Posted on 11/04/2012 5:24:06 AM PST by Moseley
George Bush as Commander in Chief supplied fuel to the troops fighting in Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan, in spite of the complete absence or breakdown of all infrastructure, including electricity. George Bush flew emergency food supplies to many places around the world, including air dropping military Meals Ready to Eat (MRE's) into Iraq and Afghanistan and other countries.
After a much milder Hurricane Sandy, Barack Obama cannot supply fuel or supplies to New Jersey, a few miles from some of the busiest ports in the world, where railroad tracks converge from around the country. Unlike Katrina in New Orleans, Winter temperatures are dropping from a hurricane that was geographically huge but mild in strength compared with Hurricane Katrina.
Gas shortages are crippling fire departments, police departments, ambulances, EMT's, hospitals, electrical utility repair crews, delivery trucks bringing supplies to civilians and the public in general.
The quickest way to illustrate what Barack Obama is failing to due is to recommend what the Commander in Chief (POTUS) should have done from the first moment that gas shortages were reported. And the moment New Jersey Governor Chris Christie realized that the White House was not getting it done, Christie should have acted as follows.
If I were advising NJ Governor Chris Christie, I would even now recommend:
1) Acting as commander in chief of the New Jersey National Guard, immediately call the Secretary of the Air Force. Speaking as the National Guard of New Jersey, formally make the following requests. No doubt there is a protocol for the National Guard borrowing assets as needed. Hang the protocol.
o use of the gigantic tanker air craft that can fly enormous loads of gasoline around the world. o use of ordinary cargo planes that can fly supplies around the world. o identification by the Air Force of the most suitable landing strip in the New York / New Jersey region. o immediate use of cargo aircraft to air-lift heavy cargo helicopters, including helicopters capable of moving huge fuel bladders, tanks or tanker trucks by helicopter, along with the apparatus to fill the bladders or tanks from the tanker planes. o immediate use of cargo aircraft to air-lift food, bottled water, tents, blankets, and generators to the identified airport as a distribution point. o officially request the use of heavy-lift cargo helicopters to distribute food and bottled water from the airport to the areas hardest hit, probably using shopping mall parking lots cleared by police to land. o officially request the use of those heavy-lift cargo helicopters to distribute fuel from the tanker plane(s) to local gas stations with the longest lines (if landing areas nearby are possible) or at a relay point if necessary. o Ideal would be heavy-lift helicopters that could move fuel tanker trailers, drop the tanker trailers in open spaces in shopping mall parking lots, where the truck "tractor" can be married up with the tanker trailer for immediate delivery to nearby local gas stations. (Note that municipalities sometimes have their own filling depot for police cars, fire trucks, etc.)
2) Get the CEO or operations head of the major oil companies on the phone, in person, and demand to know within 2 hours what the New Jersey National Guard can do to help the oil companies supply all fuel and energy needs, backed up by other State National Guards and/or the US Air Force by borrowing their assets and the US Navy.
Governor Christie should give the heads of the oil companies his personal cell phone number and warn them that if they hit an obstacle, his personal cell phone in his pocket had better ring or there will be hell to pay.
3) Ask the oil companies where there are ample supplies of gasoline where an Air Force tanker can land nearby and fill up on gasoline and fly it to the New Jersey / New York area.
4) As Governor, Christie would need to settle up for the costs of the gasoline by paying the oil companies the normal wholesale price and charging the local gas stations what they would have paid for it from the oil company, and probably giving the gas free to police stations, fire departments, EMT's, ambulances, electricity repair crews, etc. But the transportation and delivery costs would have to be chalked up to disaster relief.
5) People are homeless in some cases. They are desperate, and panicking not knowing what they are going to do. Winter is coming. People could be without homes being rebuilt for a couple of months. The region should have more than enough motel and hotel space, but people without power at their own homes are filling hotel and motel rooms. But the affected area is blessed by excellent sea access.
As Governor, Christie's staff should hand him the phone number of the heads of the cruise ship lines. The cruise ship industry is over-built. Most companies have older ships they are retiring and replacing. The disaster will likely leave people not taking cruises. Ask if an older cruise ship, perhaps one of many decommissioned, could be rushed to New York harbor to provide temporary housing for the homeless. Getting an older cruise ship re-programmed or re-positioened and into place could take a week or longer. But the sooner they start the sooner it will be done.
6) As commander in chief of the National Guard, call the Secretary of the Navy and request whatever ships can be rushed fastest to New York Harbor, followed quickly by the "small" aircraft carriers (by modern standards) known as Amphibious Assault Ships like the Kearsage. Navy ships are capable of creating vast amounts of fresh water from sea water. Amphibious Assault carriers have the helicopters and/or hovercraft to deliver water and supplies over a wide distance.
Some navy ships could provide immediate living quarters for the homeless
7) Quite naturally, all resources both Army Corps of Engineers and private companies are needed to restore electrical power. Certainly this is being done. But moving around the area quickly is a problem. The New Jersey National Guard and if necessary resources from other State National Guards or the US Air Force should fly these crews around in helicopters to be able to restore power as quickly as possible.
Now, is there any of that which President Barack Obama could not have ordered almost a week ago, last Tuesday? Although Obama is not prepared by policy seminars for handling such a crisis, his staff also has seriously failed. Presidential staff who are not rookies should have handed the President action memos clipped in urgent-action file folders ready for the POTUS to simply scan and sign, to set all of this in motion last Tuesday.
### Jon Moseley
All his advisors and czars are ivory tower socialists and have no idea how the real world works.
“we passed a law, so it is fixed.”
How about simply restoring electrical power and removing price controls? I don’t see how commandeering Air Force planes and cruise ships efficiently solves the problems. Stop letting help be turned away by unions.
It’s interesting to keep hearing recommendations to ditch protocols or cut bureaucratic red tape. It suggests to me that stuff isn’t necessary in the first place.
We now see what Chris Christi is made of too... 300 lbs of meat loaf with mashed potatoes for brains and a backbone of gravy... he probably still doesn’t realize that he and NJ were just back drops for a free Obama election ad, with his smooth baritone, presidential sounding voice telling America, HE’S got it covered (only to hustle more dollars for his campaign shortly after). Chris Christi, if Obama was Twiddly Dee then your Twiddly Dumb... go become a democrat like all the rest of the NE Repubs when their backs are against the wall...
Why use aircraft when we have these large flat things called Interstate highways that tanker trucks drive on (to paraphrase Obama)?
Ports that tanker ships dock at?
The problem is not transportation, it is lack of will power & organization and a surplus of bureaucracy.
Were the fuel terminals destroyed by Sandy?
(I don’t have TV, so I’ve not seen the details of the damages)
BTW Where we lived in Belize was close to the Mexican border. Gas is US $6+ in Belize and about $3.35 in Mexico. Lots of people purchase gas in Mexico, return to Belize and sell it from their back yards for $4 to $5 a gallon. 5 gallon buckets with built in spouts & nozzles are the measuring & delivery devices.
When I was in High School, guys would rent a Ryder stake truck, go out into the Georgia countryside and buy a farmer’s field full of watermelons. They’d then drive to NYC or NJ on Friday night, pull into Queens or someplace similar and sell watermelons from the back of the truck.
After truck rental costs, fuel, meals, and buying the watermelons, they still cleared several hundred dollars for the weekend trip. Good money back in the mid 1960’s in Georgia. I’m surprised that there are not a lot of entrepreneurs in states near NYC that are not doing the same right now with food, water, gas, generators, etc.
Helos are not just for plucking folks off of roofs. They are fantastic for dropping relief supplies, fuel blivets etc in places cut off by washed-away roads and downed bridges. They are also fantastic for medevac, which is ongoing. These ships even have mini-hospitals on board.
But Obama has not thought of this, and the Navy is probably out of his loop entirely.
I am putting my tinfoil hat on here.
How about Obama says to Christie, “If you want the boardwalk rebuilt by Memorial Day, you will take a photo op with me and tell everyone what a wonderful job I am doing? You don’t want to be another Texas, do you?”
With words like “revenge” and. “payback” I wouldnt put it past Obama.
Homeless people.
Hmmm, whatever happened to those billions of dollars worth of FEMA trailers, many of which were never used?
Homeless people.
Hmmm, whatever happened to those billions of dollars worth of FEMA trailers, many of which were never used?
The cliche is that pretenders talk strategy, achievers talk logistics.
Why Walmart tends to prosper.
My guess is that Walmart has plenty of water on hand.
Hear, hear!
The greater majority of the unavailability of gasoline is due to a lack of power rather than a shortage of the gasoline. I live in NJ and 2 days after the storm I travelled just 10 mikes to an area with power and spent all of 10 minutes in line before filling up.
In areas which were devastated such as Seaside, Long Beach Island and Atlantic City there is a problem getting to the gas stations because of roadway debris. In most areas it is simply no power to operate the pumps.
The greater majority of the unavailability of gasoline is due to a lack of power rather than a shortage of the gasoline. I live in NJ and 2 days after the storm I travelled just 10 mikes to an area with power and spent all of 10 minutes in line before filling up.
In areas which were devastated such as Seaside, Long Beach Island and Atlantic City there is a problem getting to the gas stations because of roadway debris. In most areas it is simply no power to operate the pumps.
An asbestos fiber was found near one of the trailers.
A decontamination center had to be built to clean them. When the decontamination center was ready the weather and rust had taken a toll and they had to be restored to be cleaned.
They have now been broken down into constituent parts and are stored in a has-mat Lv IV facility.
When Sen. Reid approves they will be encapsulated for deep burial.
My surmise is that they (the unused ones) are in staging areas along the Gulf/Florida coasts. And rightfully so. Hurricanes hitting the eastern seaboard are very rare by comparison. It'll take a few weeks to relocate them northwards.
The "used" ones were auctioned off a few years back.
I think some or all of them were made using formaldehyde, too. God forbid a homeless family should have to breathe that for a few weeks/months! Better that they should live out in the open. /s
Every house and trailer made for the previous 50 years had that stuff in the particle board, plywood, etc.
The FEMA trailers were given away, at least as many as they could find takers for.
The takers had to be public/non-profit entities that could meet a silly standard (as if it were better for the trailers to go to Big Bird than to let an ice fisherman have one).
My little hometown got one for their marina and also for their little one-strip ‘airport’. I think they had to drive from North Dakota to pick ‘em up.
Legend has it that a fresh tomato has more formaldehyde than MDF (medium density fiberboard) by weight!
http://www.cfs.gov.hk/english/whatsnew/whatsnew_fa/files/formaldehyde.pdf
Foods Known to Contain Naturally Occurring (more at link)Formaldehyde
Mg/Kg Fruits and Vegetables Apple 6.3-22.3 Banana 16.3 Cauliflower 26.9 Pear 38.7-60 Shiitake mushroom (dried / raw) 100-406 / 6-54.4 Meat and Meat Products Beef, pork, mutton and poultry meat 2.5-20 Seafood Cod 4.6-34 Fish ball 6.8 Crustacean 1-98 Bombay-duck (fresh) ≦140
Why don't the gas stations have generators that draw on their big tanks and power their pumps? The only excuse I can think of is that the added cost would either cut into their narrow profit margin or require them to raise gas prices above their non-generator competition. I don't want a government mandate, but how about cutting a penny or so off the state or federal gas taxes for generator backed up stations??? Depending on the size of the cut you'd either get just enough generator for the pumps and cash register or generators large enough to power their minimarts, etc.
Good question. Could be a law prohibiting electrical devices like generators being used to pump a volitale fluid such s gasoline.
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