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Jewish World Review Sept. 12, 2005 / 8 Elul, 5765 Settled wisdom vs conventional wisdom By Jack Kelly
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
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, Florida 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:
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 grownups 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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© 2005, Jack Kelly |
Mitch Albom | |||||||||||
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