Frustration at slow emergency response grows on Mississippi coast

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/12526739.htm

Overwhelming need gripped the Mississippi Coast two days after Hurricane Katrina dealt the region a devastating blow.

In the hardest hit areas, where hundreds of people lost their homes, cars and everything they own, parents wandered the street Wednesday begging for water for their babies, and local officials grew frustrated at the slow response.

"We’re not getting any help yet," said Biloxi Fire Department Battalion Chief Joe Boney.

"We need water. We need ice. I’ve been told it’s coming, but we’ve got people in shelters who haven’t had a drink since the storm." Disaster officials said they were mobilizing the largest aid effort in the nation’s history to help the communities hit by Katrina. But with so much destruction along the Gulf Coast, people in South Mississippi feared they were being overshadowed by New Orleans and other areas.

In editorial today.

http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/special_packages/hurricane_katrina/12526270.htm

South Mississippi needs your help

The coastal communities of South Mississippi are desperately in need of an unprecedented relief effort.

<snip>

People are hurting and people are being vandalized.

Yet where is the National Guard, why hasn't every able-bodied member of the armed forces in South Mississippi been pressed into service?

On Wednesday reporters listening to horrific stories of death and survival at the Biloxi Junior High School shelter looked north across Irish Hill Road and saw Air Force personnel playing basketball and performing calisthenics.

Playing basketball and performing calisthenics!

[expatriot]

1. Someone do the math. With all the Republican Reps from MS, AL& LA

voting WITH the Democrats, would we have enough for an impeachment?

[jedr]

7. "Don't it turn my red state blue?"

Sorry , it's hard to make any comment while watching the suffering that is happening....Wasn't homeland security put in place for things such as this??? or was it just to transfer more wealth to the top?

[go freedom]

24. Wasn't homeland security put in place for things such as this???

or was it just to transfer more wealth to the top?

No, it was created to crack down on titty bars and internet porn. And to bust pot smokers.

[jedr]

29. ?

[indepat]

2. Have seen no National Guardsmen in hours of viewing: maybe I'm just

not seeing them.

[Eloriel]

3. Nominated n/t

[calimary]

23. And HOW!

And kicked.

Keep up the drumbeat. This should be said, read, and SPREAD! Stir it up. Poison the well. Aggravate the discontent.

And ESPECIALLY... Visualize IMPEACHMENT!!!!!!!!! Pass it on...

[sasquatch]

4. Well I'm pretty sure most of them are getting their nuts shot off in Iraq

Because Rumsfeld wants to do away with the national guard.

[Byrnt]

14. And FEMA too!

[calimary]

21. Welcome to DU!

Glad you're here! Get to work! We need you! LOTS to do!

[Iowa]

5. Nominated (eom)

[NYC]

6. Why are they playing basketball?

...Air Force personnel playing basketball and performing calisthenics...

Why the Air Force? This is a job for the National Guard.

...When asked why these young men were not being used to help in the recovery effort, our reporters were told that it would be pointless to send military personnel down to the beach to pick up debris...

Isn't picking up debris part of the clean up effort?

Edit: Changed baseball to basketball in subject line, as though it makes a difference.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[fooj]

9. Are you kidding me? OMG!

What the hell has happened to the humanity in this country? Like E.L. Doctorow said "The President we get is the country we get."
:cry:

[NeoConsSuck]

10. Where is the picture of the chimp

playing the guitar? A DU member posted a collage of all events that occured on August 31st. One was the chimp 'fiddlin while the South drowned.

Make that collage a poster and plaster it across the country.

BTW, has anyone seen the Swift Boat Sleaze sailing their boat thru the canals helping out with this tragedy? Didn't think so!

[bribri16]

11. People forget that NG are people with families in trouble too. n/t

[Erika]

12. W's FEMA director has lost his cockiness

I saw him today stating mostly "he doesn't know" about whom, when, where and how.

Before Katrina hit he was bragging that because of W's insight and direction they would be able to immediately assist victims just as soon as the rain and wind stopped.

[KoKo]

13. What? Airforce personnel playing ball and doing calesthenics?

Shocking! Unless one realizes that "Air Force" is not involved in "Disaster Mobilization" according to Military/Rumsfeld.

Different force and different "Pay Grade" the way "military speak goes."

I can imagine the horror of these families seeing this. It's too awful for words...but I know that Faux News would say: "It's not the Air Force's job." It's the army/FEMA's job to carry out the Presidents Will...and directive about "management of Assets" in the Gulf Disaster Relief Efforts. Have the Bush Crime Family give a "Code Name" to "Gulf Relief?" I expect they will come up with a cute Chimp nickname for what happened with Katrina. :-(

[JustSayNO 2 Sheeples]

15. "come up with a cute Chimp nickname for what happened "

Yeah.... Operation Keep 'em Red.

[hatrack]

17. How about "Operation Enduring Privation"?

"Operation Wal-Mart Might Be Hiring Part-Timers Next Year"?

"Operation Amoebic Dysentery"?

"Operation Toxic Gulf Sludge"?

"Operation We Got Your Votes And So Now We Don't Have To Care"?

"Operation Eviscerate FEMA"?

[KoKo]

18. OMG...too true...but they like "cuddly" for Domestic and Rambo for

overseas. I still haven't figured out what Operation "Copper Green" had to do with Abu Grahib Prison...and the abuse there. It might be it's some in thing I missed, but when Bush said today in his speech that a Navy Ship Called "USS COMFORT" would be speeding to NO to help with hospitals...I almost gagged.

He likes that "cute and cuddly" the same was some evil thing want's to draw you in with "cozy" when it strikes to kill. UGH...

[VegasWolf]

16. When a country elects a little tree for a leader, what else should they

expect???

[Massachusetts]

26. BINGO

THE CHIMPENATOR HAS NO CLOTHES...THE MASSES ARE SEEING THAT NOW!!!!
IT WASN'T THE NY TIMES OR THE WASHINGTON POST, OR NESWEEK IT WAS MOTHER NARURE EXPOSES THE CHIMP UNREAL!

[nomatrix]

19. Air National Guard (from their site)

State Mission

When Air National Guard units are not mobilized or under federal control, they report to the governor of their respective state, territory (Puerto Rico, Guam, Virgin Islands) or the commanding general of the District of Columbia National Guard. Each of the 54 National Guard organizations is supervised by the adjutant general of the state or territory. Under state law, the Air National Guard provides protection of life, property and preserves peace, order and public safety. These missions are accomplished through emergency relief support during natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes and forest fires; search and rescue operations; support to civil defense authorities; maintenance of vital public services and counterdrug operations.

Miss. did have 2 Air National Guard Units, though their links don't work. Anyone know. They could be dropping care packages to those dying of thirst, MRE's, etc.

[nomatrix]

20. V.P. needs ANG to go fishing

http://www.newwest.net/index.php/main/article/2669/

Whose Choppers Went Fishing With Cheney?

-snip-

"The Billings Gazette's Ed Kemmick reported last week that Cheney flew into Billings flanked by two Chinook and two Blackhawk helicopters, but the rest was hush-hush. A few days later is when Schweitzer issued his executive order to make the Guard available for forest fire help should we run out of local, state and federal resources."

-snip-

"The National Guard told me today they have two Chinooks and two Blackhawks available for fires. Out of the 12 Guard Blackhawks, 10 are in Iraq. (This was not, apparently, an appropriate question to ask the person I was sent to in Flight Operations, who told me angrily, "What's in Iraq is a moot point, Ma'am." I agree that indeed, we have what we have and that's that, but it's still worth knowing.)"

[w8liftinglady]

22. Funny-the La Army National Guard links didn't work either.

[DeepModem Mom]

25. kick

[northzax]

27. see, when you starve the beast

enough to drown it in the bathtub, well, this is what happens. It's ok, the adults are in charge, remember?

[Roland99]

28. Morning Report for Aug 31 from the Southern GACC:

Area Command Team (Williams-Rhodes) was ordered and will be deployed to the Regional Response Coordination Center in Atlanta, GA. Emergency Support Function 4’s are staffing the Regional Response Coordination Centers in Atlanta, GA and Denton, TX. The Blue Team is setting up a Logistics Staging Area in Meridian, MS, while the Red Team establishes a Base Camp at Port Allen, LA. An additional Type 1 IMT from Northern California has arrived at the Marietta Mob Center and is relocating to Stennis Space Center in MS. Another Type 1 IMT has been ordered for Jackson, MS. Jenkins’ Logistics Management Team is in place in Meridian, MS and Prevey’s LMT is in place at Maxwell AFB. An additional LMT (IC Linebeck) is in place in Beauregard, LA, while 2 more LMTs should be in place by tonight in Meridian, MS (IC Humphrey) and Barksdale AFB, AL (Georgia State). A long-term Planning Team is operating in Orlando. The FWS has sent a Type 3 IMT to stage at MS Sandhill Crane, along with a SORT Team. An NPS All Risk Type 2 IMT is assigned to the Everglades NP (Flamingo District). A NPS all risk Type 2 IMT will be ordered today for Ocean Spring, MS
The USFS is staffing an ESF4 function at the RRCC in Atlanta and an ERT-A in Clanton, AL.


Check the link later for this morning's report.
http://gacc.nifc.gov/sacc/predictive/intelligence/SACCMorningReport.pdf

To put this in perspective, the response to 9/11 required the services of one Type 1 Incident Management Team. There are four deployed to Katrina as of yesterday plus all the other teams listed above.