Desperate city

[Shorin Ryuu]

What exactly is the relevance of your question?

 

[Makalakumu]

If no troops have been withdrawn, then there must have been a rather large rotation and replacement of troops with active duty and reservists.

 

[Shorin Ryuu]

You're really going to have to be more specific.

"If no troops have been withdrawn" meaning if troops levels were not reduced

"then there must have been a rather large rotation and replacement of troops with active duty and reservists"

Rotation of who to where? Replacement of national guard troops with active duty? What?

I'm literally having trouble following your statements. You began by stating way back in the beginning that majority (very close) of the national guard was stationed overseas. Having had your statement rebutted, you are now saying this. You have to be more clear, as I'm unsure what it is you are referring to.

 

[Makalakumu]

Speaking plainly, I would like to see independent verification that the National Guard actually said what your source says it said. Govpro is the official government site that reports on these things and your source is making a claim that contradicts theirs. So, unless troop levels have been reduced, or there has been some massive rotation and replacement of guardsmen, I would say that your source's assertions are unsubstantiated...

 

[arnisador]

Building below sea level, near the sea, is always a risk.

Everyone talks about the National Guard--do they have a (nonfederal) state guard there too? Indiana does, I know.

 

[Shorin Ryuu]

Speaking plainly, I would like to see independent verification that the National Guard actually said what your source says it said. Govpro is the official government site that reports on these things and your source is making a claim that contradicts theirs. So, unless troop levels have been reduced, or there has been some massive rotation and replacement of guardsmen, I would say that your source's assertions are unsubstantiated...

Gotcha. I will go find a source when I have the time, then. I can't promise it right away...I just felt it was more credible being about a year and a half more current.

 

[Tgace]

http://www.ngb.army.mil/onguard/33/04/article.asp?aid=1029

This is from the National Guard Bureau itself...I think this is the source of the 25% number.


http://www.ngb.army.mil/news/2004/02/NationalGovernorsSpeech22Feb04.doc

In the folder before you is a one-page paper depicting the employment of your National Guard. It is a snapshot of the percentage of your force that is presently deployed. The numbers vary daily by state and have ranged as high as 75% of one state's National Guard being deployed. Governors and Adjutants General have told me this is unacceptable. Nationally, today, approximately 25% of the National Guard is called to duty as part of the global war on terrorism.

 

[Shorin Ryuu]

That statement linked by the poster above is old, but it still applies according to the latest figures:
http://www.ngb.army.mil/news/story.asp?id=1598

This is one released in May this year. Essentially, it still states that 25% of the guard is deployed.

The Air National Guard finished April with 106,063 airmen assigned as compared with 106,020 in March marking the first month-to-month increase since the federal fiscal year began on Oct. 1, 2004. The April figure is 99.4 percent of the Air Guard’s overall strength goal of 106,700 for the current fiscal year, which will end Sept. 30.

The Army National Guard finished April with 331,019 soldiers in its ranks, or 94.5 percent of its fiscal year goal of 350,000. The April numbers put the service at 97 percent of the 342,180 soldiers it had hoped to have by the end of last month. Still, April was the second-best recruiting month of the current year, coming behind March, and better than the number of new recruits who joined in April 2004.

 

[Makalakumu]

Then where did the 42% figure come from that was released by govpro? Otherwise, I concede the point.

 

[KenpoEMT]

Oh, great. Go ahead and quote the mayor who completely dropped the ball in an article which looks like a study case for media bias. You do remember that it was Bush who announced a state of emergency on 26 August for Louisiana, starting the process for aid, and had to personally call for full evacuation of the city on 28 August because the mayor was delaying, right?

Yes, I do remember. That doesn't mean that I am going to put my fingers in my ears when the Mayor of New Orleans speaks to the media.

More than 19,500 National Guard Soldiers were on duty to assist with the hurricane recovery in Louisiana and Mississippi as of Sept. 2, according to a Guard Bureau spokesman, with thousands more en route from across the nation expected to arrive this weekend.
http://www4.army.mil/ocpa/read.php?story_id_key=7839

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/03/bush.radio.katrina.ap/index.html
Bush said 4,000 active duty troops are already in the area and 7,000 more will arrive in the next 72 hours from the Army's 82nd Airborne from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, 1st Cavalry Division from Fort Hood, Texas, and the Marines' 1st and 2nd Expeditionary forces from Camp Pendleton, California, and Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

Those troops will join some 21,000 National Guard troops already in the region.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/03/dems.katrina.radio.ap/index.html
"We are engaged in a massive effort under difficult circumstances to save lives and stabilize this crisis so that we may begin to restore our communities," Rep. Charlie Melancon said. "This is job one."

"We must also be about the job of asking tough questions, my fellow Americans -- questions about the health of our infrastructure and emergency response capabilities," Melancon said.

It was an apparent reference to the federal government's widely criticized handling of relief efforts after New Orleans levees broke and flooded the city.

Our government knew that Katrina was coming. They knew that there were approx 100,000 people who could not get out of the city. It would not have been difficult for our military to take preemptive action in removing civilians from harms way. Why now is it taking several days to mobilize? There are always units that are on 24hr alert. They could have been in New Orleans the day after Katrina rolled through.

I know that the military always stands ready. It is the politicians who I am decrying for not giving the proper orders...for having a 'wait and see' attitude toward the lives of the poor and stranded.

Whoever is at fault, this whole situation in LA reeks of incompetence.

 

[Shorin Ryuu]

Like I said, that must have been a temporary surge in deployment and was back in April of 2004. That actually would explain the worries present in the article. However, things have changed since then and the number was back to where it should be (25%) before Hurricane Katrina hit. Therefore your statement did not apply.

It was an understandable mistake. In fact, I was ready to concede defeat and was going to inform the writer of the article I cited about the error when I saw the link the poster before me cited was actually dated before yours, making it outdated. However, since the figures are back to normal, your article does not apply.

 

[Shorin Ryuu]

I know that the military always stands ready. It is the politicians who I am decrying for not giving the proper orders...for having a 'wait and see' attitude toward the lives of the poor and stranded.


Whoever is at fault, this whole situation in LA reeks of incompetence.

I agree with you. I only think the failure was more of a local matter rather than the federal government. It was the federal government who had to step in and order the full evacuation of the city. Only then did the mayor announce the full evacuation, as he was apparently thinking they could have rode it out. Had Bush not made the announcement, there would have been even more people in New Orleans when Katrina hit.

And again, the federal government started aid and mobilization back on the 26th of August.

At any rate, I have a bunch of other things to do (some related to hurricane relief), and definitely more useful than assigning blame and whatnot.

I will be stepping out of this debate, although I enjoyed it (the academic aspect of an argument, that is...not the circumstances).

 

[Tgace]

The only thing I wonder about....the possibility of this happening has been facing New Orleans for how long now? Was there ever a "plan" developed by the city in the event this were to happen? Granted nothing ever goes as planned, but it seems like this is a "seat of the pants" affair right now.

 

[michaeledward]

The only thing I wonder about....the possibility of this happening has been facing New Orleans for how long now? Was there ever a "plan" developed by the city in the event this were to happen? Granted nothing ever goes as planned, but it seems like this is a "seat of the pants" affair right now.

Please do a google search on 'Hurricane Pam'.

 

[Tgace]

Hmmm.. some half assed table top exercise. I would have thought that the City itself would have been working on something.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9178501/

 

[michaeledward]

Hmmm.. some half assed table top exercise. I would have thought that the City itself would have been working on something.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9178501/

Well, it seems to have nailed the results pretty good.

And isn't that the way most exercises are planned in the beginning? How many table-top exercises have there been for, say a chemical weapon attack, compared to an actual 'in field' exercises?

 

[Tgace]

Granted...I have participated in tabletops. The only way to benefit from them is to actually make realistic plans based on what you learn from them. I wonder how many of the action plans developed from this exercise were actually activated?

 

[michaeledward]

In a telephone interview with reporters, corps officials said that although portions of the flood-protection levees remain incomplete, the levees near Lake Pontchartrain that gave way—inundating much of the city—were completed and in good condition before the hurricane.

From that Liberal-Hate-America Andrew Sullivan.

EMAIL OF THE DAY II: "I've worked closely with Corps personnel for 6 years in various scientific and regulatory capacities on wetlands issues. While the Corps is often maligned by environmentalists, I will be the first to defend the professionalism, commitment and skill of their regulatory field staff.
The Corps, however, is Army - the institutional culture is one of top-down control and damn-the-torpedoes, and a deeply-ingrained instinct against criticising the chain of command. In an email yesterday that eventually ended up on Wonkette, I predicted that they would be good soldiers and insulate Bush against charges that the levees weren't finished, and indeed I woke up to Al Naomi saying just that on NPR. And General Strock from HQ had to be brought in to do the real damage control: "I don't see that the level of funding was really a contributing factor in this case," said Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, chief of engineers for the corps. "Had this project been fully complete, it is my opinion that based on the intensity of this storm that the flooding of the business district and the French Quarter would have still taken place." (from Chi Trib).
But there are really TWO questions that must be answered:

1) Was the levee complete and at design spec?

2) Would a design-spec levee have withstood Katrina?

1) The truth is that short of a whistleblower, we may never know the condition of that levee on 8/29. My source on its inadequate condition isn't solid enough. But I know the following things:

a) You don't finish levees and walk away. They need regular maintenance - even when you haven't built them on dewatered organic soils that settle every year.

b) A District that had just taken a one-year budget cut of $71 million will have had to make some very hard choices about whether maintenance on this particular levee fell (in Corps parlance) "above the line - priority" or "below the line - optional". Their SOP (Standard Operating Procedures) guidance might tell us, but somebody needs to get a FOIA cookin' on this right now.

c) The question of levee adequacy breaks down at least into "was it at spec height?" [yes!] and "was it structurally sound to spec?" [oops!]. Because of the nature of the levee failure (not overtopped, but burst), watch for Corp HQ to focus on the first question (which pins the deaths on nature), and ignore the second (which might pin the deaths on budget decisions).

2) Over the coming days, the Corps' message will be this: "Katrina was greater than the design storm for this levee." This is at least an open question - purportedly the levees were designed to withstand a direct hit from a Category 3 hurricane. Katrina was a Category 4 at landfall, presenting her weak side to the levees at a distance of some 40-50 miles. The question appears debatable on its technical merits, and Strock's facile answer is far too politically expedient a conclusion to take at face value from Corps HQ. I have seen them fall on their sword for Presidents before, and the need has never been greater.

To sum up: Gen. Strock is asking us to accept that the Army Corps could maintain the structural integrity of every last mile of levee built on subsiding soils in a District that had taken a $71 million budget cut in one year. AND that they would admit it if they hadn't, when the reputation of the President is at stake. All my experience rejects both propositions."

 

[michaeledward]

Granted...I have participated in tabletops. The only way to benefit from them is to actually make realistic plans based on what you learn from them. I wonder how many of the action plans developed from this exercise were actually activated?

The News report you linked to seemed to report that FEMA and other federal agencies laughed off the exercise. Now, would that be the fault of the study, or someone else?

"Those FEMA officials wouldn't listen to me," he says. "Those Corps of Engineers people giggled in the back of the room when we tried to present information."
One recommendation from the exercise: Tent cities should be prepared for the homeless.

"Their response to me was: 'Americans don't live in tents,' and that was about it," recalls Van Heerden.

 

[Tgace]

Absolutely... Im saying someone dropped the ball here. However, how long has this been a possibility? How long has New Orleans been in the crosshairs of something like this? Do the people at the helm when the inevitable happens bear the bulk of the responsibility? How far back can we go when we say "you guys should have thought of this?"