Thursday, September 01, 2005

Here's a little bit of good news - not government related, of course.

Here is a story of a 20 year-old young man who commandeered a school bus at the direction of New Orleans policemen, picked up the people he could, and drove them to the Astro-Dome in Houston. A 13 hour drive, with three stops for fuel and diapers for which the passengers had to chip in. From the Houston Chronicle.

Where is the disaster command operations center? FEMA or the LA National Guard should have had one set up outside New Orleans as soon as the eye of the hurricane had passed the coast line.

Who is responsible for establishing communications? The American Radio Relay League (Ham radio operators) was apparently as unprepared as the government was. FEMA should have had a plan for using those people and should have had a database of trained and qualified people. They are gathering that data right now, but telling their members it is too dangerous to go the Gulf Coast on their own.

Who is responsible for preparing public communications? Refugee control? These things were not planned and are not being coordinated.

FEMA and the entire Federal Government have FAILED! They may be scrambling as rapidly as possible to pick up the pieces now, but they were not prepared!

This wasn't rocket science. It was just good government. That's what we are not seeing any of. There has been no example of good government!

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