Firefighters stuck at hotel awaiting orders

[Ruby Romaine]

Associated Press
Published September 7, 2005

ATLANTA -- Hundreds of firefighters who volunteered to help victims of Hurricane Katrina have instead been playing cards, taking classes on the history of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and lounging at an Atlanta airport hotel for days while they await orders.

"On the news every night you hear , `How come everybody forgot us?"' said Joseph Manning, a Pennsylvania firefighter. "We didn't forget. We're stuck in Atlanta drinking beer."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0509070233sep07,1,2047669.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed

[aresef]

1. It just boggles the mind.

[bribri16]

2. Who's on first? This is maddening!!

There is still little or no organization or control or coordination.
If Ophelia strikes and she is big, it's all over for the entire sourth east.

[kath]

3. Story over the weekend said that MANY other rescue crews were stuck in

a hotel in Dallas.

[cthrumatrix]

4. there's a plan --- you DON'T want to know

you can't have military control w/o chaos

[Ruby Romaine]

5. people are still trapped in buildings & awaiting rescue

http://www.nola.com/weblogs/nola/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_nolaview/archives/2005_09.html#077753

[sandnsea]

6. Exploitation of FDNY and 9/11

That's what it is.

"..the FDNY dispatched to the Gulf Coast is shown on CNN putting out fires in New Orleans while 1,400 other firefighters from around the country are handing out fliers?

..“They've got people here who are search-and-rescue certified, paramedics, haz-mat certified," said a Texas firefighter. "We're sitting in here having a sexual-harassment class while there are still in Louisiana who haven't been contacted yet…

Roy Fire Chief Jon Ritchie said his crews would be a "little frustrated" if they were assigned to hand out phone numbers at an evacuee center in Texas rather than find and treat victims of the disaster.

Also of concern to some of the firefighters is the cost borne by their municipalities in the wake of their absence. Cities are picking up the tab to fill the firefighters' vacancies while they work 30 days for the federal government. "

What is the reason the initial FDNY request of 3 Chiefs and one SAR Team sent to Biloxi was suddenly transformed to several hundred sent to New Orleans on Monday? Emotionally, don’t you think the FDNY has been through enough and really shouldn’t be dumped into another disaster unnecessarily? What of the hundreds of firefighters who have been” lounging at an Atlanta airport hotel for days while they await orders….

As of Tuesday, some of the firefighters, like Thomas Blomgren of Battle Creek, Mich., had waited at the hotel for four days. Now he and a colleague have been told they may be sent to a hurricane relief camp in South Carolina to do paperwork rather than help the devastated Gulf Coast.

''FEMA hired the best of the best firefighters, got them together and gave them secretary jobs,'' Blomgren said.”

http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/?view=plink&id=1354

[geniph]

7. I'm waiting to see what Denis Leary does with this on Rescue Me

f***ing useless sack-o'-shit bushistas...anything for a quick soundbite and photo op.

[donheld]

8. Maybe they should be marching in the streets

Put on their own protest.

[steely]

9. But On-Call for the next Photo-Op

If I was one of those guys, I'd kindly sit the next one out - thank you very much.

Pawns - and I wonder if they know it.

[neuvocat]

10. Its all for Haliburton.

They want to use this as an excuse to "privatize" emergency services.

[TahitiNut]

11. The total failure of MBO at FEMA.

(MBO - Management By Objectives)

This is EXACTLY what happens in a bureaucracy when it's the parceling out of petty fiefdoms and politically managed. Even in parceling out authority over the external volunteer forces, entrenched program administration uses them to gorge on their petty organizationally-provincial interests ... often without the slightest remaining coupling to the tactical objectives of the tasks at hand.

This is the expected corruption of public service by the self-serving.