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For those who missed a very early post this thread: I suggest this excellent rant by jeffers about the difficulties city and state officials face...

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1474387/posts?page=106#106

I'm not vouching for ANY of this as right or wrong... but it is important for everyone to try to get a handle on the magnitude of the problems evacuating a large city ... and why it is critical that we not get into the blame game right now.

When you start thinking big, you start understanding that one person doesn't count anymore. Not the mayor, not the governor, not even President Bush. Bush will not fix this, the New Orleans police will not fix this, and the National Guard will not fix this.

They aren't big enough.

Three hundred million American people are going to fix this, or else it isn't going to get fixed.

More of what the Air Force as part of the Federal Government is doing to help despite what the media and the New Orleans numbskull politicians like the Governor and Mayor want us to believe:

August 31, 2005

AIR FORCE SPECIAL OPERATIONS OPENS NEW ORLEANS AIRPORT RUNWAY

HURLBURT FIELD, Fla. - Air Force Special Operations Command will fly an MC-130 aircraft into New Orleans International Airport tonight with a small team of special operations forces to work to reopen the runway.

A team of combat controllers and a small medical team will work to establish operations at the airport, which has no electricity or air traffic control. Combat controllers are certified air traffic controllers and special operators who can open airfields deep behind enemy lines or in other hazardous areas.

The combat controllers will set self-powered lights and other navigational aids, then function as air traffic controllers with portable radios so that other military aircraft can land and help evacuate around 2,500 ill, or injured persons from the New Orleans area.

AFSOC has also flown more than 34 aircraft to Jackson, Miss., to support Hurricane Katrina relief.
The deployed aircraft include 19 HH-60 Pave Hawk rescue helicopters specifically designed to find and recover individuals in hazardous areas. AFSOC has also deployed 11 C-130 aircraft with various special mission capabilities, including helicopter refueling and the ability to operate from dirt or unimproved airfields.

AFSOC has sent pararescuemen and combat controllers to Jackson to work in conjunction with the aircraft. Pararescuemen are highly trained emergency medical technician special operators. Combat controllers and pararescuemen are accustomed to operating in the most difficult and hostile conditions and are trained in numerous special operations skills such as SCUBA and parachute operations.

For those who missed a very early post this thread: I suggest this excellent rant by jeffers about the difficulties city and state officials face...

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1474387/posts?page=106#106

I want to second that and reiterate that now is not the time for recrimination and finger pointing. It's the mayor, governor, fed's fault etc. The simple fact of the matter Mother Nature can dispatch of the best laid plans of mice and men in a flash.

The question is what we're ALL going to do now.

What really is hard to grasp is that the evacuation and takiing people to shelters is overwhelming but only the beginning. These people have lost lives, jobs, homes, etc. They have to build new ones in new places. And many seem barely able to make it as it is.

Who is going to absorb this population? And am I crazy to think that rebuilding that city is hopeless and not feasible. Why not try to save the Quarter and the Garden district, and let the rest go. Fixing the levee is not fixing the problem. This will happen again.

This "can do" attitude ought to be directed at how do you help people build new lives in new places and what to do with those who for a myriad of reasons cannot do so.

I know those who are engineers and architects and land use people, etc, will be dying to rebuild. But is it worth it?