Hurricane Katrina

I don't know where you are right now but you are definitlely not in the midst of the relief efforts. You obviously cannot see the tremendous effort being made to transport hospital patients and the retired and elderly out of the affected zones. Aircraft are and have been scrambled to accomplish this since the storm hit.You don't have a clue as to what it takes to get safetly set up to pull this off. What you will be seeing in the next few days is a dramatic change in the response effectivness now that we are set up and transporting the people rapidly to other hospitals in other regions of the country.It's sad that you can observe only what your political bias allows you to and then shoot your mouth off about it as if it were fact. I bet you are getting most of your information from the news media who also hate this government. You should come to one of our Forward Base of Operations and see what kind of difficulties that we are dealing with and how rapidly these hurdles are being dispensed.I know that even if you could see the effort that we are giving in this, you would find a way to discount it and come up with some other item to blame George Bush about. As you say - You and the rest of your bunch of Granola tye-dyed pony tail flip flop wearing wanna bee's should take some time to think it through on how to pull off an airlift evacuation of hospital patients out of a zone like this. If you can do it better, then type it in here. If you know for sure what President Bush did wrong in how he initiated the effort, then type it in here. If all you know is what you see in the media, then go stand in front of a mirror and say "Wow, I'm so much smarter than everyone else". If he hadn't shown up down here, you'ld be bitching that he wasn't being a visable leader in the midst of the chaos. As for the many in my unit who are reading your posts besides myself, you don't fool anyone by acting like you are credible with your critiques, which are nothing more that political jibes.

When you say "we", I assume that you are in some form of military command and control position. So tell me how you would go about moving the 101 and the Marines into position while still spooling up to move 60,000 people out, who where unable to move themselves prior to the disaster.We all in my unit would love to read all about you genius plans. Dazzle us.This message has been edited by Lizard Breath, 09-02-2005 03:02 PM

We have about 300 helicopters and 60 fixed wings working right now. We have more on standby but airspace is getting crowded and there isn't enough ramp space at the exchange points to handle more safely.

You show your ignorance to the situation. Command orders came down 12 hours after the storm hit to reconfigure the aircraft for FEMA missions. You show your ignorance to the situation. The flooding changed the nature of the situation to where amphibious craft were required that were not in theater. Standard relief assets were in place before the storm made land. You show your ignorance to the situation. We are working 16 hour shifts but we work around the flying schedules. The longest that any one crew is down range is 12 hours. I will be back down range in 3 hours as of right now but that could change. So with the flow of the flying schedule and maintenence requirements, you have short periods of total chaos followed by longer periods of calm and waiting for the next mission. As down range ramp space becomes available, flights are imiediately scrambled to be there as soon as another flight is airborn.So we have time to check in on your spewing at least once per shift. Right now we are on hold until more police can secure the down range ramps. Can't talk about what happened there today. And again you show your ignorance to the situation. You are the quinticential Granola tye-dyed pony tail flip flop wearing wanna be. Even if President Bush could snap his fingers and make this all better, you'ld complain about noise pollution from the sound. If he had snapped his fingers and made the storm disappear before it made land, you'ld accuse him of altering the natural ecosystem to preserve his oil fortunes.I know it is a loose/loose situation trying to explain to you what is being done without it going back to "Blame George Bush". But you still haven't offered up anything other than your "Ashbury and Haight" spew about what you would do better. Anyone can quote Chris Mathews - but how about something more explicit so we can see just how much you know. A big change should start to occur within the next 48 hours but the suffering has only just begun for the city's people. The displacements will begin to take their toll in about 8 weeks when the generousity of the country starts to run thin and our economy starts to tank - which it will. George Bush is not going to be able to create 150,000 new jobs that pay 6 figures for each of the inner city New Orleans homeless, and it will be another feeding frenzy to bash George Bush. You show your ignorance to the situation. True you have not dirrectly dissed the ground troops. But other than the results being made by the troops, how else do you guage the effectivness of his actions in this situation? What else are you basing your opinon of his performance on? Perhaps whatever Chris Mathews is saying.Again, lay it out step by step in Granola tye-dye pony tail flip flop land as to how specifically George Bush should have handled this situation.

There's a RISK supply of them in several places around the country, but pulling anything out of a RISK Kit usually means maintenence. Ain't gonna materialize until long after Orleans is evacted.

We're being told that after we get the hospital patients out, we'll be hauling in some crazy levy stab system of jigs for maybe 3 weeks to get the thing temp fixed. Rumor has it that unless the levy is completly replaced, it's going to be a hard sell for any serious rebuilding.That's outside of my area of knowledge but putting in a new levy system has to be extremely difficult. Probably end up being a WPA type project to help out during the up coming depression.

I didn't fully realize the fragility of our infrastructue concerning oil until now. If I was a terrorist, I'd hit the oil refineries in San Fransico Bay. Which speaking of politics, I do think Bush is commiting National Hare Cari by not putting some beefed up protection around them for the next 9 months.They are by far the most vulnerable to rocket attack by boat due to their close proximity to water and the abundance of larger private water craft which could conceal launchers and normally cruise around there.

I like to come off as very confident about the future to match my tough guy image, but honestly this is starting to scare me.I learned recently that 75% of the World's savings is coming into this country on the currency market to float our debt. And we are STILL deficit spending. So what happens if our currency defaults during the depression. The EU comes in and we switch to euro's at a 15 to 1 ratio. Their currency is backed by gold. Ours is backed by debt.I've got a mortgage which means I'd need 14 more full time jobs to hold on to my house.You in better shape to weather out that situation? I hope you are. I could see taking $1500 to go buy 2 weeks of groceries if inflation take off.

I do not see how a service oriented economy can grow enough to outpace it's deficit spending and national debt while preserving the same or comparable QLI as we know it.I am not a wiz bang economist, but I see financial trouble in all dirrections. I hope I'm overlooking some huge variable in our favor.

More rumors here but we have been told that the Gulf could warm another 4 degrees yet this year. Four degrees warmer means that if another large tropical storm rolls in, it's solid cat 4 time and possibly (although not likely) a certified cat 5.

The temp repairs will be more vulnerable than the original levy structure. The total rebuild will probably be too expensive.This message has been edited by Lizard Breath, 09-02-2005 08:36 PM

I don't believe that anyone anticipated the level of violence that is taking place to start putting federal troops in to stabilize it. Usually, the local police and National Guard augmentees can easily handle a few looters. Despite comments that all of the National Guard troops are at home with their legs blown off from Iraq, there is plenty of people to handle a normal level of civil unrest.

Again, there wasn't the level of violence that is occuring here. We didn't have to pull 50% of the sandbaggers off the line to shoot back at the citizens.

Look up the records of my posts and find that out for yourself. I don't care if you protest the war. What my beef with you is how you are portraying Bush in the command faccett.

Then you must be in a very good place IMO.