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Padriag -> RE: Military response to National Emergency (9/1/2005 10:22:38 PM)
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I didn't take your remarks as criticism Luvdragon, and a lot of what I said was really just for anyone trying to comprehend the sheer scale of this disaster. Comparing this to the earthquake in Kobe just doesn't work. Kobe was one city... this disaster affects a huge area large than the island of Honshu, which is the main island of Japan. Not only is the area bigger, about 2/3 to 3/4 of the people were evacuated out prior. If you want to compare New Orleans to Kobe the you have factor in this.... imagine Honshu has been evacuated of as much people and manpower, including many of the medical workers, government, etc that would normally be able to step in and help... not just for the city of Kobe, but for the majority of Japan. Now imagine almost the entire city is under 4 to 16 feet of water, thats 1.22 to 4.88 meters of water for those using metric. You can't just start bulldozing rubble and drive ambulances in (as they did in Kobe)... there's no way to drive in to most of the affected area. In the case of New Orleans there is only one main road open and they are limiting traffic on that due to concerns about structural damage to some parts of it. On that one road, all the relief supplies and personnel have to come, and all the evacuee's have to be bused out. Add to that that there is no electricity over that entire area, water is out in most of area as well, radio and cell phone towers are down, so if you are there you are isolated, trapped by water and have no way to call for help, no way to let the people who want to help you know you are there. For those searching, they have to rely on helicopters and fishing boats going methodically from building to building trying to find people. Not everyone is sitting on a roof waiting, some are trapped in attics and they have to search these because these people do care an they don't want to leave anyone behind.
BTW, keep this in mind about those helicopters. There are, last I heard, 160 helicopters now operating around New Orleans alone. There is no air traffic controller, no ground radar, no tracking. Those helicopters are flying in tight air space and having to keep track of each other through sight and radio alone. The fact they they are doing as much as they are with no accidents is a testament to the skill of those pilots. Don't doubt for one moment that those pilots and their crews are putting their lives at risk to help others, with that many helicopters moving around with no air control, it could get real dangerous real fast.
I saw on the news someone asking why they can't air drop supplies in to New Orleans like they have in Iraq. Well, its a little more complicated than that. Most of New Orleans is under 4-16 feet of water, it won't do anyone much good to drop food and water into that. So there is the problem of where to drop it. They have been bringing it in by air to the superdome, but other parts aren't so easy. You've got people trapped on bridges and roof tops and crowded together. You can't drop a big pallet to them because you'd risk it landing on top of the people you're trying to help an killing them. They have been making small drops from helicopters where they can, but again, keep in mind the air space problem I mentioned above and the amount of time it takes to try an get things to all these isolated groups of people... once they find them. Its easy to drop big pallets of supplies in an open desert where you can see for miles around... not so easy in a flooded city.
I'm not sure when they will arrive, probably very soon, but the 7 or 8 ships dispatched by the Navy probably have most of those troops an supplies you're looking for. I don't know if you know much about them, I got curious an looked up some info. One of the ships is a cargo lander, its designed and equipped specifically for landing cargo and supplies in areas where there are not docks, or places where the docks have been destroyed or on beaches. That ship will have amphibious craft, boats and even hover craft that can get in there and move a lot of supplies and people quickly. Two other ships carry more helicopters and also have the air control ability to track them and coordinate them more safely. There is also a hospital ship whose importance should be self explanatory. Given that Chertoff announced today that they intend to have most if not all of the people out of New Orleans by the end of tomorrow, they must have something big planned. So my guess is, an its just an educated guess, is that those ships may arrive tonight or early tomorrow morning an launch a massive effort.
It does take time to deploy, people don't always realize that. Part of it is because the US is just such a big place... its over 3000 miles from coast to coast. We drive from state to state, in Europe you'd be in entirely different countries. Those ships had to be loaded with the needed supplies and then had to sail from Norfolk, VA all the way down the east coast, around Florida a then back up into Gulf. An once in the gulf they have to keep an eye on floating oil platforms that may not be where they are supposed to. That takes a couple days just in sail time at about 35 to 40 knots. So given they left Tuesday I think, yeah, they're about due shortly I would think. Would be nice if this was Star Trek an we could just beam people out or stuff in where it was needed, but in the real world it takes a lot more time and planning to move stuff from point A to point B.
Kobe, Japan was one city that had the resources of nearby cities to help. Yet weeks after the quake they were still rescuing people. New Orleans is isolated by flooding and a huge area of devastation with most of the surrounding people having been evacuated, with no power or water and only one main land route in or out. It has had four days of relief effort and some 25,000+ people have already been evacuated out. By tomorrow most if not all the rest may also be out. I wouldn't call that a failure... I've done disaster relief work, under the circumstances I'd call it a fraggin miracle.
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