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06-24-2009 07:47 PM |
A Couple Katrina Anecdotes
Quote:
Posted by Guest
(Post 211068)
That's incorrect. The fed cannot usurp the local authorities who - at the city, parish and state level - totally dropped the ball and didn't give the fed the necessary authorizations...
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Absolutley correct, Steve. A couple of anecdotes from Katrina...
-- Our former Congressman in Illinois, Mark Kirk, is also a Captain in the USNR and was on duty at the Pentagon as Katrina was hitting New Orleans. Whatever unit or office he was with had something to do with the federal response. He told me that they sat for hours, asking themselves why th Mayor or the Governor were taking so long to make the evacuation mandatory, open all six lanes of the interstate to outbound traffic, or request federal or military assistance. The people in the Pentagon couldn't tell them what to do; in fact he said that they couldn't even get thru to them on their cell phones. Rather they had to wait until they were asked for help--and it was days before they ever got a request from the locals. He described Mayor Nagin as "one of the most incompetent public officials" he'd ever encountered.
-- A group of EMS technicians from the South Bend, Indiana area, recognizing that they would be needed, loaded up four fire trucks with first aid equipment, water, food, etc. and headed for New Orleans. When they got there, they were not permitted to enter the city. The local police and fire department told them that everything was under control and that they weren't needed. After four days of sitting outside of town, they turned around and headed back to South Bend.
-- A group of doctors and nurses from the Pacific Northwest loaded up lots of medical supplies and flew to New Orleans at their own expense. On their arrival, they were told that they couldn't practice medicine in Louisiana until they had obtained the proper state licenses. No one volunteered to assist them in getting the necessary documentation, so after five days they headed back to Seattle, never having treated even one person.
-- The Lake County Illinois police helicopter detachment took off with three helicopters, pilots, mechanics and EMS personnel just as Katrina was hitting New Orleans. Many of the rescues that you saw on TV were performed by this group. They reported flying the 'copters almost 24 hours a days for three days and rescued almost 1,000 people. When asked a few weeks later how they were able to get involved in the rescue effort when so many other volunteers were turned away they answered, "We never asked anyone. We just flew in and began picking people up."
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