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| Home Front: Economy |
| No Shame |
| 2005-09-13 |
| Jack Kelly: No shame Jack Kelly is national security writer for the Post-Gazette and The Blade of Toledo, Ohio 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 1992. 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. A new addition to my bloglist |
| Posted by:Greremp Cloter3640 |
| #1 This fellow got it in one. |
| Posted by: mac 2005-09-13 05:54 |