According to Jack Kelly, a writer for the Post Gazette, the Federal response to Katrina was not as portrayed.
“Mr. Bush’s performance last week will rank as one of the worst ever during a dire national emergency,” wrote New York Times columnist Bob Herbert in a somewhat more strident expression of the conventional wisdom.
And it seems that Florida Army National Guardsman Jason van Steenwyk shares that opinion:
Jason van Steenwyk is a Florida Army National Guardsman who has been mobilized six times for hurricane relief. He notes that:
“The federal government pretty much met its standard time lines, but the volume of support provided during the 72-96 hour was unprecedented. The federal response here was faster than Hugo, faster than Andrew, faster than Iniki, faster than Francine and Jeanne.”
For instance, it took five days for National Guard troops to arrive in strength on the scene in Homestead, Fla. after Hurricane Andrew hit in 1992. But after Katrina, there was a significant National Guard presence in the afflicted region in three.
Journalists who are long on opinions and short on knowledge have no idea what is involved in moving hundreds of tons of relief supplies into an area the size of England in which power lines are down, telecommunications are out, no gasoline is available, bridges are damaged, roads and airports are covered with debris, and apparently have little interest in finding out.
So they libel as a “national disgrace” the most monumental and successful disaster relief operation in world history.
Van Steenwyk calls the relief efforts after Katrina the most successful disaster releif operation in the world. How could that be? Nearly every television news station has said the same thing—that the Bush adminstration is to blame for a slow, feeble response to hurricane Katrina’s devastation to New Orleans’ and other Gulf Coast areas like Gulfport and Biloxi, among others. Kany West, Chris Rock, and Howard Dean have all said that President Bush hates black people, Celine Dion approved of the looting and lawlessness that went on in New Orleans, Democratic senator Mary Landreau wanted to attack the President and called him names and pointed the finger repeatedly at him and the Administration for causing deaths in New Orleans and on and on it goes. Sheer lunacy.
And yet, all relief efforts could do is this:
- More than 32,000 people have been rescued, many plucked from rooftops by Coast Guard helicopters.
- The Army Corps of Engineers has all but repaired the breaches and begun pumping water out of New Orleans.
- Shelter, food and medical care have been provided to more than 180,000 refugees.
And yet, the media still complains that nothing is going well, it’s taking forever to get things done.
Moltenthought blog offers the media hounds some solid advice and a fanny-spankin’. Oh, this is good.