Forgive a short diary please. My daugher and her boyfriend are in touch with someone who runs a large server in NO: he has stayed in their tower block – on floor 12 – and kept going with a generator.
He has just posted on his LJ that the FEMA/national guard are being replaced by regular military. I don’t know what this means, whether it is good or bad, but have a horrid feeling that desperate people who have been left to drown/starve/dehydrate will end up being shot as looters.
The LJ is here: http://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/
The military is far more organized (clear chain of command) – and disciplined – than a civilian agency. And they definitely have the equipment to accelerate relief, as well as police the area.
Don’t forget that much of the confusion and breakdown is amplified by the incessant media coverage, which requires answers, which requires otherwise engaged people to answer stupid questions.
One piece of equipment – ONE – the duck landers. Can carry more people faster through the mess than any other floating device in Louisiana. The problem is not that they called them in (that’s the Governor by the way), but that they called them so late.
The military sucks at policing. It’s not what they’re trained to do. When the military takes up that role, the end result is always a lot of people being shot and detained in situations that no trained police officer would dream of doing either.
The purpose of the military is to kill people and destroy materiel. That’s it. Everything else they do, including the operations of groups like the Army Corps of Engineers, is built around that primary purpose. That’s not to say that Army can’t do plenty of useful things in this situation, but maintaining order and providing police services is the polar opposite of what the Army is designed, from the ground up, to do.
Let the Army provide transport services. They are marvelously well-equipped for that. But leave the policing to people who know what the hell they’re doing, like, um, police. I’m sure that there are trained police officers all over the country who would be more than willing to volunteer in New Orleans.
FEMA has been decimated so much that it is impossible for them to act.
I don’t doubt it for a minute though. The damn thing is that it is too late to save many. I suppose they want to attempt to gain control of the city again and certain people with guns have managed to obtain food and water at gun point along with other things. Many innocent died today and they will continue through the night and tomorrow again when the sun beats down on them. This is a major ass failure on a huge fucking scale from hell!
it means martial law, it means civil war.