The way I see it with a disaster such as Katrina, or an attack such as 9-11, your damned if you do and damned if you don't. What I mean by that is when 9-11 happened firefighters and paramedics rushed to the towers to do thier job. Unfortunately many of them lost their lives doing their job. What if they held back to see what was going on before rushing in. Would waiting outside made a difference on how many lives would of been saved?

Now with Katrina the main help or support or however you want to call it waited before going in. Yes, the Coast Guard went in right away to start pulling stranded people to dry land. Look at the leeves and the fact that they busted in several areas releasing thousands if not millions of gallons of water. If we were to rush in there with ground support we would be bogged down if not buried under 10 feet of water. Would us waiting or us going in right away with water and food make that much of a difference then where we are at right now?

I think that after the clean up begins things will be better off. We'll sit and look at the two major events and how the reaction time to deploy will help to better prepare for the next big incident. They the third time is a charm.

However in the 911 event no one knew the 2nd plane was coming or the towers would fall.  I think if the same HEROs had to do it again they would have based on the same info.  

The Katrina stuff that's mind boggling is how usually in the face of disaster people come together and help each other.  I haven't seen this but then I haven't watched the news  yet either [no tv] just what's reported here.  I tend to think it has to do with the society down there.  From what I've seen its pretty Godless.  YMMV

Patty

Flooding wasn't so fast that we couldn't pull ground equipment out in time.


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It would have been VERY difficult to get ground equipment in with all the debris and damage to the bridges.

From what I've seen there are several bridges that are out. I'm not familar with the area so I'm not exactly sure on all the roads going in or out of the area.