Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[brightness]

No local or state gov't could possibly have handled the quick emergency help required in LA last week - NONE.

What you are saying is essentially that no government could possibly have handled the quick emergency help required in LA last week - NONE. The first response has to be local, simply due to logistics. Democrats held up Dutch flood response in 1953 as a shining example of how government should have reacted. Guess what, the Dutch national government was only 15 miles to the scene of disaster, and it took 36hours for US (NATO) help to come from West Germany, which was only 50 miles from the disaster. 15 miles is barely out of New Orleans city limits; 50 miles from New Orleans is still the State of Lousiana and parts of Katrina devasted Alabama and Mississippi. It simply takes time to move thousands of emergency relief personnel and thousands of tons of material over hundreds of miles from depots outside the hurricane zone, especially given the transportation condition after hurricane, and the chaos in the city.

That's why the local emergency response has to be there first. I actually agee with you to a degree that the job was made very difficult by the high concentration of immobilized population, whether physically too weak to move (a distinct minority even among the victims) or too habitually unable to help themselves (it only takes a 10-mile hike to reach high ground and safety) or too afraid of being looted by fellow citizens to leave home and business behind.