed the management capabilities of local, state and federal agencies before U.S. Northern Command becomes involved. In providing civil support, the command operates through subordinate Joint Task Forces. The military is the last to arrive, the first to leave, and will always respond in support of the lead federal agency.
However, the military has a unique ability to transport large numbers of people and amounts of material, to set up a command and control structure, to move through rugged and swampy terrain, and to provide water, food, shelter, sanitation and the bare necessities of life for 10s of thousands of people living out in the open. They also have the supply chain, logistics ability, and warehoused resources to do so for a considerable while.
Since both the civilian and military branches of the US government report to Bush, he can certainly sort out the niceties of getting one to ask the other for assistance.
Bush doesn't need to wait to be asked by the Mayor, the Governor, nor any other official. He's the President, and Presidents have the ability to cut through the bureaucratic bullshit if they want to.
They do if they want to be impeached.
The Dod has to be asked by the impacted state and local authorities.
Have you been awake and read the threads, or are you glued to your TV set in New Jersey.
The military cannot act without the locals calling them in.
Bush cannot takeover until the locals allow the Feds to take over.
This is on the local's heads, not Bush.
In case you missed it Read This (CLICK HERE)
And that is exactly what they are supposed to do.
The first response is supposed to come from the local, then the state, then Federal WHEN IT IS ASKED FOR.
I'm sure no one in Washington thought of it this way until now. It's a blessing we have you to figure it all out. Your post is being forwarded to the President, Chertoff et al., without further delay so they can have the benefit of your obvious expertise.
And what the H*ll do you think he did?
The New Orleans evacuation plan was to have the sick and infirm AS A LAST RESORT go to the Super Dome with at least 5 days supply of food, and if you don't think they had food just look at all the litter and wonder what created it.
The Federal Government had no idea that when the Super Dome was filled to capacity people took it upon themselves to go to the Convention Center.
It wasn't until Major Nagin got on TV and made this statement; "The governments not doing anything for us. They need to get off their a** up there and do something".
That's how he asked for help. I am sure you have seen the picture of all the school busses that he could have got into motion and got more people out but instead he sat on his A** and let them submerse in the water.
It might do you well to learn how our country is set up. Our President CANNOT do whatever he wants to.
"So Bush can't get Brown, Chertoff, and Rumsfeld on a phone call, and tell Brown to ask Chertoff to ask Rumsfeld for assitance?"
No. The state and local authorities must ask by way of declairing a state of Emergency.
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