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Proper
Planning
by
Peary Perry | |
For
several weeks after 9/11 I don’t think anyone who wrote a column could find anything
humorous to expound upon. The same feeling is going around since the hurricane
along the Gulf Coast. I’m fairly certain most of you are like me in that you are
numbed by constant pictures of thousands of people losing their homes, businesses
and even the lives of their family and pets. This is a tragedy of epic proportions.
After
seeing hours and hours of desperate flood victims trying to escape, you can almost
sum up the entire episode into a few words: Horror, hurt, help and hope.
I’m confident in my mind there will be an immense amount of finger pointing as
to who is to blame for what happened during the coming months. I have no doubt
that we will all be tired of the partisan politicking before we hear the end of
it. But I suggest to you that you think about this, will anything be done to assure
us that this kind of reaction won’t be repeated in the future?
Did the
Mayor of New Orleans fail to act promptly? Probably. Did the Governor of Louisiana
fail to act as fast as she could have? Certainly. Did the United States Government
address the potential need for their help in a timely manner? No.
I make
no bones about being a Republican, since I have been in business for myself all
of my life. However, I will not agree that the head of some agency as important
as FEMA should be a political appointee. Someone, who is on the ‘A’ list and is
one of the ‘good old boys’ is somehow entitled to this very crucial job. This
is a position that needs to be filled with someone with experience and training
in how to prepare and react in the event of some national disaster. Not some ‘friend
of the party’. No matter what party is in power.
We know hurricanes happen.
We should know how to react in the event one such as this occurs. This is a situation
in which we know something will happen; we just don’t know when it will happen.
Now, if we were unprepared to evacuate and care for these residents along
the Gulf Coast for an event we know happens with annual regularity, how would
we handle a nuclear attack or threat by some terrorist in one of our larger cities?
Not very well, I would imagine. Are we not prepared to help feed, clothe, shelter
and medically treat 500,000 to 1,000,000 of our citizens if the need to do so
arose?
At this point in time, I would have to say, certainly not. At least
it doesn’t appear that way to me.
Years
ago, while I was in the Army, we woke up one morning in Fort Riley, Kansas and
were told to take our tanks down to the railhead. When we got there, there was
a line of flatcars as long as you could see in any direction waiting to take our
tanks, trucks and other pieces of equipment by rail to the East Coast. Railroad
men were there with big pieces of wood and chains to block and secure my tank.
We were then loaded onto airplanes and shipped off to Virginia and later sent
to the Atlantic to blockade and possibly invade Cuba. Where had all of these flatcars
come from? Someone had to plan ahead to arrange for them to be there in the event
of some threat to our country. Someone had figured out in advance what would be
needed in the event we were to go to war.
Why weren’t we doing the same
in this situation? I find it hard to believe that a nation with our brainpower
and resources wouldn’t have the ability to stockpile, food, water, medical supplies
and shelters for a catastrophe such as this. Armchair generals such as myself
find it easy to play Monday morning quarterback, but I don’t think you have to
be a rocket scientist to see that people in a situation like this are going to
need a bathroom, water and food. That’s just common sense.
A lot has been
said about the drills and planning sessions which were conducted to handle these
kinds of events. I would like to suggest that future conventions, meetings and
studies be held in some part of the country where there are few outside distractions
such as those found in either New Orleans or Las Vegas, or Atlantic City. Seems
to me the people attending these should be spending more time thinking about what
might happen in the future and take it more seriously rather than using the event
as a vacation. This is serious business and needs to be taken seriously. Peoples
lives depend upon proper planning. | | |
