Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
It happened with both Katrina (from what I read) and Andrew (from firsthand experience).
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/05/na...l/05blame.html
"We wanted soldiers, helicopters, food and water," said Denise Bottcher, press secretary for Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana. "They wanted to negotiate an organizational chart."
..
When Wal-Mart sent three trailer trucks loaded with water, FEMA officials turned them away, he said. Agency workers prevented the Coast Guard from delivering 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel, and on Saturday they cut the parish's emergency communications line, leading the sheriff to restore it and post armed guards to protect it from FEMA, Mr. Broussard said."
Blanco would not activate the LA National Guard until the second day in. She also did not declare a state of emergency until well into the storm. Once FEMA comes in operational control passes from the state to the on site coordinator for FEMA. That could be military or civilian, it depends. That person then coordinates with both FEMA assets and the state/local emergency operations. That's what the chart is for. It's really dumb for locals to push back on that, by the way. It's done that way so locals don't muck things up by taking care of their buddies first, which has happened. In MD it's MEMA that coordinates with FEMA and that filters down to the Counties or other locals.
I don't know if anyone has noticed or if it's happening elsewhere, but Governors are getting quicker to go to alert status. We went to a MD Level 3 (out of 4, 5 is state of emergency) a couple days ago because of predictions of coastal flooding from winds and heavy rains.
Do you have confidence in U.S. disaster preparedness?
Though I'm not overly pessimistic in thinking we are completely unprepared for such things, our preparedness could nonetheless use a considerable amount of improvement for "just in case" scenarios. Each region of the country has its particular risks that need to be hedged, in some (many, actually) flooding is an issue, in others its earthquakes, tornados, hurricanes, as well as power outages and extreme snowfalls that can prove disruptive.
My reservation and skepticism is that I sense a lot of people look first towards government as the primary means of preparedness, rather than looking in their own pantry and garages (combined with enhancing their set of skills and knowledge which is necessary for such situations). Whether that is true, or not, remains to be seen. But if it were true, one might expect to see a whole lot more people actively participating on the preparedness discussion type forums.
I'm sure the governments preparedness plans and resources could be better, but for as much criticism as government gets, I still think they have made a far better concerted effort than the average person has to put things in order in their own home, for times of exigency. And that lack of foresight will be to their detriment and great regret, should that exigency ever visit upon them. People rarely think such natural disaster misfortune will visit them, which I think is why many eschew the idea of "preparedness," and don't keep a fair amount of supplies on hand that can hold them over for a few days, weeks, or longer.
I am curious what percentage of persons believe government should be the "first line of defense," versus those that think in terms of how they must be the first line of defense, and if government or other organizations can be there as a back-up, then perhaps that is just an ancillary benefit.
Christ you guys don't learn **** no matter how many times something hits you in the face.
Try to follow along now:
FEMA IS NOT A FIRST RESPONDER, more like fourth.
Water, food, and other emergency supplies are the responsibility of the local authorities. As is evacuation and immediate sheltering planning. In MD that's the Counties, and some municipalities, and then the State. Other states have different flow charts but FEMA is always way downstream. That is the way it was set up.
FEMA can't even respond in the 4th level until REQUESTED by a state's Governor or his declaration of a state of emergency.
Not allowing outsiders into a disaster area, no matter what they "say" they are carrying or doing is standard operating procedure. A couple reasons: one is to not allow anybody else into a disaster area who may or may not know what they're doing. Sort of the "dumbass factor". The other reason is to curtail the possibilities of looting, which, guess what, happens when you leave outsiders in.
This is true. The balance is sometimes the outsiders filled up some vans with food and will be there before anyone else. This happened in Katrina. While New Orleans was the focus, the gulf towns, hit just as hard, were getting no attention. The "outsiders" were the ones who stopped. One of the MSNBC ancors, Scarborough I believe, called his wife in Florida and a group of churches did their own food and relief drive for that area. Nobody had been seen and nobody had stopped. FEMA is so mired in layers of beaurocracy that it takes forever for it to load the trucks.
If I was still living in socal I'd be watching Japan with great trepidation. That is socal when the San Andreas hits, and its predicted in the next 20 years. Water lines will break, no power, roads buckled often no way to get in. If it goes big there will be a lot of collapsed buildings as well, or those standing but structurally damaged where they could go in an aftershock. If I was there I wouldn't be expecing FEMA or the state any time soon simply because roads will be in such poor condition getting in may be hard. The state is telling people to have *at least* three days of survival food and water and shelter since they would not be able to get there before that. They reccomend longer since in all likelyhood its more like a week or more. Of course, when the watermain broke again at my apartment I loaned my neighbor a gallon of water since they were ripping up the sidewalk and parking lot to fix it and the water would be off until evening. She had two tiny little bottles.
A big part of the coming disastor is going to be squarely on peoples heads since they have been warned and choose not to do anything about it.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
