A lot of people are saying various agencies were dragging their feet.

So what should they have done differently? And don't just say "get there faster with a bunch of food.

Let's say you want to fly in there with a helicopter. First off, a civilian helicopter only has a payload capacity of ~ 500 pds., right? So that is about 80 gallons of water.

So let's say you use a coast guard or army helicopter:

1). If it's a federal military machine, you'll need permission from the governor of Louisianna, do to all the "state sovreignty" clauses in the constitution, and posse commitatus language in the constitution, the feds CAN'T send in military personnel w/o the governor of Louisiana. Which the governor (a democrat) refused to give for 2 days after landfall . . .

2.) Now, you've got to find a helicopter that wasn't damaged by Katrina herself.

3.) A helicopter drinks what, a couple of gallons of #1 grade aviation fuel minute? So find some, and then pay for it. Do you have a federal checkbook or bank-card? neither do I.

4.) Before ANY helicopter gets in the air, you'll need a mechanic crew to check it out. Any helicopter crews in Kenner, Louisiana? What about parts? It's not like you can pick up a main rotor assembly at autozone.

5.) With the Nawlins airport evacuated, there's no air traffic authority. Or radar network, since Katrina knocked out power. How will you keep from being hit by the CNN camera helicopter.

6.) You cannot get a helicopter within about 100 ft. of power lines, since the force of the wind will whip the lines off the pole and into your rotor. Without a ground crew, you can't set up a Landing Zone. And powerlines are invisible from a few hundred feet up, so you wouldn't even know you were about to crash.

7.) You'll need a hotel or something for the mechanic, flight, and fueling crews to stay at, plus radio personnel. Plus, someone call the NTSB (national transportation safety board) and tell them our flight path, and that we'll be flying without radio/radar support. You cannot call from your base in Baton rouge, since the phones are dead. Hey, someone drive up to Bosier City and call the NTSB. 2 Hours later: Oops, the line is busy . . .

8.) The crews will need to be paid, since they have car payments just like everybody else. If they are from LA or MS, they are probably still trapped in their attic. Who will pay? If you want Billy Bob's fuel company to DONATE fuel, I'm sure you'll need to get on the phone with him, as well. Please hold. You're call is important to you, and you will be connected to the next available representative. . .

9.) Every resource you try to get, whether it's helicopter parts or aviation fuel, is being fought over by the redcross, the sal army, the governors of LA and MS. So everyone else is doing EXACTLY the same thing in the same order, and getting in your way.

10.) When people ask you why the h*** you haven't done anything, blame someone else. Rinse and repeat.

The first thing that should have been done was for those people to heed the official warning and evacuate BEFORE the storm. I know for a fact that MOST of those people had the ability to evacuate before the storm. Why didn't they heed the official warnings? These people are now in this dire position because of THEIR decision NOT to leave New Orleans as they were instructed to do by officials. Now the rest of the country is left to cleaning up the mess of this human tragedy because of their IDIOCY!!

I guess the Lousiana Governor's Emergency Management plan was "call the Governor of Texas!"

Funny. A lot of people blaming Bush on ATS. But no one has a comment on what "SHOULD" have been done better.

Figures.

Originally posted by dr_strangecraft
Funny. A lot of people blaming Bush on ATS. But no one has a comment on what "SHOULD" have been done better.

If I were the head of FEMA or the president or any one of a number of people whose job it is to take of the people of this country, especially in the event of an emergency, I would have a plan. It's not my job or your job or anyone's job on ATS to have formulated a plan and have the system in place to respond swiftly and effectively to an emergency such as a hurricane.

If the people whose job it is to respond in such a situation either cannot do their job or neglect it, then they need to be fired and replaced.

As a trained professional, there are many situations I could respond to very competently, but I have not been trained in emergency response, nor do I have the education and power to even formulate a plan to do so. I had been working on the assumption that FEMA was an Agency that had such training and power to Manage an Emergency on a Federal level.

So, the fact that an untrained person or someone trained in an altogether different field doesn't have a plan or an answer as to how to deal with a category 5 hurricane and its effects, is no pat on the back to FEMA or the president! They're supposed to be the ones who know and have the power. They do this for a living. That's what their job is! To take care of the people of this country.

You give me the training and the power that FEMA and the presidency have and we'll do this all over again and see how well I do. I PROMISE you, I'll do a hell of a lot better.

I notice you didn't say what you would have done, just made a bunch of excuses for why it was such a clusterbust.

Originally posted by Freedom_for_sum
The first thing that should have been done was for those people to heed the official warning and evacuate BEFORE the storm. I know for a fact that MOST of those people had the ability to evacuate before the storm. Why didn't they heed the official warnings? These people are now in this dire position because of THEIR decision NOT to leave New Orleans as they were instructed to do by officials. Now the rest of the country is left to cleaning up the mess of this human tragedy because of their IDIOCY!!

And you know this how? FYI a third of the population there doesn't even own a vehicle. Airports closed before everyone could be evacuated. Some people tried to evacuate but after long waits in line to get out, they turned around and came home.

Last year, when we were told to evacuate for Ivan, the average time to get from Belle Chasse to the twin span was seven hours. I know, because I was there. We were told that Ivan was the big one and when it didn't hit, many folks felt that the evac was a waste of time and money. Alot felt that Katrina would be another Ivan.

This happened at the end of the month when most of those people who are living pacheck-to-paycheck were broke. Those going to the superdome were told that there were no supplies, bring your own. Many chose to stay home after witnessing the lines there. Everyone from those who chose to stay up to POTUS were ill prepared for this level of devastaion.

Unless you know each and everyone of these people personnally, you can't possibly know what abilities they had.

There was no way to fully plan for the hurricane. There were also people who said they didnt think it would be that bad. My immediate thought, was, and i quote, "El Stupido!" then i thought, the minute you heard CATAGORY 4 or 5, that should mean something. and there should be a couple helo pilots that coulda said, to hell with state soverignty, and took matter into their own hands.

Also, i think some civilian agencies use chinooks

Originally posted by dr_strangecraft

I guess the Lousiana Governor's Emergency Management plan was "call the Governor of Texas!"

Funny. A lot of people blaming Bush on ATS. But no one has a comment on what "SHOULD" have been done better.

Figures.

Glad more then just me alone have realized this is going on. I have asked the same question over over. The question was what would you have done that the president did not. The response I received was it does not warrant a answer when I asked the OP why there was no response. Yet I was told I was in denial

The only ones in denial are those that are against the current administration and granted even they may have made some mistakes but the majority of the fault lies with the state and city governments in NO and LA.

Now what would I have done.

1. Once I called a state of emergency, I would have called for an immediate evacuation of NO, And you can bet you biffy, I would have mobilized any and all public and private transportation to make darn sure all could have been evacuated by all means possible. You can also bet your biffy I would have sure that every vehicle leaving the city was full even if they were privately owned, I would have stopped a vehicle with two people that had room for more and filled it, then made it leave.

2. While the evacuation was underway I would have taken immediate steps to make sure that in the event something went wrong during the process of evacuation, I would have had emergency personnel stocking the last resort shelters with food, water and emergency medical supplies especially insulin.

Now I am sure even my proposed methods may not have been a 100% solution but I know darn well the people could have seen, I meant business and did not intend for anyone to be left behind.



[edit on 9/3/2005 by shots]

Am I the only one who can't get this to play?

A helicopter drinks what, a couple of gallons of #1 grade aviation fuel minute? So find some, and then pay for it. Do you have a federal checkbook or bank-card? neither do I.

4.) Before ANY helicopter gets in the air, you'll need a mechanic crew to check it out. Any helicopter crews in Kenner, Louisiana? What about parts? It's not like you can pick up a main rotor assembly at autozone.

I hate to nitpick but any base that has helicopters also has the neccessary fuel parts and groundcrew to get a helicopter into the air. There will be no scrambling for federal checkbooks or bank-cards. I mean come on when was the last time you saw someone refilling their helicopter at the local gas station. Getting helicopters in to the air is not the big drama isue your making it out to be.

Originally posted by boogyman

A helicopter drinks what, a couple of gallons of #1 grade aviation fuel minute? So find some, and then pay for it. Do you have a federal checkbook or bank-card? neither do I.

4.) Before ANY helicopter gets in the air, you'll need a mechanic crew to check it out. Any helicopter crews in Kenner, Louisiana? What about parts? It's not like you can pick up a main rotor assembly at autozone.

I hate to nitpick but any base that has helicopters also has the neccessary fuel parts and groundcrew to get a helicopter into the air. There will be no scrambling for federal checkbooks or bank-cards. I mean come on when was the last time you saw someone refilling their helicopter at the local gas station. Getting helicopters in to the air is not the big drama isue your making it out to be.

Quite possibly, since I've never worked around them.

But I think they ARE pretty expensive. And if you're a pilot, you probably need permission to TAKE it from your boss.

I DO believe it is accurate to say that helicopters (at least military size) are supposed to be checked by a multi-person ground crew before getting airborne.

My point is that copters operate from a BASE. Unless there is an (unharmed) base within distance of NO, then you'd have to move not only pilots and helicopters but groundcrew as well when you set up shop in a new area.

I DO have some knowledge of setting up landing zones for emergency evac helicopters; I've seen one crash after a horrific hailstorm when a power line was down, and got sucked into the rotor . . . .

1) Restore COMMUNICATION!! Develope a plan today for the next time. The authorities (or what was left of them) should have a means to get the information out. NOT ONLY what is immediatley needed, but most importantly what resources are available. For instance: For the first 2 days the airport was supposedly utterly destroyed and nothing was salvagable, which proved to be false. So, you have people with the helicopters in other regions believing their was no place near or ajdacent to the devastation to make-shift a base of operations on scene.
Communication breakdown, or lack of coordination with remaining authorities with sufficient empathy is why the speed of relief was insufficient and subsiquently added a lot of deaths to the death tolls, because of lack of communication.

Communication is salvation. Communication is hope. Communication is a necessary prerequisite to any response. Now, imagine an area the size of Ohio and Michigan without communications. That was the first neglect made after the hurricane made landfall.

because some people may think: "No news is good news"

99% of all communication was supplied by the press for the first 3 to 4 days. Communicating the needs of many to the government.

Also, lets not merely be backseat quarterbacks here.

To prove that communication was not sufficient, even ATS tried to moderate conversations about this to 1 thread last Wed. I return to a computer on Sunday to find an entire FORUM!!!!!

Here's my response for how to improvize response to Katrina. It was largely invented by me and my Dad over the internet the day Katrina landed:

A. Reducing the scope.
Get someone with a radio to drive toward NO on each highway that leads into the city. Find out how close to the city where there are passable roads in both directions. At that spot. You set up a checkpoint. A couple of miles back, on the inbound side of the road, you set up a supply depot. One the outbound side, you set up a refugee processing center. This way, you end up with a ring of supply spots on every road that leads into the disaster area. As local road & bridge crews clear the road, the checkpoints can be moved further in, while the depots remain in place.

B. Marshalling supply and demand.
Somebody at Headquarters gets a big dry erase board. On the left hand column, write "GIVE." On the right-hand side, write "TAKE." Every offer of donations goes in the give column. Every thing a response crew says they need goes in the "TAKE" column. Every time a FEMA worker matches a GIVE with a TAKE, they get a star on their permanent record. As quickly as possible, you subdivide the big board, into separate boards of "FOOD/WATER," "CLOTHING," "FUEL," "COMMUNICATIONS GEAR" etc. When you can, you put it on computers, with an internet hookup between stations, and a fleet of trucks to drive around the ring of checkpoints around the disaster area, making sure that one depot doesn't have all the water, while another has nothing but shovels.

C. Build an emergency port.
Get someone in the gulf (coastguard?) to take a boat as far north into the flooded downtown NO and Biloxi as possible. Build a temporary pier there, and start ferrying goods in and people out via the Gulf of Mexico. We discussed getting a carnival cruise ship in to ferry people out to TX and FLA., but that might not have worked.

D. From the air.
Cordon off a safe area from looting. Guard it, and then set up an airstrip as close to the city as possible. You need air traffic control so that you don't have helicopters hitting each other.

E. Interview the needy.
Talk to people leaving the area. Find out what they needed, what they didn't get, what they need now. Walmart and a lot of superstores use "Just in time" inventory, where they catalogue every item in the store. Couldn't you do this with donated clothing???

D. Disperse the needy.
Set up shelters in each and every one of the contiguous US states. This way they don't burden a few surrounding communities. Unless people want a job bailing water out of New Orleans, encourage them to consider moving elsewhere.

Any comments?

DID fema try any of these??