George Tincher
EF5
There was food and water brought in immediately. There was supplies brought into staging areas outside New Orleans and it was distributed to those in need as soon as the storm passed and they could start to get into the area. But there simply wasn't enough to feed and sustain everyone at once. The demand far exceeded the supply we had available in the area. We simply didn't have the means to move all that we needed into pre-positioned areas on one or two days notice. I am pretty sure there wasn't enough to supply all of Indonesia in the first few days either. It simply takes time to to move such a massive amount of supplies into place and distribute it.
It wouldn't make any difference who's grandma is effected, that would not change the logistics involved in such an operation. We simply don't have the means to move and distribute enough food and water to sustain 500,000 or 1 million people in a few day's time. That's especially true when 80% of a city is underwater and many roads impassible. That's why FEMA has long asked civilians to have a minimum 3 day disaster supply kit on hand that contains enough food and water, medicine and other essential items to sustain themselves for a few days until the logistics can catch up with the demand. It's simply not all on the government's shoulders. We as individuals also have a responsibility to take care of ourselves in the short term. Yet how many do you want to wager had these supplies on hand? We are our own first line of defense. Nature is not human hearted, so we must be prepared across the board....both on the government and individual level.
We must also remember that in triage situations, people are placed in different levels of priority based on need. That's what we faced here. At first, the primary mission was search and rescue, as obviously people trapped in flooded houses in danger of drowing were in a more dire situation than anyone else. They even took priority over the people in the Superdome and Convention Center. That's not say that those places were nice, but at least the people there were not in immediate danger of drowning. For the first couple of days, everything was focused on search and rescue. The helicopters were all busy trying to evacuate people from roofs, therefore there were none available for food drops. We must remember that there was not in an indefinite supply of helicopters in the region to use. So they had to use them for the top priority. The government's first priority was saving lives. After that came sustainment. That's why we saw a more massive effort first geared toward search and rescue, then food shipments. Bringing in food would have done people little good if they weren't alive to eat it. Again, priorities. Many times all the options will suck. So you try to take the route that will suck less and go with it.
As far as supplying all the people, that's again an amazing undertaking. We only had a limited amount of this stuff in the area. So once that initial supply was used, more had to be brought in. That presented many problems. The airport was underwater. So the supplies had to be flown and trucked into staging areas in other places nearby. That required they be loaded from warehouses on the planes and trucks by forklift from areas all over the nation. Then they were brought in. They were trucked into the New Orleans area. Then they were distributed to the areas they could reach. Many roads were under 20 ft of water and impassible. The helicopters were all busy with evacuations. So most of the food went to the places they could reach, such as the Superdome. Again, think of just how many trucks of supplies it would require to be able to maintain a food supply for just the 20,000 people in the Superdome. So it's simply impossible to think that we could have fed everyone in and around the city in the first few days. It was simply logistically impossible feat.
As far as national guard presence on the ground, there was initially a couple thousand and 1500 cops. More were immediately called up, but again, that's njot instant coffee. It takes a guard unit a couple of days to mobilize their troops, load up all of their supplies and equipment and take care of the logistical needs that will allow them to both get there and STAY there. They simply can't hop into their HMMWV's and roll into the city without any support. Otherwise all they will have with them is what they can carry in. What will happen when their personal supplies of food and water are exhausted? What happens when their vehicles run out of fuel?
Again, in order to support just 5,000 NG troops within the city, you'd need 25,000 more around the area to support them. They will need fuel tankers. They will need helicopters. They will need food and water and the means to transport it. It is a logistical nightmare. Sadly, and despite best intentions, you simply cannot move a significant number of troops into an area until you have the logistics in place to supply and support them. Otherwise those people you send in become victims themselves.
Do I think there are areas we can improve? You bet. I think we need to have a much better effort in place to evacuate people from such areas to begin with. But I also realize that what's available locally to accomplish such a task is limited. And getting those type of resources into an area with only a day or two's notice at most is problematic. And then you still have the same issues of supplying the people once you evacuate them.
When you have such a large scale disaster as this, it's really almost unfathomable what it requires to relieve the victims of it. For example, to make the move in one trip, it would require 300 of the 50 passenger buses to just evacuate the people who are at the Convention Center. That's 300 buses. There are probably a total of 150,000 or maybe even 200,000 people in the New Orleans region who need to be evacuated out of the area. That's going to require a massive amount of fuel whiuch must be brought in because there's not enough fuel locally to accomplish this and with no power, they have no way to pump it anyway.
Again, this is simply an overwhelming nightmare of a catastrophe. There are no easy answers and there are no easy fixes. And it would have likely overwhelmed the best plan we could put forth. The enormity is simply beyond most people's understanding. I frealize we simply can't do everything we'd like as quickly as we'd like considering the scale and enormity of the task. And I also realize that me getting emotional isn't going to change that.
So I hope that we can keep doing better and better as more and more supplies and equipment roll in. We will be able to get a handle on this situation. But sadly, there was no way we could have ever done that in a matter of just 2 or 3 days. Therefore I am hesistant to place blame on anyone...including the mayor, the governor, the FEMA director or the president considering the nature of the situation. If one looks at this reasonably, I just don't see what more they could do in the recovery effort. We are doing everything humanly possible. Sometimes that's still not enough. So what else can you do?
After this is all over, I hope we sit down and look at this and see if we can learn from it. I hope we can develop strategies that will speed up the logistics process. I hope we can figure out how to better pre-position and move supplies into areas. I hope we can figure out how to more quickly stop looting and rioting. I hope we can find ways to better treat and deal with the sick and injured and evac them. I hope we can have a better means on the local level for maintaining shelters and/or large scale evacuations. But even if we can make improvements in all those areas, if a similar siuation were to happen in 10 years, we would still suffer from many of the same problems simply due to the unimaginable size and scope of the disaster. You have an unlimited amount of problems to deal with and a limited supply of resources to use. So there's no way such a situation can be managed perfectly.
It wouldn't make any difference who's grandma is effected, that would not change the logistics involved in such an operation. We simply don't have the means to move and distribute enough food and water to sustain 500,000 or 1 million people in a few day's time. That's especially true when 80% of a city is underwater and many roads impassible. That's why FEMA has long asked civilians to have a minimum 3 day disaster supply kit on hand that contains enough food and water, medicine and other essential items to sustain themselves for a few days until the logistics can catch up with the demand. It's simply not all on the government's shoulders. We as individuals also have a responsibility to take care of ourselves in the short term. Yet how many do you want to wager had these supplies on hand? We are our own first line of defense. Nature is not human hearted, so we must be prepared across the board....both on the government and individual level.
We must also remember that in triage situations, people are placed in different levels of priority based on need. That's what we faced here. At first, the primary mission was search and rescue, as obviously people trapped in flooded houses in danger of drowing were in a more dire situation than anyone else. They even took priority over the people in the Superdome and Convention Center. That's not say that those places were nice, but at least the people there were not in immediate danger of drowning. For the first couple of days, everything was focused on search and rescue. The helicopters were all busy trying to evacuate people from roofs, therefore there were none available for food drops. We must remember that there was not in an indefinite supply of helicopters in the region to use. So they had to use them for the top priority. The government's first priority was saving lives. After that came sustainment. That's why we saw a more massive effort first geared toward search and rescue, then food shipments. Bringing in food would have done people little good if they weren't alive to eat it. Again, priorities. Many times all the options will suck. So you try to take the route that will suck less and go with it.
As far as supplying all the people, that's again an amazing undertaking. We only had a limited amount of this stuff in the area. So once that initial supply was used, more had to be brought in. That presented many problems. The airport was underwater. So the supplies had to be flown and trucked into staging areas in other places nearby. That required they be loaded from warehouses on the planes and trucks by forklift from areas all over the nation. Then they were brought in. They were trucked into the New Orleans area. Then they were distributed to the areas they could reach. Many roads were under 20 ft of water and impassible. The helicopters were all busy with evacuations. So most of the food went to the places they could reach, such as the Superdome. Again, think of just how many trucks of supplies it would require to be able to maintain a food supply for just the 20,000 people in the Superdome. So it's simply impossible to think that we could have fed everyone in and around the city in the first few days. It was simply logistically impossible feat.
As far as national guard presence on the ground, there was initially a couple thousand and 1500 cops. More were immediately called up, but again, that's njot instant coffee. It takes a guard unit a couple of days to mobilize their troops, load up all of their supplies and equipment and take care of the logistical needs that will allow them to both get there and STAY there. They simply can't hop into their HMMWV's and roll into the city without any support. Otherwise all they will have with them is what they can carry in. What will happen when their personal supplies of food and water are exhausted? What happens when their vehicles run out of fuel?
Again, in order to support just 5,000 NG troops within the city, you'd need 25,000 more around the area to support them. They will need fuel tankers. They will need helicopters. They will need food and water and the means to transport it. It is a logistical nightmare. Sadly, and despite best intentions, you simply cannot move a significant number of troops into an area until you have the logistics in place to supply and support them. Otherwise those people you send in become victims themselves.
Do I think there are areas we can improve? You bet. I think we need to have a much better effort in place to evacuate people from such areas to begin with. But I also realize that what's available locally to accomplish such a task is limited. And getting those type of resources into an area with only a day or two's notice at most is problematic. And then you still have the same issues of supplying the people once you evacuate them.
When you have such a large scale disaster as this, it's really almost unfathomable what it requires to relieve the victims of it. For example, to make the move in one trip, it would require 300 of the 50 passenger buses to just evacuate the people who are at the Convention Center. That's 300 buses. There are probably a total of 150,000 or maybe even 200,000 people in the New Orleans region who need to be evacuated out of the area. That's going to require a massive amount of fuel whiuch must be brought in because there's not enough fuel locally to accomplish this and with no power, they have no way to pump it anyway.
Again, this is simply an overwhelming nightmare of a catastrophe. There are no easy answers and there are no easy fixes. And it would have likely overwhelmed the best plan we could put forth. The enormity is simply beyond most people's understanding. I frealize we simply can't do everything we'd like as quickly as we'd like considering the scale and enormity of the task. And I also realize that me getting emotional isn't going to change that.
So I hope that we can keep doing better and better as more and more supplies and equipment roll in. We will be able to get a handle on this situation. But sadly, there was no way we could have ever done that in a matter of just 2 or 3 days. Therefore I am hesistant to place blame on anyone...including the mayor, the governor, the FEMA director or the president considering the nature of the situation. If one looks at this reasonably, I just don't see what more they could do in the recovery effort. We are doing everything humanly possible. Sometimes that's still not enough. So what else can you do?
After this is all over, I hope we sit down and look at this and see if we can learn from it. I hope we can develop strategies that will speed up the logistics process. I hope we can figure out how to better pre-position and move supplies into areas. I hope we can figure out how to more quickly stop looting and rioting. I hope we can find ways to better treat and deal with the sick and injured and evac them. I hope we can have a better means on the local level for maintaining shelters and/or large scale evacuations. But even if we can make improvements in all those areas, if a similar siuation were to happen in 10 years, we would still suffer from many of the same problems simply due to the unimaginable size and scope of the disaster. You have an unlimited amount of problems to deal with and a limited supply of resources to use. So there's no way such a situation can be managed perfectly.