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 d evastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina was unconscionably slow.
"Mr Bush's performance last week will rank as one of the worst ever duri ng a dire national emergency," wrote New York Times columnist Bob Herber t 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 mobi lized 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 t han Iniki, faster than Francine and Jeanne." For instance, it took five days for National Guard troops to arrive in st rength on the scene in Homestead, Fla. after Hurricane Andrew hit in 200 2 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 a rea the size of England in which power lines are down, telecommunication s are out, no gasoline is available, bridges are damaged, roads and airp orts are covered with debris, and apparently have little interest in fin ding 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.
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 F orce logistics officer had some words of advice for us in the Fourth Est ate 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 wo rthless communications degree while the grown-ups actually engaged in th e recovery effort were studying engineering. "The United States military can wipe out the Taliban and the Iraqi Republ ican Guard far more swiftly than they can bring 3 million Swanson dinner s 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 impassa ble 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 sto rm which destroyed the region. "No amount of yelling, crying and mustering of moral indignation will cha nge any of the facts above." "You cannot just snap your fingers and make the military appear somewhere ," van Steenwyk said. Guardsme n driving down from Pennsylvania or Navy ships sailing from Norfolk can' t be on the scene immediately. Other than prepositioning supplies near t he area likely to be afflicted (which was done quite efficiently), this cannot be done until the hurricane has struck and a damage assessment ca n be made. There must be a route reconnaissance to determine if roads ar e open, and bridges along the way can bear the weight of heavily laden t rucks. And federal troops and Guardsmen from other states cannot be sent to a di saster 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 to ok four days before most people were evacuated from the Louisiana Superd ome. Buses had to be rounded up and driven fr om Houston to New Orleans across debris-strewn roads. A better question -- which few journalists ask -- is why weren't the roug hly 2,000 municipal and school buses in New Orleans utilized to take peo ple out of the city before Katrina struck?
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