Text 15205, 76 rader
Skriven 2005-09-12 14:48:00 av Jeff Binkley (1:226/600)
Ärende: Katrina
===============
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05254/568876.stm

Jack Kelly: No shame
The federal response to Katrina was not as portrayed
Sunday, September 11, 2005
It is settled wisdom among journalists that the federal response to the
devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina was unconscionably slow.
"Mr. Bush's performance last week will rank as one of the worst ever during a
dire national emergency," wrote New York Times columnist Bob Herbert in a
somewhat more strident expression of the conventional wisdom.
But the conventional wisdom is the opposite of the truth.
Jason van Steenwyk is a Florida Army National Guardsman who has been mobilized
six times for hurricane relief. He notes that:
"The federal government pretty much met its standard time lines, but the volume
of support provided during the 72-96 hour was unprecedented. The federal
response here was faster than Hugo, faster than Andrew, faster than Iniki,
faster than Francine and Jeanne."
For instance, it took five days for National Guard troops to arrive in strength
on the scene in Homestead, Fla. after Hurricane Andrew hit in 2002. But after
Katrina, there was a significant National Guard presence in the afflicted
region in three.
Journalists who are long on opinions and short on knowledge have no idea what
is involved in moving hundreds of tons of relief supplies into an area the size
of England in which power lines are down, telecommunications are out, no
gasoline is available, bridges are damaged, roads and airports are covered with
debris, and apparently have little interest in finding out.
So they libel as a "national disgrace" the most monumental and successful
disaster relief operation in world history.
I write this column a week and a day after the main levee protecting New
Orleans breached. In the course of that week:
More than 32,000 people have been rescued, many plucked from rooftops by Coast
Guard helicopters. The Army Corps of Engineers has all but repaired the
breaches and begun pumping water out of New Orleans.
Shelter, food and medical care have been provided to more than 180,000
refugees.
Journalists complain that it took a whole week to do this. A former Air Force
logistics officer had some words of advice for us in the Fourth Estate on his
blog, Moltenthought:
"We do not yet have teleporter or replicator technology like you saw on 'Star
Trek' in college between hookah hits and waiting to pick up your worthless
communications degree while the grown-ups actually engaged in the recovery
effort were studying engineering.
"The United States military can wipe out the Taliban and the Iraqi Republican
Guard far more swiftly than they can bring 3 million Swanson dinners to an
underwater city through an area the size of Great Britain which has no power,
no working ports or airports, and a devastated and impassable road network.
"You cannot speed recovery and relief efforts up by prepositioning assets (in
the affected areas) since the assets are endangered by the very storm which
destroyed the region.
"No amount of yelling, crying and mustering of moral indignation will change
any of the facts above."
"You cannot just snap your fingers and make the military appear somewhere," van
Steenwyk said.
Guardsmen need to receive mobilization orders; report to their armories; draw
equipment; receive orders and convoy to the disaster area. Guardsmen driving
down from Pennsylvania or Navy ships sailing from Norfolk can't be on the scene
immediately.
Relief efforts must be planned. Other than prepositioning supplies near the
area likely to be afflicted (which was done quite efficiently), this cannot be
done until the hurricane has struck and a damage assessment can be made. There
must be a route reconnaissance to determine if roads are open, and bridges
along the way can bear the weight of heavily laden trucks.
And federal troops and Guardsmen from other states cannot be sent to a disaster
area until their presence has been requested by the governors of the afflicted
states.
Exhibit A on the bill of indictment of federal sluggishness is that it took
four days before most people were evacuated from the Louisiana Superdome.
The levee broke Tuesday morning. Buses had to be rounded up and driven from
Houston to New Orleans across debris-strewn roads. The first ones arrived
Wednesday evening. That seems pretty fast to me.
A better question -- which few journalists ask -- is why weren't the roughly
2,000 municipal and school buses in New Orleans utilized to take people out of
the city before Katrina struck?

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