So over a thousand firefighters answered the call from FEMA to come help out in the wake of the New Orleans disaster.
And by "help", I mean be public relations flunkies for FEMA's braindead response.
Some of them, perhaps, didn't read the fine print. The call for people did after all say it was going to be for public relations.
Some of them might be excused since they were told to prepare for austere conditions, and to bring with them military-style MRE (Meals Ready-to-Eat) rations. So you would excuse them for thinking "hmm, I'm going to be in the field eating out of a plastic bag," and not "I'm going to be living in a shelter with access to the same food and facilities as the refugees have."
Some of them hoped beyond hope that FEMA would see the error of their ways. After all, when 1000+ HazMat, Search-and-Rescue, etc., etc., trained personnel showed up, FEMA would have to realize that the best use of this resource was to put them in the field saving fucking lives and not to (and I'm not making this up, it's in the article) have them spend an entire day in sexual harassment training.
But, regardless of how much blame you can point at the firefighters who misunderstood the call for help, you can point a thousand-fold more blame at FEMA who -- despite hearing the calls of help from the dying people -- chose to squander a precious resource... yet again.
Yeah, that was a totally incompetent and braindead move, seeing as how the phone service was knocked out by Katrina and we had trained and ready personnel sitting in a stupid "community relations" training class.
The only thing that hasn't been addressed in this story was if the firefighters had access to transportation since swimming/boating across a 20 foot storm surged Lake Ponchatrain would have been suicidal. Even on Monday, we didn't know what was going on in the field, what roads were usable, etc...
If *news crews* can get into the area (as happened for every major news network), firefighters can get in.
Different needs for "firefighters" and "news crews". Firefighters need decent boats that can pull people in (instead of Sean Penn's dingy).
News crews were walking around on Tuesday, started boating around on Wednesday from what I remember. I've also heard those crews had armed bodyguards from Blackwater Security which meant they could travel around with minimal problems, unlike the first responders.
FEMA could have easily obtained "security" for the first responders in the form of "military personnel" if they'd *wanted* to do so.
I would argue as well, though, that a news-crew, loaded for bear and a long stay, brings as much poundage of equipment and supplies with it as a group of first responders does. Typical fire-fighter gear is around 100 pounds of weight all told. Between cameras, batteries, satellite uplinks, etc., etc., you're pushing into the same weight range.
Military personnel aren't the "best" security since they tend to aim/shoot first and ask questions later. Think about it, a couple of guys out of Fort Bragg armed with M-16s pointing guns at people to have them get into the boat. ;-)
But don't get me wrong, there are so many things that went wrong with this evac/rescue that I know personally that make it a joke. But to lay the whole thing at the feet of "FEMA" is short-sighted, the state and local people who are supposed to put these plans together didn't.
If anything, there will be a national disaster plan put into place now, something more than what is on paper now. We're probably going to end up building national evac centers and we're going to start seeing emergency food/water to start being prepositioned across the country.
You mean plan like we alledgely had in place following 9/11? The plan announced in late 2001 that addressed a major chemical weapons attack, biological weapons attack, or natural disaster?
The whole point, B, is that this Administration doesn't plan for shit. They know PR, and that's all they know. They are incompetent to the core when it comes to actually running the government.