Subject: RE: BS: Hurricane AFTERMATH
From:
CarolC
Date: 20 Sep 05 - 02:48 PM
Red tape frustrates local volunteers trying to help in storm's aftermath
By Jamie Malernee
Staff Writer
Posted September 10 2005
Dr. Douglas Barlow wanted to treat the sick and injured.
But relief agencies didn't want the Boca Raton physician to practice medicine -- they wanted him to fill out forms, attend disaster-orientation classes and make sure he obtained special insurance.
Lt. Vernon Oster wanted to pull hurricane victims off rooftops and douse fires from his department's air-rescue helicopter. But the feds said neither he, nor Miami-Dade County Fire-Rescue's specialized equipment, was needed -- even as Oster watched live footage of people stranded by floodwaters and homes blazing in New Orleans.
"When I look at all the people who drowned, I know it's because some bureaucrat said, `We don't need them,'" said Oster, who has trained since 1985 for disasters like Katrina. "They could have used us from the first day out, and they'll need us for the weeks to come. We're ready. That's the tragedy, [and] I feel guilty because I am a part of it."
Across South Florida and the nation, frustration levels spiked this week as many Americans who wanted to give aid to those devastated by the storm said their offers were often ignored, delayed or even outright rejected.
In the wake of such criticism, much of it directed at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the director for FEMA, Michael Brown, has been replaced as commander of Hurricane Katrina relief operations.
Yet local emergency officials continue to defend their efforts, saying they are tying to manage and organize a massive outpouring of aid in a safe and effective manner.
"When it comes to response and recovery, it's never fast enough," said Frances Marine, FEMA Public Affairs Director for Florida. "There are so many people trying to help, it's a matter of coordinating those efforts."
She added that FEMA's mission is to "supplement" local resources, requiring local officials to tell state officials what they need, and then have state officials tell FEMA, which then looks for the resources.
"It's not top down, it's bottom up," she said.
That explanation gave some little comfort as they watched local Gulf Coast residents and politicians beg for help through various media, saying they were getting nowhere with official channels.
The president of Jefferson Parish, La., cried openly on national TV, accusing FEMA of turning away three trailer trucks with water from Wal-Mart and preventing the Coast Guard from delivering 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel. In Atlanta, hundreds of volunteer firefighters complained that they were playing cards, taking classes on FEMA's history and lounging at an airport hotel for days while they awaited orders. More than 100 surgeons and paramedics assigned to a mobile hospital said they waited for days 70 miles north of New Orleans while officials decided where to deploy them.
In South Florida, frustration grew as well.
Oster, the Miami-Dade flight medic and firefighter, went through his chain of command, trying to find out why their air-rescue team wasn't helping.
"It is an embarrassment to the department and the county for Air Rescue not to respond when we have received so much help from other departments for our own hurricane disasters in the past," he wrote in an email.
In reply, Oster said he was told that FEMA had "more help than it needed."
Barlow, the Boca pediatrician, said the Red Cross discouraged him from going to the Gulf Coast until he jumped through various paperwork hoops that could take weeks.
He ignored them and flew to Baton Rouge on Sunday, becoming part of what he calls the "largest MASH unit" in U.S. history, set up on the floor of an athletic center arena. While there, he helped save a paramedic who was bleeding internally.
"Sometimes the legislators and politicians don't know how to get out of their own way. But as doctors, we know that while you're getting through the red tape, the patient dies," said Barlow, vice chairman of pediatrics at Boca Community Hospital. "There were physicians from everywhere, and we all came on our own. It was phenomenal. It was a hospital set up so quick, your head spun."
Mark Cruz of Fort Lauderdale also wanted to do something. He owns an airboat, and as soon as he saw the flooding in New Orleans, he said, he knew the vessels would help. So he and other airboat owners across the state tried to organize, offering their services to FEMA.
Days passed, Cruz said, and he never got answers as to where officials wanted them to go or when they wanted them to leave. The only thing that changed was the increasing requirements to help.
"When no one knows what's going on, no one wants to volunteer," he said. "I finally gave up."
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-cnohelp10sep10,0,4199264.story?page=1&coll=sfla-home-headlines
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Cut the red tape, Lott says
Criticizes FEMA for holding up 20,000 trailers 'sitting in Atlanta'
Monday, September 5, 2005; Posted: 9:12 p.m. EDT (01:12 GMT)
POPLARVILLE, Mississippi (CNN) -- Sen. Trent Lott berated both the Federal Emergency Management Agency and his own state's emergency management, MEMA, for being mired in red tape at a time of urgent need given the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina.
Lott said he has been trying to get FEMA to send 20,000 trailers "sitting in Atlanta" to the Mississippi coast, and he urged President Bush during a meeting Monday to intervene. He said FEMA has refused to ship the trailers until contracts are secured.
"FEMA and MEMA need to be saying, 'Yes' to Mississippi's needs, not, 'No.," the former majority leader said in a written statement.
"Mississippians are homeless, hungry and hurting."
Similar stories of governmental red tape have been reported elsewhere, including a case of 100 surgeons and paramedics hindered from caring for hurricane victims in rural Mississippi. (Full story)
"This is an emergency situation without peer, like nothing our generation has ever encountered," Lott said. "If suffering people along the Gulf Coast, from Mobile to New Orleans, are going to recover as soon as possible, we'll need an unprecedented public and private effort that can't be hampered by a process geared toward much lesser disasters."
His own home, in Pascagoula, was among the thousands destroyed in the storm.
Bush visited Poplarville, Mississippi during a tour of the region Monday. He told a group of community workers assisting in relief efforts that the region will be rebuilt.
"I understand the damage, I understand the devastation, I understand the destruction, I understand how long it's going to take. And we're with you," Bush said. (Full story on his Gulf Coast visit)
Lott said he appreciated Bush's visit, but stressed to the president the need to cut through the bureaucracy.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/05/katrina.lott/index.html
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