Posted on 09/05/2005 2:40:26 PM PDT by wildwood
THE CAVALRY [Rich Lowry ] 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 READ MORE......
(Excerpt) Read more at corner.nationalreview.com ...
FEMA asked them what they needed, the LA gov and NO mayor only asked for 9MM$ to set up three shelters, not one dime for anything else, this while the storm of storms had NO as the bullseye.
I normally enjoy your show and especially "My Word." Today, you were totally off base. Do you really think that FEMA should operate on the expectation that half the local police force will walk off the job in a disaster? And that others will exploit the disaster and join the looters?
What federal official do you think Bush should have fired if on 9/11 half of the NYPD walked off the job, and others were taped looting the scene?
I do not fault FEMA, or *any* federal agency, for the disgusting and disastrous performance of the New Orleans Police Department.
If the New Orleans Police Department was not such an abominable disgrace and had an effective police presence at the designated shelters (Superdome and later Convention Center), many of the problems would not have existed.
(By the way, you might be interested in knowing that many of the deaths were of sick people who were respirator dependent, and died when the electricity and generators failed. Which federal official should be fired for that??????) Get your facts straight. You usually do, but you disappointed today!
unfortunately for him, nagin had seen the ravages from ivan only a year earlier...he knew what could happen.
Everytime I hear a report from MS, Biloxi, Gulfport, etc., they too are complaining about the slow repsonse of FEMA.
Fox this afternoon highlighted a story of a coastal community that had seen no FEMA people yet, and some ladies had driven in from Alabama with a van full of supplies, distributed them (I think it was in Pass Christian) and then seeing how great the need was, returned to Pass Christian reloaded their van and returned again to distribute the goods.
I think the scope is so broad that FEMA is having a hard time. In south Florida FEMA would set up a headquarters and people had to get to the headquarters, but after this storm no one has the cars or gas, if they do have cars, to get to the FEMA staging areas.
Source for this? I have seen NO complaints. In fact, the Gov of Mississippi PRAISED the job FEMA is doing in Mississippi. Sorry you need to provide proof to back up this claim. 2nd. I think your expectations are completely unrealistic. In a Damaged Zone cover 3 states, the are going to be some people who FEMA cannot get to. That is why their are many different groups to help. Why are they looking for FEMA? Why not their NG's. their local police, their local Govt. Their state govt? The stuff about FEMA HQ is just nonsense. Everybody has to do their part. They cannot just sit on their butts and whine about FEMA.
Better link: http://corner.nationalreview.com/#075515
It's because your true-believer liberals think that all you need troops for is the photo-op.
They don't think that there is any need for them, nor do they do anything useful.
That's because they can't imagine anyone wanting to shoot anyone else.
They live in Fantasyland.
Our news media is dedicated to reporting the "failures" and not the successes. That's what makes news.
Remember that people who need help always think the response is too slow. They want help *that day*. But the responders have priorities - they go to the worst problems first. They might make mistakes, but they try. People who are down to their last day's supply of food and water might panic, but there could be other families who ran out days ago.
FEMA, IIRC, was designed to get help and supplies to disaster areas after 2-3 days. The local gov'ts are supposed to have emergency plans for the first few days. I really haven't seen reports saying that they didn't manage that.
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