Ya know, I hate seeing people get blamed for shit when they're doing an excellent job under the circumstances.
People are all like "Why Isn't the South Fixed, it's been Five whole days.
wow, five whole days... should we even consider giveing them a sixth?
Look at it this way. the WTC was a single Building (It was several towers on a single building foundation), and it's destruction closed down NYC for a week. And some sections of the city were closed off for nearly a month and that's with all the Communications (except some Cell Phones) and transportation systems (Air, Land, Sea, rail) except for the PATH trains, still working.
In New Orleans, the whole city's shot to Hell, not to mention the three states surrounding it.
There's NOTHING. The Bridges across the Mississippi River are all shot to shit. and the surface roads that aren't impassible due to the flooding need to be cleared of debreis. A fully loaded Tractor Trailer can't normally do Off-roading in the Mud, and when there are entire HOUSES in the middle of the street, it kinda stops up the flow of trucks.
Now there are some paths that are being opened faster than others, but those are mostly towards the west of the city.
Northcom sent out a whole fleet (Carriers, LPDs, LHDs, and the like)from Norfolk as soon as the proper supplies were loaded, but it'll take a day or so from the fleet to get there.
Corps of Engineers had been and still is using a large amount of the surface assets to try and shore up the Levy breaks, and ALSO the other weakend spots that haven't broken yet. (Can't ignore the levys, as using that gear for rescue could result in more people dying.)
Now, what about other land based approaches? well, that requires army National Guard ENBNs (Engineering Batallions). Just so you know, during an emergency rush job, My younger Brother and Sister's unit took 5 Days to prepare all of their gear for transit on HETS and HEMTTs
Now here's a list of ALL the Current US Army Engineering Batallions
Now the only ones with training and the heavy equipment to do the heavy lifting are the ones with (CBT) (HVY) after their designation.
and Keep in mind that roughly a Quarter are Currently Deployed, and a Quarter are undeployable for 1 year. (and some of them are homebased in Germany and South Korea... and too far away) so figure that less than half of those units are deployable..... and only the ones that are National Guard Units can be called up or put on standby for Con-US Operations with any decent speed. (Due to Posse Comitatus)
Now, there are specially designed Fast-deployable engineering units. (82nd Airborne has an amazing unit that can deploy within 36 Hours anywhere in the world... However There are only 2 Engineering Batallions in the US Army that are that fast, and they are NOT Heavy Engiineering. Their Speed comes from the fact that all their gear is light and fast, but not strong.)
With every day that passes, More and larger units are on the way.
But I mean Even the Airports are busted to hell, with runways torn up. no lights for approach or instrument landing, on the few useable strips, you can only send in your best pilots& planes because if you send in some commercial transport with some contract employee, and he crashes and destroys one of the few remaining transport systems, NO would be that much further up shit creek.
So the few aircraft that can handle landing on shitty runways undercombat conditions are being used. Unfortunately, when they're getting to Louie Armstrong Intl. they've found that there's no way to unload their cargo onto any surface transportation, so until an ENBN can get in there with the material needed to repair the key parts of an airport, it's going to stay limited.
Then there're the Helicopters? why not fly them non stop? well there's not enough fuel to do that. Once the Naval Fleet gets there, along with a fleet oiler full of Aviation fuel, there won't be a problem with doing that, but right now, it's not feaseable.
Here's the Deal. FEMA exists to supplement and liase with the State and Local EMAs. But with New Orleans shot to shit, all the local supplies are gone, and FEMA was left at square 1. Then they tried to use volunteer civilians with boats to try and rescue people.... until random jackasses started hijacking and shooting at Civilians.
After that, New Orleans was basically put off limits to Non-Military (Unarmed) Assistance.
I mean, COME ON. be reasonable. I'm not saying that the Govt's not screwing up, because they probably are in so many ways, it's just terrible, But every soldier and Officer I know that's being deployed is doing their best. I know linement that left for the south to fix the electric, and Cops that are getting their gear ready for a national guard deployment to the south.
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