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Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Murphy's a M*********r. 
From the New York Times:

The morning Hurricane Katrina thundered ashore, Louisiana National Guard commanders thought they were prepared to save their state. But when 15-foot floodwaters swept into their headquarters, cut their communications and disabled their high-water trucks, they had their hands full just saving themselves.


Ooh, yeah. Let's preposition even more supplies in the storm area right away!


For a crucial 24 hours after landfall on Aug. 29, Guard officers said, they were preoccupied with protecting their nerve center from the waves topping the windows at Jackson Barracks and rescuing soldiers who could not swim. The next morning, they had to evacuate their entire headquarters force of 375 guardsmen by boat and helicopter to the Superdome.


Not sure I trust the timeline here. The levees I understand didn't break until the next day. Love the dangling participle, though. How many soldiers did the window-topping waves rescue?


It was an inauspicious start to the National Guard response to the storm, which ultimately fell so short that it has set off a national debate about whether the Pentagon should take charge immediately after catastrophes. President Bush has asked Congress to study the question, and top Defense Department and Guard officials are scheduled to testify on the response before a House panel on Wednesday.


No, the federal government should not take charge immediately after catastrophes. Actually, that doesn't even seem to be a matter of serious debate among military people I know. I mean, why turn the concept of federalism on its head and micromanage every little storm from Washington when it's far simpler NOT TO PUT YOUR HEADQUARTERS IN A FLOOD ZONE IN A CITY VULNERABLE TO FLOODING!

In interviews, Guard commanders and state and local officials in Louisiana said the Guard performed well under the circumstances. But they say it was crippled in the early days by a severe shortage of troops that they blame in part on the deployment to Iraq of 3,200 Louisiana guardsmen. While the Pentagon disputes that Iraq was a factor, those on the ground say the war has clearly strained a force intended to be the nation's bulwark against natural disasters and terrorist attacks.


You know, the New York Times ought to do a bit more homework and exercize a bit more common sense before they start yapping about what the Guard is intended for.

The National Guard is intended to temporarily supplement the regular army as it fights and wins our nation's wars. It has always been that way. People who think that the Guard is not supposed to be a deployable, battle-ready force need to get that idiocy out of their minds.

I mean, what the hell am I doing with a mortar platoon? What's with those hundreds and hundreds of M1 tanks in the inventory? What am I going to do with those Mk 19 40mm automatic grenade launchers in my supply room?

The National Guard spends 11 months out of every year training to close with and destroy the enemy in the field, or support the effort of others to do the same. The Guard spends one month of every year on its state mission.

Yes, the nation does not need us all the time. Meanwhile, the governors can make effective use of the guard for local and home defense and missions in support of civil authorities. But when the ignoramuses at the Times try to play down the primacy of the federal mission, I'm here to crush that idea.

By spreading this meme, the Times is insulting the Guard and its soldiers.

Yet the very effectiveness of the eventual military response - which climbed to 35,000 guardsmen and active-duty troops - only underscored questions that will long haunt Louisiana guard officials: Should commanders have moved their headquarters to higher ground before the storm?


Does the Pope wear a funny hat?

Check out the whole thing, though.

My favorite part: The article chastises the LA Guard for not confronting the crowd at the Superdome:

At the convention center, 222 soldiers trained in levee repair, not police work, locked themselves into an exhibit hall at the convention center rather than challenge an angry and desperate crowd of more than 10,000 hurricane victims at the center.


So why is it we have to wait until the very end of the article, a dozen paragraphs later, before we learn that many of the troops didn't even have weapons?

Don't you think the Times owes the officers and men involved at least that much consideration? What the f*ck, over?!?!?

Did the Times have a better idea? Would it have been better to capitulate? What happens when the crowd moves to seize their weapons, too? You'd have a massacre on your hands.

As far as I can tell, the Colonel's decision was reasonable and prudent under the circumstances. And those men sure as shit don't need to get slimed by a couple of halfwit reporters who weren't at the scene and who clearly have no idea what is involved in a use-of-force decision.

Splash, out

Jason

Comments:
It was an inauspicious start to the National Guard response to the storm, which ultimately fell so short that it has set off a national debate about whether the Pentagon should take charge immediately after catastrophes. President Bush has asked Congress to study the question, and top Defense Department and Guard officials are scheduled to testify on the response before a House panel on Wednesday.

WRONG. Even if you buy the MSM's story that the response was bungled/late, that story so far has been that it was FEMA's "inauspicious start" that has led to calls for the military to take over. If the military response initially sucked, as this article seems to claim, then why would everyone be calling for them to take over the whole show? I guess conservatives who have been calling for a stronger miltiary role would argue that the failure of teh state/local response is what indicates that the military should be in charge from now on. In either case, though, it makes no sense to claim that the miltiary screwed up and should therefore now be in charge. The Times needs to get their story straight.

There's only one way that this story makes a little (not a lot) more sense. The Times and the rest of the MSM still equate the Guard with Bush, nevermind the facts. Guard = military = federal = Bush.

Overall, however, the big picture story that we are getting makes no sense, and makes even less sense after this article. The story from teh left has been this: The response, which is totally a fedreal responsibility (read Bush), was a disaster, so we should consider ammending the law to allow the president we hate to unilaterally declare emergengies and send active-duty troops with weapons into our towns. And, oh by the way, the miltiary was incompetent too, which is another reason why they should be in charge, led by the guy we hate.

The leftwing MSM can't keep their story straight, and even when they can, it makes no sense whatsoever!

Jason, keep up the good work.
 
As for the federal response to Katrina, I recently had someone accuse me of spouting "Christo-fascist bull***t" in my blog. Hmm, one aspect of fascism is the idea of a supreme national govt and a dictator..."A political movement that believes in an extreme form of nationalism: denying individual rights, insisting upon the supremacy of the state, and advocating one-party rule with ultimate authority resting in the hands of a dictator." I thought that comment interesting in light of recent lefty criticism of our dear “dictator,” Mr. George W.

It seems to me we had a bureaucratic snafu here. Lefties are saying the feds had the authority from the git-go, righties are saying that the feds didn't have the authority to supercede local and state without their permission. Lefties say that in the case of a natural disaster, the feds have the authority to step right in. Righties are saying that logistically that is an impractical approach.

Let's assume that it was completely the fault of the fed govt that aid didn’t get there in time to prevent deaths by disease and thirst (not to mention looting, raping and murdering). So we want to put something in place to prevent this very thing from happening in the future. This means that in the future, in the event of a looming natural disaster, our federal govt can do whatever it feels necessary to fix things.

Now, let’s take an example of someone’s poor planning after Katrina and see how this new system might work. And speaking of the “poor”, how about those people who were too poor to own a car and get the h**l of NO. Approximately 350 to 400 buses (maybe more – I can’t remember) sat in a motor pool that could have gotten them out. So, let’s just assume that it is the president’s fault that he didn’t know about those buses and figure out how we could get this important information to him and to FEMA in the future.

There will have to be someone in Washington who has all of this information available to them. They'll have to know, ahead of time, how many buses are available for evacuation, how many people can't get out - and this information will change on a daily basis. They’ll have to act as a liason for relief agencies, such as the Red Cross, the National Guard, the local police, etc. Who's going to keep track of all the information needed to cope with the aftermath of another Katrina? At the very least, we'll need someone in DC for each state - better to have someone for each congressional district. That person will have to have intimate knowledge of the district - the logistics needs, hospitals, nursing homes – see above. And who's going to pay that person? I would assume that a specialized position like that – someone who knows the intimate details of a district, and also knows the logistical and practical needs of dealing with a natural or manmade disaster – would be a fairly high-paying job. There are 435 districts in our country at this time. Imagine that they might get…$65K per year (a very conservative estimate). That’s $28,275,000 per year. That’s over 28 million dollars! And that’s just for their wages. We’ll have to put support personnel in place and give them a location to work out of. It would probably make sense to have an office in DC, plus and office in each district. At least one secretary in each…and a competent administrative assistant will cost about….$45K per year at the very least (I’m guesstimating here – I live in a place where assistants don’t make a ton to start out). So 870 assistants might cost at least 39 million dollars… And then we need to put in a computer network, buy some office supplies, get some special software designed (if it doesn’t already exist), offer them 401K plans and benefits, insurance…the price is creeping up here….Let’s see, let’s just figure in a $500 computer for each assistant, plus a…$1000 laptop (they’d need to be able to travel) for each person in each district. That’s $435K in computers for the assistants (that’s a pretty cheap estimate) and another $435K for the person in charge. Let’s call them “federal district managers” for lack of a better term. Of course, computers need to be updated and often replaced as technology progresses, so those computers will probably be replaced every five years or so. Then there are DSL lines, phone lines, electricity, rent….the list goes on.

So what, you say? The cost is worth it to save American lives? Well, of course it is, you ninny! I totally agree. But I’m now wondering – if we allocate tax dollars to watchdog every district in the USA, how will the state governor and the local mayors take it? The fed govt is going to have to basically micromanage on a local level. They’ll have to make sure that everything is in place to deal with a disaster. It sounds to me like taxes will have to go up (we’ll need to raise at least 67 million per year, and that’s just to pay very minimum wages) so that the fed govt will know what's going on in every single town in the US. Sounds like maybe the fed govt will have to tread on a few civil liberties in gathering information to best help in that future disaster. Ideally they’d have something like an “internal affairs” office just to make sure that local police weren’t corrupt…

Now if this truly what everyone wants – to increase taxes so that the federal government can step in before a disaster ever actually happens, fine, let’s vote it in. This is a democracy, after all. I personally think that just maybe the state and local government might be able to process this information a bit better, but maybe I’m wrong here. So if what you want is to hand over that kind of authority to the federal government, let’s vote it in – but don’t whine and complain that our country is turning into some sort of fascist state. Don’t cry because your civil liberties are being tread upon. I thought that the idea of a strong federal government was a Republican idea, but maybe I was wrong...

And while we're talking about raising federal taxes for this immense project… I chose not to live on the plains of Kansas, below sea-level or on the seismically active streets of San Fransisco for a reason. Am I expected to fork out my tax dollars because someone else chooses to live there? Yes, I am compassionate for those affected, and I donated to the Red Cross. But if I choose to live in an area that is (relatively) safe from most natural disasters, should I have to pay the price for those that did not? It might sound selfish, but I'd like my "disaster preparedness tax" to go directly to my state.

In the end, us "righties" realize that, yes, the feds didn't do a perfect job here. But you cannot lay 100% of the blame solely on the president’s shoulders. If a city like NO has an evacuation plan that specifically states that those too poor or unable to evacuate themselves will be evacuated, (http://www.cityofno.com/portal.aspx?portal=46&tabid=6) why is it suddenly Bush's fault that Nagin and Blanco chose to put those people in the Superdome instead? Does the president declaring NO an official "disaster area" suddenly relieve the local and state officials from being proactive and taking care of their people? Bush knew that the local and state govt were “handling” things, so I guess he chose to trust their judgment. Oops.

Clearly all three levels of govt need to get together and figure out these details. If it wasn't Nagin's and Blanco's responsibility to get these people out before the storm, then was there any system in place to let the fed govt know that there were people in NO that had no way to leave – and that there were buses sitting unused? I mean, NO has been expecting "the hurricane" to hit for a long time. "The hurricane" was the one that would not only level the city, but put it completely under water. Remember the idea that NO is a big bowl. In the worst disaster scenario, NO would have been hit by storm surges that came up over the levees, but didn't actually destroy them. The water would have then been held in by the levees. So the city would have been pretty much under water. Now, I just discovered that the Superdome is about 3 feet above sea level. In the best case scenario, the people would be stranded on a little island – in the worst case, the flood waters would rise high enough to put even the Superdome under water. In the news before Katrina hit, I seem to remember hearing that this may be the storm that they had been dreading for decades. So actually, in the worse case scenario, the superdome probably would have been leveled like the rest of the Gulf Coast – and there would have been thousands more dead. Pretty much everyone who had been left behind would be dead now. I wonder who’s “fault” it would be then?

The evacuation plan clearly gives the mayor and the governor power to move these people out of the city completely. (http://www.cityofno.com/portal.aspx?portal=46&tabid=6) Now, I heard that the president declared New Orleans to be a disaster area before the storm hit. So he gathers information, and he discovers that the Mayor has already ordered people to go to the Superdome. The mayor and the governor have not yet asked him to step in and take control. He clearly thinks that, because they live in the area affected, that they must know the best way to deal the looming disaster. It looks like his biggest mistake was in trusting them to take care of their people.

Well, he’s obviously learned his lesson. Do not trust the state and local government to know what is best for their constituents. Do not trust them to follow their own evacuation plans. When they tell you that they have everything taken care of, do not trust them. Before a disaster hits, assume that the state and local government will not be effective and rush in and take control of the situation. As soon as a disaster looms, have those government employees I mentioned above – the “federal district managers” – brief you on everything that the local and state government should be doing, and assume that they will screw it up. I mean, it’s better to be safe than sorry, right?

Well, if that is what it will take to prevent more deaths, maybe we should do it. But then you look at the example set by Mississippi and Alabama, and you think that maybe the local and state government can handle it by themselves. And of course, if you take logistics (see some more of Jason’s fabulous blog for this) into account, you will realize that the cost will be monumental - and we'll still have to wait for aid to move in.

In the end, it will be up to us, the citizens of the USA to decide how this is handled. Because this still is a democracy – not a fascist state. We vote our Senators and Congressman/women into office. We have the power to contact them and tell them how we feel, and they are supposed to vote as their constituents want. I’ve sent more than a few emails to my representative in the past few days. I guess I’m finally realizing that I need to be heard – that I have a right to be heard – by my government.
 
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Murphy's law is an adage in Western culture that broadly states that things will go wrong in any given situation, if you give them a chance. "If there's more than one possible outcome of a job or task, and one of those outcomes will result in disaster or an undesirable consequence, then somebody will do it that way. sportsbook " It is most often cited as "Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong" (or, alternately, "Whatever can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible time, in the worst possible way" or, "Anything that can go wrong, will," or "If anything can go wrong, it will, and usually at the most inopportune moment"). The saying is sometimes referred to as Sod's law or Finagle's law which can also be rendered as "Anything that can go wrong, will—at the worst possible moment". http://www.enterbet.com
 
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The authorities began to investigate the possible routes of the hurricane warning for the people of the seriousness of the situation and issuing an order in principle voluntary evacuation, which ended up being mandatory.costa rica fishing
Evacuate an entire city, carries his time. Most people, oblivious to the real danger was coming,had postponed his departure until the last minute. When Katrina reached Category 5 and threatened to come ashore for a class of about 5, had only a few days for its arrival and the mass population, decided to leave the city. http://www.fishingcostaricaexperts.com
 
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