Indeed, the “story” has often become the public reaction and polling data on how bad people feel about how bad the response was. Isn’t it interesting that there isn’t a single story that provides ANY data about how fast or how large the responses were to say that last 5 or 10 hurricanes? Wouldn’t an objective measure of “horrible” be something like “hours or days difference” from the “standard response”? It would seem like a “fair assessment” (not likely from the MSM when a Republican is in the WH) might include some small words about what might be different from other hurricanes or floods … New Orleans being below sea level so the flood just stays and has to be pumped out, very limited roads into the city, and those damaged by the flooding. Little things like that.
At least there is the Internet now, so some folks that actually do hurricane relief are starting to make their opinions known. A lot of what follows is stolen from . The following is from Jason van Steenwyk, a FL Gaurdsman that has been mobilized six times for hurricane relief:
"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.”
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.
"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."
The between hookah hits is priceless, and really fits well with the journalism majors that I knew in college. The MSM, and unfortunately a lot of Americans seem to believe that a “fact free analysis” is all that is required when it comes to a “Blame Bush” approach. What relief effort do they hold up as being “the best”? How fast was it, and how much was done in what period of time? Doesn’t it seem like a rational person would have to ask those kinds of questions before they would be satisfied that this was “the worst ever”, “totally unacceptable”, or some other scathing evaluation like we see every day from the MSM on this one? Doesn’t it have to be compared to SOMETHING? Apparently not if all you need for justification is another hookah hit. Beam me up.
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