If Kevin could make it in a day...
Ok gang, I'm pissed.
I was reading up on google news, and for a while, I could do nothing but stare at the news story I was reading. Katrina hit Louisiana four days ago. There was three days warning that this category five hurricane, you know, finger of God and all that, was going to hit. So, when did the first government relief show up? TODAY. Yes, today. It took FEMA, the United States Army, the National Guard, and pretty much any other government disaster response entity four days to get there. Four days to cover at a maximum 1000 miles. To put this in perspective, Iraq is a bit over 7000 miles away. Take a guess at how long it took to invade, fight, and capture Baghdad. Three weeks. That's 333 miles a day, through armed resistance, a gigantic ocean, and godawful desert. Now lets do our home response time. Seven days and 1000 miles is roughly 140 miles a day. Its pathetic that we can rush resources bent on destruction two and a half times faster than we can provide aid to our own in need. Now I know a flooded out road makes travel difficult, but I'm not even talking about land based help. The first helecopters didn't land to evacuate flooded, blacked out hospitals until yesterday. How hard is it to ready a copter? Isn't that FEMA's sole purpose.. you know Federal Emergency Management Agency. The most appalling fact is that those hospitals had a death rate of 8 to 10 per hour. In four days, 478 people died. So what went wrong?
Several things. First, FEMA no longer has the authority it used to. After September 11th, FEMA fell under the juristiction of Homeland Defense, and its funding was now part of the new agency. After that, systematic budget cuts to FEMA began. Here's one sadly ironic example.
Just last year, FEMA hired a private company, IEM Inc. of Baton Rouge, to help conduct an eight-day drill for a fictional Category 5 hurricane in New Orleans named Pam. It included staging a helicopter evacuation of the Superdome, a prediction of 15 feet of water in parts of the city and the evacuation of 1-million people.
But the second part of the company's work - to design a plan to fix unresolved problems, such as evacuating sick and injured people and housing thousands of stranded residents - never occurred because the funding was cut.
So instead of worrying about disaster relief, rescue, and recovery, that money went towards other things. Like investigation on using duct tape and plastic to ward off terrorist chemical attacks. Yea...
Another sad example of lack of resources comes from the US Army Corps of Engineers. They don't have the supplies they need to fix the levees that keep the flood waters out of New Orleans. Three days of warning, four days after the disaster, and the Army can't find the resources to fix a broken dike? Take a wild guess as to where all the resources are. I'll give you a clue, its over 7000 miles away.
It sickens me to know that a government agency set up to do one specific job was crippled to such an extent that it takes this long to fulfil its sole purpose.
Just my two cents
I was reading up on google news, and for a while, I could do nothing but stare at the news story I was reading. Katrina hit Louisiana four days ago. There was three days warning that this category five hurricane, you know, finger of God and all that, was going to hit. So, when did the first government relief show up? TODAY. Yes, today. It took FEMA, the United States Army, the National Guard, and pretty much any other government disaster response entity four days to get there. Four days to cover at a maximum 1000 miles. To put this in perspective, Iraq is a bit over 7000 miles away. Take a guess at how long it took to invade, fight, and capture Baghdad. Three weeks. That's 333 miles a day, through armed resistance, a gigantic ocean, and godawful desert. Now lets do our home response time. Seven days and 1000 miles is roughly 140 miles a day. Its pathetic that we can rush resources bent on destruction two and a half times faster than we can provide aid to our own in need. Now I know a flooded out road makes travel difficult, but I'm not even talking about land based help. The first helecopters didn't land to evacuate flooded, blacked out hospitals until yesterday. How hard is it to ready a copter? Isn't that FEMA's sole purpose.. you know Federal Emergency Management Agency. The most appalling fact is that those hospitals had a death rate of 8 to 10 per hour. In four days, 478 people died. So what went wrong?
Several things. First, FEMA no longer has the authority it used to. After September 11th, FEMA fell under the juristiction of Homeland Defense, and its funding was now part of the new agency. After that, systematic budget cuts to FEMA began. Here's one sadly ironic example.
Just last year, FEMA hired a private company, IEM Inc. of Baton Rouge, to help conduct an eight-day drill for a fictional Category 5 hurricane in New Orleans named Pam. It included staging a helicopter evacuation of the Superdome, a prediction of 15 feet of water in parts of the city and the evacuation of 1-million people.
But the second part of the company's work - to design a plan to fix unresolved problems, such as evacuating sick and injured people and housing thousands of stranded residents - never occurred because the funding was cut.
So instead of worrying about disaster relief, rescue, and recovery, that money went towards other things. Like investigation on using duct tape and plastic to ward off terrorist chemical attacks. Yea...
Another sad example of lack of resources comes from the US Army Corps of Engineers. They don't have the supplies they need to fix the levees that keep the flood waters out of New Orleans. Three days of warning, four days after the disaster, and the Army can't find the resources to fix a broken dike? Take a wild guess as to where all the resources are. I'll give you a clue, its over 7000 miles away.
It sickens me to know that a government agency set up to do one specific job was crippled to such an extent that it takes this long to fulfil its sole purpose.
Just my two cents