Any other Die Hard fans??

However, I think this is something to think/talk about.  

Anyone think things have improved at the federal level?  If Katrina part II took place would the response from the government be worse, the same or better?  

Water collection, purification, and storage is day one stuff for preppers and it should be!  But I'm wondering if the government has the same priorities....?

...or is the emphasis more on defense, offense, security, and controlling the population during a SHTF be it attack, disaster, etc.?

What are your thoughts here?  Anything changed since Katrina?

I can share that from my perspective in EMS there's always an intense response after something bad happens but then the training subsides and the systems that are put in place tend to lose their utility due to that training not being kept up.  We respond how we train right??  Not to say we won't be able to take care of whatever issue comes down the pike...but it won't be how the fed. gov. hopes that we do.  And we are just one entity.  

Thanks

-Emt1581

I had to write a paper on rescue efforts during Katrina and I can tell you from my research that the coast guard has more updated plans on how to deal with that tupe of situation and fema has put a great deal more emphasis of training for rescues in a flooded area. As far as getting water to the super dome I dont know but it seems that the government has learned from their mistakes.

Why would it be FEMA's job?

Seems that the job they'd given themselves or the citizens charged them with given the name of the agency....no?  

Or were you implying that we need to prepare for ourselves which this entire forum would certianly agree with but the whole FSA and a lot of Americans would disagree with...?

-Emt1581

Seems there was water everywhere

... but not a drop to drink.

It started as a failure on the state level, at every level.

You think they did a stellar job during Sandy?

Everybody doesn't have a Ketadyne hiker ceramic filtration system?

I keep 20 gallons of bottled water on hand for me and the pooch as well as several methods to purify water, and I don't live in a flood plain or a hurricane zone.

Shit, I consider myself underprepared but I know I could ride out two weeks easy.

Everything starts and ends local.  Everything above that is supporting the locals.  The State supports the city, the Feds support the State/Local.  If the locals start off bad, the State has a hard time fixing it, so they call FEMA, who can only work with what is given to them.  Piss poor planning at the local and state level cannot be fixed by FEMA.

Yes FEMA and other fed agencies did and still do have problems, but local and state leaders need to get off their asses and lead their communities and not rely on the feds to bail them out.

During Sandy when FEMA went into some locations and asked to see their Emergency Operations Plan, they where handed a book that was 15 years old, no updates, no new contact information, nothing of any value.  How can FEMA fix this?  These towns, cities, counties, and states have received millions of dollars in grants to build up their local capabilities and still have done nothing. There are still pissing contests between local fire departments who hate each other.  When FEMA comes in to get all the Chiefs together to start working on a plan and only 3 of the 15 show up because they don't play well with others, FEMA can't fix that.  

I used to work for DHS and DHHS as an Emergency Planning Analyst and I am not a huge fan of the Federal Government.  They piss away more money and do some really stupid shit, but the majority of the people out on the street after a disaster are great people who only want to help.  The real roadblock is the local and state governments doing their jobs correctly so when they ask for the feds help it will go smoothly.  

Just remember that even gets more local, it starts with you, if you are prepared, that makes it easier on the local gov, which makes it easier on the state, and so on.

Craig Fugate is in charge.... we miss him in Florida

The fact that they delivered water at all is nice, but it is not even part of their mission.
It's sad how people have come to rely on the Federal government for things like that in the first place.

If you read through their website http://www.fema.gov/ their mission actually revolves around providing financial assistance in the form of loans (through SBA).
They have resources for lots of technical and training assistance for first responders, etc.

Check the FAQ section,
For immediate need items like food & water, they suggest calling the Red Cross or the United Way.

My family lost everything in Katrina. 14' of water in my house.  I can tell you that the response was terrible. No one was prepared. My family had the common sense to get out a few days before the storm and thankfully my parents own a RV so we were able to stay in it for extended periods of time.   I have learned not to rely on the government and that I need to take matters into my own hands. It has been 8 years since Katrina and I am now married with a kid on the way. Plan A is to get out. We have friends and family all within a days driving distance and can count on any one of them to put us up.  I have also learned emergency situtations Plan A is always not a option. Sometimes it just better to go back home. Especially if the evacuation routes are gridlock. I would rather ride out a hurricane in my house than on the interstate in my car. This is why I started prepping. I have geared my preps towards attic living. There were many people during Katrina who were stuck on their roofs for weeks.  My end goal is to be able to live in my attic with relative comfort for up to three to four weeks.  I am not near where I need to be as far as meeting my goals but I do have a pretty good start.

Just gauge FEMA's response to Hurricane Sandy in the NE.  There wasn't a lot of coverage of the bungled response b/c the media didn't want to (or were told not to) show it.  No, I don't thing the .gov's response will be better at all.

Interestingly enough,
your take-away is exactly FEMA's job description.

It is pretty much exactly what is listed on their website.

Strangely enough, their name says the same thing:

Federal Emergency Management Agency

You think sequestration is helping?

My experience mirrors that of safe1. I volunteer for a faith based NGO. FEMA writes checks and walks around with clipboards. The local government and NGOs handle the event .  During large incidents they just can't get to everyone in a timely manner.

During the tornado outbreak in Alabama in 2011, I saw a middle class black community that was just outside the city limits of Birmingham go with very little help for the first few days.following the storms.   The community  rolled up their sleeves and went to work. .  They got their thawing meat out of their freezers and had a huge barbecue. I didn't hear much complaining, everyone was working together and was very thankful for any outside help. We tarped their leaking fire station roof, which had become their EOC. Many rural areas were without any help for over a week, there were just simply more pressing needs elsewhere.  

The communities that really fell through the cracks were the ones without a lot of deaths or home destroyed. But the power may be out, the roads covered with trees, and the water not safe to drink for days. These were a series of tornadoes too, It was devastating damage but  in concentrated areas It wasn' t  widespread like a hurricane.  

If a major event happens I consider myself on my own for up to two weeks. maybe longer depending upon the scale

FEMA isn't the lifeline many people believe it is.  One must always be prepared for themselves.  Waiting for the .gov to do anything is a fools task.  We were in NOLA before, during, after Katrina.  Being from NC, and having a beach house, I was used to hurricane preps.  Wife was in Residency and was required to stay at the hospital.  I stayed at our house.  We lost 90% of everything, but I had plenty of food, water, etc.  I never, not once, saw a FEMA rep. in our neighborhood.  The LA Nat'l Guard secured the hospital-Ochsner, the only one to never close-and it was an armed camp; no funny biz allowed.  

I had plenty of everything except ice.  One day while cruising around on a minibike armed with a Colt 6933(lots of crazy at the time, I was no big deal) I ran into a truckload of guys from the 82nd Airborne.  Being that I am from NC, and had had friends in the 82nd, I talked to them and said if they wanted a cold beer, they would have to bring the ice.  I never lacked ice or MRE's again.

Our government has become too responsive to trivial or ephemeral concerns, often at the expense of more important concerns or an erosion of our liberty, and it has made policy priorities more dependent on where TV journalists happen to point their cameras.... As a nation we have lost our sense of tragedy, a recognition that bad things happen to good people.  A nation that expects the government to prevent churches from burning, to control the price of bread or gasoline, to secure every job, and to find some villain for every dramatic accident, risks an even larger loss of life and liberty.  ~William A. Niskanen, "For a Less Responsive Government," Cato Policy Report, 1996




Fire, water, and government know nothing of mercy.  ~Proverb





Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.  ~H.L. Mencken




NawLins was the fault of Nagen and Blanco, Neither did their job, Bush and FEMA counld NOT enter the state until called in by Blanco, she did not and was problby telling the white house, we got this ya'll
, if Bush had sent in FEMA ht'd have been called a fascist over reaching the 10th amendment and interfering in State business..it was a giant merry go ground of stupidity..

I spent 2 weeks in S  Miss taking care of my parents and their place, running food Ice, Gennies and clean water to Pas Christian and Gulfport churches during the day
and sweltering in a 1930's house sealed up for 1980's air conditioning..a mess.

I increased my personal on the road prepping due to Katrina as far as having a water filter and several pairs of sox...

I'd have to take a guess and say that most government organizations with emergency plans probably center their plans around protecting their own resources and capabilities before helping out the random Joe who just lost his house.

It makes perfect sense that government on all level is the LEAST likely to be prepared for a total disaster - outside of the DOD that is.

Reason? For the most part, government in a republic is not a meritocracy but a hodge podge of activists, actors, and popular 'cool kids'. Lawyers and people capable of navigating the thickets of laws, regulations, rules etc.

So Nagan - Mayor of a major US city...he was simply never trained or expected to be trained in logistics 101. Any Eagle Scout would have known what to do with 200 city buses and 200 school buses...other than park them and abandon them to the flood waters.

Blanco was the same - she never had to be good at logistics or disaster recovery (water, food, shelter, meds, security, etc.). Run a campaign? sure. But even there her instincts were not the how to but why and who to appeal to and what to say....

Most businesses and individuals realize that if they don't plan for disaster it affects the bottom line. But politicians and bureaucrats seem by profession to be immune to disaster - their handlers will make sure they're taken care of, that somehow the magic will work. I have more faith in the contingency plans of AT&T and Exxon Mobil than in government.

But then, this is how America was set up to work! We weren't supposed to be utterly dependent on the central gubmint for everything.

The biggest problem with Katrina wasn't so much the government's response, it was the population that got hit. They were animals before the storm, they just got worse afterwards. And NONE of them were prepared to care for themselves. The people who got stuck in the Superdome were welfare babies and thugs who simply expected someone else to do everything for them and give them free shit.

When Rita hit east Texas a little while later you didn't see any of the problems you saw in Katrina, because people in the golden triangle knew how to care for themselves and behaved in the storm's aftermath.

You raise some good points in regard to the character (or lack thereof) of the majority of the population that the effected area was comprised of.

While not nearly as bad, but similar in some respects...after Sandy, neighbors were out helping each other in the streets.  Several neighborhoods I saw came together and resolved issues such as blocked roadways, power outages, etc.  Not that they could fix everything but at least ensured safety.  It was very bizarre to see the mess left behind and although power was out in 95% of the region for several days...there was not a single report of looting or any real misbehavior...even in the projects.  

-Emt1581

When Rita happened you didn't see vids of people bitching to the cameras about why the gubmint hadn't cleared their roads yet or gotten the power back on. You saw lots of people with chainsaws out moving downed trees themselves, and you heard a bunch of generators running in the distance...

Who do you think was president during Katrina?

Is there a joke here I'm missing?

I think he was talking more about Sandy.  But certainly he will correct me if I'm wrong.


-Emt1581

That was certainly a factor, too. Had Bush been a Dem, then the federal response to Katrina would have been portrayed as a model of efficiency. Of course, the war in Iraq wouldn't have been the least bit controversial, either.

I agree Dan!!  Fuck'em they had all the notice in the world and fucking failed!!!  That FUCK STICK NAGEN dropped the ball then played the race card and we all are still paying for it............

I think Dan is pointing out that FEMA's job is not to deliver food and water after a disaster.

I think a lot more people are prepared, particularly in the red states were it is acceptable to prepare, up north being independent or prepared is almost like being a racist conspiracy nut. Even a minority  of people being prepared will have a stabilizing effect.

 The government is probably a lot more prepared simply because they saw what happened during Katrina. The federal and state governments are a lot more likely to declare martial law and mobilize outside resources since the specter of Katrina is in the background. Police in Northern Virginia seem to be  a little to pro active "voluntarily" evacuating people from their homes prior to their homes (not) being flooded.

  FEMA is still a management agency, they are not resourced to rescue people and do not have the standing authority to direct or redirect local, state of military resources. They hand out check, which will help 3-4 months later.

  Major cities are probably better prepared, but if the levee's break or there is so much flooding that resources can not be moved and all power and communications are crashed, and the citizens and police turn to looting then there is very little that can be done.

  Some basic, obvious issues are still unresolved (AFAIK) most police, fire, and national guard elements still do not have a plan to evacuate their families to a safe place so that they can go and protect the citizenry and not their families. Fairly easy to fix, but no organization every actually comes up with a plan.

  I have seen an increase in communications resources going out to local departments. During Sandy I saw a police chief with an Iridium satellite phone. Know idea were he got it, but they always work.

  Large sections of some demographic groups will need rescuing simply because of their cultural perspective.

Hurricane is the only real natural disaster type SHTF I'm concerned about.

I have somewhere around 25 cases of Water stocked in a closet, enough CR123s to power my flashlights for years, a 10k generator and my house sits over 10 feet above surge tide level even though I'm right on a tidal creek. Worst case scenario I lose my washer and dryer.

My only real concern during a hurricane is 2 trees that could fall and looters.

Can't do shit about the trees since they're not mine and looters I have covered.

FEMA does have resources to do rescue, look up the Urban Search and Rescue System under FEMA.  The Federal USAR System is a very large and capable resource that gets deployed or pre-deployed as needed.  But other than that yes, they are not much more than an agency to issue money and do damage assessments.  FEMA also has MERS, except for the military these guys are the best at setting up a communication network in a disaster area.  FEMA also provides other levels of support with Regional Response Coordination Center's (RRCC) and the Federal Emergency Operations Center at Mt. Weather.  

Back to the why it took FEMA 5 days to get water to the Superdome.  First is how government contracts work.  A certain number of government contracts must go to small businesses.  This is fine, I am all for that, but in the case of Katrina when some of those contracts went to Billy Bob's trucking who has no GPS or other tracking capability how could FEMA know where those trucks are at and track them all the time.  Second is these truckers talk to each other.  You think when word gets out to truck drivers bringing water into NOLA and they are hearing about the violence going on they are just going to go in, hell no.  It was not FEMA Employees, driving FEMA trucks into NOLA, it was contractors, some of this has changed since Katrina.

The ability to move a large amount of supplies and equipment is not easy, there is one organization that does it really well, the mIlitary.  Easy to track, they do as they are told, they go were they are told, they can defend themselves, and they do this kind of stuff every week.  This is one of the largest reasons why the military is more involved in domestic disaster operations, they are good at it.

All I know is that before Y2K pres clinton got on national telivision and said that if a disaster stuck your area you should have a weeks worth of water and food because that's how long it'd take FEMA to come help. Then after 911 pres bush got on national television and said the EXACT effing thing. Then Katrina happened and when it took a week for FEMA to respond the FSA went ape shit and everyone is a racist. That's apparently how America works now.

Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile

The next disaster I'm afraid, the gubmint will provide an armed 'rescue' to share my ill-gotten stuff with the 'less' fortunate. Our plan would be to lay low or exercise a strategic retreat. I have little desire to see how this Administration would handle a disaster on a Katrina scale.

Looters were less than a mile from mom's house, going after the partially collapsed beach houses, after Sandy, and that's in a semi-affluent neighborhood. Don't make the mistake in thinking that shit only happens in the ghetto.





 

Normal humans could have walked away to safety (food, water, shelter) is 2 days.

This is true but then when a few get nailed to a piece of plywood with "You loot we shoot"...it tends to curtail their crazy antics.  

In all seriousness, yes, looting can and does happen wherever but normally people riot/loot in their own areas because they are both unfamiliar with and somewhat afraid to step outside the boundaries of their AO.  This is at least from what I've read and been told over the years.    

-Emt1581