A former Army Logistics officer has compared the federal response to Helene to that for 2005’s Hurricane Katrina and had has been abysmal in comparison.
A contributor for The Federalist writing under the name Cynical Publius is a former U.S. Army colonel. At the time of Hurricane Katrina was even nearing landfall, he was a shift officer in the National Military Command Center (NMCC) for hurricane support operations.
So he knows a thing or two about recovery from catastrophic storms.
To begin with, the former colonel reviews who was selected to head the deployment of key response units.
In Katrina, a three-star general was placed in command, along with the two-star commanding general of the 82nd Airborne Division, with a full Airborne Infantry Brigade task force of the 82nd, a corps-support logistics command of thousands of soldiers, a signal battalion, a combat support hospital, robust Army engineer assets, and countless other support units. All of these units were on standby orders days before Katrina hit.In contrast, a week after Helene hit, a tiny 1,000-troop Airborne Infantry Battalion task force of the 82nd (one-third the size of a brigade) was given a warning order under the ground command of a mere one-star general. These forces are without the medical, engineer, corps-level logistics, signal/communications, and Division/Army HQ command and control capabilities that defined Katrina support.
The military logistics expert also notes the comparatively small number of air resources being utilized for Helene, in comparison to Katrina.
The Air Force’s airlift capabilities are largely strategic, but in Katrina, they were busy evacuating thousands of injured and displaced people. After Helene, it seems they are mostly busy repairing their own airfields and not much else. This is curious, seeing as their C-130s could be working closely with the parachute riggers on Fort Liberty to prepare essential supplies for airdrop. Guess not.The folks trapped in the hollows of North Carolina’s mountains need helicopter support most of all, to receive essential food, water, and construction and medical supplies, and to evacuate the stranded, the elderly, the sick, and the injured. If you review the links I included above, you’ll see that hundreds of active-duty helicopters were involved in Katrina. As for Helene, if you look at the DOD’s press releases, it looks like 28 active-duty helicopters are thinking about maybe getting involved as of Sept. 30.
The author speculates on a number of different reasons for the horrendously poor recovery operations occurring in the Southeaster US, after reviewing his concerns with current and former military members and some in the national guard. He concludes:
Don’t let any Democrat voter tell you Biden and Harris have responded to Helene appropriately because the Katrina response tells an entirely different story.Why are they acting with such disregard for average Americans? Is it negligence? Is it our global commitments to endless wars? Or is it something far more sinister?You decide on Nov. 5.
There is much more thoughtful, comparative analysis in The Federalist post….so read the whole thing.
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