Why is the US Military not showing force in NO?

[shuan24]

Originally posted by: SarcasticDwarf

Originally posted by: ZippyDan
the question i have is whats taking so long? i dont doubt that the USA both fed and state governments, currently have the resources on hand to deal with the situation effectively, the problem is getting those resources into place

imo, the current situation makes it seem like they did not have a good contingency plan for the aftermath, but i could be wrong. this really annoys me and i would like to know what exactly those in charge were planning for

i dont think overseas commitments had anything to do with the slow response time, i do worry that a lack of planning has resulted in the delays tho

in three areas the government seems to have been very lacking: 1. evacuation, 2. repair, 3. security. of course, its possible that 1 and 2 are being slowed by a lack of 3. but as an example of how repair might trump all other concerns, with the levees such an important part of the defense of New Orleans (and lets face it if the city werent underwater the situation wouldnt be nearly as bad), why were there not plans ALREADY in place to IMMEDIATELY repair any damage to the levees with helicopters or barges (as they are only getting around to now)? it seems to me that if the government had anticipated these situations then action shouldve been taken the next day

so there are two basic possibilities here

1. failure to anticipate need results in unacceptable delays
2. the anticipation and plans were there, but there are unavoidable logistic delays no matter what

i certainly hope 1. was not the case

as a future concern, i wonder how something like this can happen to a 21st century city of the US. certainly i hope NO's new levees will be 4 times higher and 10x stronger along with 100x more pumps that are also more reliable. i mean is there any excuse for this to happen again or am i overestimating our technology? of course im assuming no money will be spared toward making sure this doesnt happen again

~Zippy!

First, security is not a major problem, so stop making it an excuse. Second, you obviously have no concept of what goes in to disaster preperation on the scale we are talking about.

good response there mr. all-high-and-mighty. I like how you refuted his nicely written post by saying "you're an idiot, you don't know anything".

 

[J0hnny]

Man, how do you possibly plan the logistics for an entire city being detroyed? They already ordered a massive evacuation...

 

[SarcasticDwarf]

Originally posted by: ZippyDan

First, security is not a major problem, so stop making it an excuse. Second, you obviously have no concept of what goes in to disaster preperation on the scale we are talking about.

doesnt address my post. what we are seeing now is disaster relief not disaster preparation. why were there not helicopters in the sky with sandbags to plug levee breaches as soon as the storm passed? my lack of knowledge of what went into disaster preparation in this disaster is exactly what i want to alleviate
~Zippy!

The first thing to consider is that money is always a major issue, and that it is also split at two levels. At the national level you have FEMA, which gets the majority of this type of funding. At the state and local levels you have various organizations that while funded, are largely innefective at large scale problems.

FEMA
FEMA, the largest government agency in charge of diaster response is largely effective. You have to realize the scale that FEMA operates on. Over the next few weeks FEMA will coordinate operations in probably two dozen states (mostly moving personell and equipment to Louisiana). They need to plan things before they actually start movement or they risk bogging down the entire effort over some trivial matter. While FEMA has pre-planned almost anything you can think of, the details always have to be worked out. Once FEMA starts operations, a truly massive network of people and goods will start moving (think D-Day). What you need to realize is that FEMA does not provide immediate relief. That is largely left up to the local groups who are near the affected area (for obvious and logical reasons).

Local Groups
The local groups are largely innefective for two reasons. First, they can not operate on the scale that FEMA does. They can target small problems (let's say for example search and rescue operations). Again, for example, they have 1 helicopter. They might be able to thouroughly search (by air, and yes, I am just making up this number) 10 square miles a day assuming there are no rescue operations. Also, there have to be flights constantly over every area as more people need rescuing.

Second, these are local groups. The groups in the immediate vicinity are going to have problems accomplishing their mission. Can all the members of the team make it to the staging facility? Does the staging facility even exist anymore? Does it have supplies so that it can operate independantly for an extended period (water, food, electricity, fuel, bunks, etc)? In a disaster this large, groups from all around the country are going to be needed. Again, because they are local groups, they probably are not prepared to mobolize in a hurry for long range operations. Let's say the group has 1 helicopter, 12 personell, and 3 tons of gear that they will need for 1 week. How will they get to the mission site? Where will they set up base camp? How will they get all their gear there with 1 helicopter and the roads largely non-functional? All these problems need to be coordinated through a central source (in this case, probably FEMA), which will take time.

 

[SarcasticDwarf]

Originally posted by: shuan24

Originally posted by: SarcasticDwarf

Originally posted by: ZippyDan
the question i have is whats taking so long? i dont doubt that the USA both fed and state governments, currently have the resources on hand to deal with the situation effectively, the problem is getting those resources into place

imo, the current situation makes it seem like they did not have a good contingency plan for the aftermath, but i could be wrong. this really annoys me and i would like to know what exactly those in charge were planning for

i dont think overseas commitments had anything to do with the slow response time, i do worry that a lack of planning has resulted in the delays tho

in three areas the government seems to have been very lacking: 1. evacuation, 2. repair, 3. security. of course, its possible that 1 and 2 are being slowed by a lack of 3. but as an example of how repair might trump all other concerns, with the levees such an important part of the defense of New Orleans (and lets face it if the city werent underwater the situation wouldnt be nearly as bad), why were there not plans ALREADY in place to IMMEDIATELY repair any damage to the levees with helicopters or barges (as they are only getting around to now)? it seems to me that if the government had anticipated these situations then action shouldve been taken the next day

so there are two basic possibilities here

1. failure to anticipate need results in unacceptable delays
2. the anticipation and plans were there, but there are unavoidable logistic delays no matter what

i certainly hope 1. was not the case

as a future concern, i wonder how something like this can happen to a 21st century city of the US. certainly i hope NO's new levees will be 4 times higher and 10x stronger along with 100x more pumps that are also more reliable. i mean is there any excuse for this to happen again or am i overestimating our technology? of course im assuming no money will be spared toward making sure this doesnt happen again

~Zippy!

First, security is not a major problem, so stop making it an excuse. Second, you obviously have no concept of what goes in to disaster preperation on the scale we are talking about.

good response there mr. all-high-and-mighty. I like how you refuted his nicely written post by saying "you're an idiot, you don't know anything".

See above post, I am trying to explain.

 

[ZippyDan]

good response sarcastic dwarf, but allow me to focus on the timely plugging of levee breaches as ive already mentioned several times. a structural defense like this is the responsibility of the city, the state, and the federal government in my opinion (as we've already seen by the mayor, governor, army corp engineers, and coast guard working together on this ultra important problem). the original plan as i remember, which seemed to have only been conceived after the breaches occured, was to use Coast Guard helicopters (black hawk variants?) to drop sandbags into the breach. this plan was delayed even more due to mismanagement and i think was actually put in place today with some breaches being sealed. what exactly is the excuse for this delay? this shouldve been a top priority with a taskforce for levee breaches ready to go with personnel equipment and materials BEFORE the hurricane hit

to me, the levees or walls of the city, are the most important item upon which everything else turned. if the planning failed on such a key item, it gives me little faith on what kind of preplanning went into the rest of the disaster relief concerns.

edit: rofl "including the now-infamous remark that no one could have foreseen the levee breaking." http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1100564,00.html?cnn=yes

~Zippy!

 

[SarcasticDwarf]

Originally posted by: ZippyDan
good response sarcastic dwarf, but allow me to focus on the timely plugging of levee breaches as ive already mentioned several times. a structural defense like this is the responsibility of the city, the state, and the federal government in my opinion (as we've already seen by the mayor, governor, army corp engineers, and coast guard working together on this ultra important problem). the original plan as i remember, which seemed to have only been conceived after the breaches occured, was to use Coast Guard helicopters (black hawk variants?) to drop sandbags into the breach. this plan was delayed even more due to mismanagement and i think was actually put in place today with some breaches being sealed. what exactly is the excuse for this delay? this shouldve been a top priority with a taskforce for levee breaches ready to go with personnel equipment and materials BEFORE the hurricane hit

to me, the levees or walls of the city, are the most important item upon which everything else turned. if the planning failed on such a key item, it gives me little faith on what kind of preplanning went into the rest of the disaster relief concerns.

~Zippy!

That would be something that is the responsiblity of the city of New Orleans, and I have no idea how they work.

 

[Electric Amish]

Originally posted by: halik
theyre all in iraq?
<- runs away

QFT

 

[CraKaJaX]

Originally posted by: AdamSnow
There's a reason that I'm not in charge down there...

Anyone with a gun or causing trouble would be shot.

Loving it :thumbsup:

 

[OrByte]

You guys really wanna know whats gonna happen?

its gonna be "Escape from New Orleans" instead of "Escape from New York"

we need Snake Pliskin STAT.

 

[frodrick]

Originally posted by: AdamSnow
There's a reason that I'm not in charge down there...

Anyone with a gun or causing trouble would be shot.

that's a great idea. shoot everyone with a gun. with your gun. start with yourself please. don't worry, we'll take care of the rest of them.