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shawa
CNO
Joined: 03 Sep 2004
Posts: 2004
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 Posted: Tue Aug 29, 2006 2:53 pm Post subject: Katrina Anniversary & Media Misinformation |
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Rush was reading this story on his show yesterday. I was on my way to an appointment and only heard a bit of it. Searched and found it today, and it is a 'keeper' for posterity, Thank you, Lou Dolinar!!
| Quote: | Inside (and outside) the Superdome: What went right
By Lou Dolinar
Remember the dozens, maybe hundreds of rapes, murders, stabbings and deaths from official neglect at the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina? The ones that never happened, as even the national media later admitted?
Sure, we all remember the original reporting, if not the back-pedaling.
Here's another one: Do you remember the dramatic TV footage of National Guard helicopter landings at the Superdome, as soon as Katrina passed, to drop off tens of thousands saved from certain death? The corpsmen running, in an echo of M*A*S*H, with stretchers to carry the survivors to ambulances and the medical center? About how the operation, which also included Coast Guard, regular military units, and local first responders, continued for more than a week?
Me neither. Except that it did happen, and got at best an occasional parenthetical mention in the national media. The National Guard had its headquarters for Katrina, not just a few peacekeeping troops, in what the media was portraying as the pit of Hell. Hell was one of the safest place to be in New Orleans, smelly as it was. The situation was always under control, not surprisingly because the people in control were always there.
From the Dome, the Louisiana Guard's main command ran at least 2,500 troops who rode out the storm inside the city, a dozen emergency shelters, 200 plus boats, dozens of high-water vehicles, 150 helicopters, and a triage and medical center that handled up to 5,000 patients (and delivered 7 babies). The Guard command headquarters also coordinated efforts of the police, firefighters and scores of volunteers after the storm knocked out local radio, as well as other regular military and other state guard units. Jack Harrison, a spokesman for the National Guard Bureau in Arlington, VA. cited “10,244 sorties flown, 88,181 passengers moved, 18,834 cargo tons hauled, 17,411 saves” by air. Unlike the politicians, they had a working chain of command that commandeered more relief aid from other Guard units outside the state. From day one.
There were problems, true: FEMA melted down. Political leaders, from the Mayor to Governor to the White House, showed "A Failure of Initiative" as a recent House Report put it. That report, along with sharply critical studies by the the White House and the Senate delve in the myriad of breakdowns, shortages and miscommunication that hampered relief efforts.
Still, by focusing on the part of the glass that was half-empty, the national media imposed a near total blackout on the nerve center of what may have been the largest, most successful aerial search and rescue operation in history.
The Coast Guard, the National Guard, the military in general performed heroically." said Sen. Robert Barham, R-Oak Ridge, who monitored the Superdome operation from " Baton Rouge as head of the Louisiana State Senate's Homeland Security Committee. His opposite number in the Louisiana House, Rep. Francis Thompson, D-Delhi, said, "They (the guard) did a yeoman job." Both said they were getting very different pictures from TV than they got from the guardsman at the dome, and the state fish and wildlife department, another key player in the rescue operation.
"TV of the Superdome was perplexing to most folks." Thompson said, "You had them playing the tapes of the same incidents over and over, it tends to bias your thinking some, you tend to think its worse than it really is." Official estimates, at this point, suggest the Guard, working from the Dome, saved 17,000 by air, uncounted thousands more by boat.
Let's try that again: The cavalry wasn't late. It didn't arrive on Thursday smoking a cigar and cussing. It was there all along.
The National Guard's response to Katrina was even more robust than I suspected in my reporting for Real Clear Politics in September, and in more detail for National Review, where I revealed for the first time that rescue operations saved up to 50,000 lives, with perhaps an equal number making their way to shelters on their own. Fifty thousand New Orleans residents in danger of death from drowning, heatstroke, dehydration and disease. That was a tough one to get through the media reality distortion field, but the numbers have since been confirmed by Congress, the White House, Louisiana state officials and the relevant agencies themselves; if anything, I understated the size of the rescue effort. What I didn't understand was the critical role the Superdome headquarters played.
I initially heard about the dome headquarters from Maj. John T. Dressler, who serves with the National Guard Bureau in Washington D.C, an organization that coordinates efforts of State guard units, which serve under their respective governors. Dressler was present in the command tent there, and pulled together after action reports for the Guard as whole from its fifty plus individual state commands. His account was so far at variance with the picture the media portrayed that I suspected a hoax, as did my RCP editor. As it turns out, various guard documents, personal memories, and sworn testimony support his story, which in Louisiana is no great secret. It's just the rest of the country that's been kept in the dark.
This is how it happened:.........Cont'd Lou Dolinar |
A HUGE SALUTE TO OUR MEN IN UNIFORM!!!
(I urge everyone to pass this article around, cuz the LSM ain't never going to do it!!!)
| Quote: | Meanwhile, late Monday, Louisiana National Guard HQ moved to its high tech "unified command suite" and tents to the upper parking deck of the Superdome. This degraded communications for about four hours, but ultimately gave them satellite dishes for phone and Internet connections to the outside world, Wi-fi, plus radios that were the only talk of the town. Helicopters and boats, as we noted, were already bringing in survivors there. About 50 men and women, black and white, worked per shift, equipped with maps, laptops phone and radios to coordinate the rescue operation. The rescuers called it the "eagles' nest"
The operation was impossible to hide or ignore and some news outlets may have mentioned it in passing. Still, I haven't seen anything reported that sounded like what the two Majors described Tuesday morning: Helicopters landing every minute: Big ones, like the National Guard Chinooks, literally shaking the decking of the rooftop parking lot. Little ones like the ubiquitous Coast Guard Dolphins. Black Hawks everywhere, many with their regular seats torn out so they could accommodate more passengers, standing. Private air ambulance services evacuating patients from flood-threatened hospitals. Owners of private helicopters who showed up to volunteer, and were sent on their way with impromptu briefings on basic rescue needs. Overhead, helicopters stacked in a holding pattern. By the end of the week 150 National Guard aircraft were operating, plus regular military and Coast Guard units who also dropped off survivors. The biggest problem rescuers faced, according to crew members I've interviewed, was the danger of aerial collisions.
This is at the Superdome, remember, supposedly Ground Zero for bad behavior and scene of massive governmental incompetence. |
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“I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.” (Thomas Paine, 1776) |
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rparrott21
Master Chief Petty Officer
Joined: 19 Aug 2004
Posts: 760
Location: Mckinney, Texas
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| Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 9:11 pm Post subject: |
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| Mayor Nagin where are you... |
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BuffaloJack
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy
Joined: 10 Aug 2004
Posts: 1637
Location: Buffalo, New York
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| Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 9:32 pm Post subject: |
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What the H#ll is misinformation?
Call it like it is. LIES !!!
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Swift Boats - Qui Nhon (12/69-4/70), Cat Lo (4/70-5/70), Vung Tau (5/70-12/71) |
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