Posted on 01/18/2010 6:48:50 AM PST by kristinn
With the window of survivability still open for Haitians trapped in the rubble of last week's catastrophic earthquake, the UN and FEMA are telling search and rescue teams waiting to deploy to Haiti to forget about it.
Reports out of Houston are saying that one of the premier search and rescue units in the world has been on standby since shortly after the quake but was never called.
Texas TV station KTRK gave this description of Texas Task Force 1:
The TX-TF1 team which was activated for this deployment was a Type I Urban Search and Rescue Team which is comprised of 80 personnel, 4 search and rescue canines, search and technical rescue personnel, physicians, paramedics, structural engineers, other support personnel, and approximately 50 tons of rescue equipment and supplies. The team is self-sustaining for 14 days and deployable by aircraft to anywhere within 4 hours of activation. The task force has also deployed nationally over 70 times, to include the Shuttle Columbia disaster, the World Trade Center, Hurricanes Katrina and Ike.
KTRK and The Houston Chronicle are both reporting:
"The United Nations mission in the country has declared the search and rescue teams already in the nation are sufficient to handle the task and the Texas team and others prepared to deploy would not be needed."
Anyone paying attention over the weekend knows that people were still being rescued, and others that rescuers knew were alive died while waiting to be rescued.
This is yet one more example of Barack Obama failing to take the bull by the horns and get promised help to the Haitians quickly and efficiently.
Reuters notes that there is talk that Obama's response could end up hurting him politically:
This could be a foreign policy Katrina for Obama," said Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, a Washington think tank.
Birns said already there were negative headlines coming out of Haiti because aid is flowing too slowly.
"The Obama administration cannot allow itself to be tarnished by the kind of headlines that Bush was getting because of Katrina," he said.
The Obama administration has made a show of portraying Obama as hands-on in the relief effort, even releasing a timeline of his phone calls and meetings on Haiti since the quake struck.
Obama spent yesterday campaigning, first in a Black church in Washington, D.C. and then in Boston for Democrat U.S. Senate nominee Martha Coakley.
Bush catches heck for Katrina, despite the tens of thousands who wouldn’t lift a finger to help themselves get out of the way.
Obama gets a free pass. This is his Katrina as much as Katrina
was Bushes fault.
No matter what they say about Bush, they can’t accuse him of campaigning while people died in the aftermath of Katrina. Obama may be the most tone-deaf politician ever. Not only is he out campaigning, but he’s still holding parties and taking Michelle out for lavish dinners. We seriously need to start hammering DEMOCRAT politicians with pleas to impeach him for the good of their own party. He is dragging them down, but sadly our country is paying the price as well.
I have a coworker with the Fairfax Co [Va] Urban Search and Rescue team, he left on Thursday.
Bush’s fault
Obama hates black people.
One of the first things President Palin should do in 2013, is to get US out of this cesspool of Socialism and Communism.
What the hell do we care what the rest of the world thinks of us. If they don't like what we do, we just won't send money to their rat hole countries
I’m still boiling that the UN told the IDF they had to take down their makeshift hospital near the airport that was on UN land.
Perhaps the UN grifters embezzled the money allocated for search and rescue.
You know - the helicopter has been invented. These fancy contraptions are perfect for landing teams of searchers and protection in areas where the airports are damaged or nonexistent. We should at least be doing this for US citizens - pi$$ on the UN and what they say.
Hey Haiti!
Both Barack 0bama and Joe Biden promised you that hopey-changey stuff right after this horrible tragedy started.
How’s it working out for you?
So has the vertical take-off jet. And if the USA can't provide those then who can?
Mr. President? Your comments?
Obumbler’s fault.
bookmark
Texas rescue team for Haiti stands down
COLLEGE STATION, Texas — An elite search and rescue team from Texas will not fly to earthquake-devastated Haiti and has been demobilized by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The Texas Engineering Extension Service in College Station on Monday said the United Nations mission in Haiti has declared that search and rescue teams in the country are sufficient.
Texas Task Force One was called up by Gov. Rick Perry on Thursday, two days after a massive earthquake rocked the Port-au-Prince area.
End snip
The US press was all over Bush but the WORLD press will
be all over Obama.
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