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09/08/2005
The blame game continued
Consider the following evidence:
This Opinion Journal article by Louisiana Senator Bobby Jindal highlights some of the difficulties encountered in delivering aid. He follows up with this:
The first responders, in combination with our military forces, saved 9,500-plus lives, assisted 102,800 people, and evacuated 22,000 refugees. More than 9.9 million Meals Ready to Eat and 6.6 million gallons of water were distributed. As I write this column, 1,200 buses are in transit taking refugees to shelters across the country.
This entry from Instapundit covers a number of other instances of insanity. Da Professa quotes a Salt Lake Tribune article at some lenght, but I think these two quotes point to part of the problem.
They already have had background checks and meet the qualifications to be sworn as a federal employee.
"They've got people here who are search-and-rescue certified, paramedics, haz-mat certified," said a Texas firefighter. "We're sitting in here having a sexual-harassment class while there are still [victims] in Louisiana who haven't been contacted yet."
The problem appears to be bureacracy and red tape instituted by well-meaning but overzealous government officials over the years. Layer upon layer of rules and regulations are getting in the way.
I'm sure there are lots of other reasons - incompetence, political infighting, point-scoring, etc. But if we're ever going to be able to respond to a disaster, we've got to pare the procedures to the essential. No qualified emergency worker responding to a catastrophe should ever have to go through background checks or harassment training.
But that's just my opinion and I'm not running things.
14:50 Posted in Current Events | Permalink | Email this