National Guard disasters

Editor’s Note: Kansas Governor Kathleen Sibelius says that the war in Iraq has severely hurt her state’s National Guard ability to deal with an F-5 tornado that destroyed Greensburg. Gov. Sibelius said because the Department of Defense has shipped personnel and equipment to Iraq, the state doesn’t have half the tractor-trailer trucks it needs to move heavy equipment, and only about 30 of 170 medium tactical vehicles. The state’s military resources were about 40 per cent of necessary levels, according to Major General Tod Bunting, the state’s adjutant general. Lieutenant General Stephen Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, admitted, “We are woefully under equipped in the Army National Guard across the nation”.

In September 2003, two years before Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, and slightly more than three and a half years before an F-5 tornado destroyed Greensburg, in An Ill Wind and National Policy, Rosemary and Walter Brasch predicted that the war in Iraq would leave Americans vulnerable to recovery efforts should there be major natural disasters.

Rosemary Brasch, at the time, was a Red Cross national disaster family services specialist; Walter Brasch, a syndicated columnist and university journalism professor, had worked in emergency management for several years. His book, Unacceptable: The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina, details the causes and problems leading to the devastation and recovery in New Orleans.

An ill wind and American policy

America has already spent more than US$80 billion in the past year on its “war on terrorism”, and the President has asked Congress for another US$87 billion, most of it to rebuild Iraq. The appropriated budget for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), dwindling each year, is US$1.8 billion.

Even more critical, many of the most experienced senior emergency management specialists are leaving the agency often replaced by political appointees with minimal disaster training.

Within hours, the 400-mile wide Isabel, a Category 3-4 hurricane packing winds of 100-140 miles per hour, will hit between North Carolina and New Jersey. Its victims will have to be content with leftovers. Our nation’s disaster preparedness doesn’t meet the needs that any sizeable disaster might bring. FEMA is severely under funded. Red Cross disaster funds are negligible. With thousands of National Guard soldiers deployed - now up to a year each - most east coast states don’t have the manpower or resources they need for a sustained recovery program.

Because of limited access and egress from coastal areas and stick construction of thousands of houses, valued at US$300,000 and more, the physical damage can be significant says Frank Lepore of the National Hurricane Center. Pennsylvania and the northeast corridor expect heavy rains with probable flooding. The hurricane may cause a large loss of life, says Lepore.

Residents along the coastal areas hoping to cover their doors and windows in preparation for the storm are paying as much as 30-35 percent more for plywood than six months ago. It’s not greed by the lumber yards, but supply.

The federal government “bought most of our plywood to send to Iraq for rebuilding there,” says Aaron Johnson of 84 Lumber in Raleigh, N.C. The scarcity of plywood is felt throughout the east coast. Complicating the problem, because of heavy rainfall in the summer, “most mills aren’t open,” says Mark Schneider, of Hugh’s Lumber Co., Charleston, S.C.

FEMA’s disaster relief fund, prior to an emergency allocation this past summer, was “at a dangerously low level”, resulting in significant cut-backs on service, according to the National Emergency Management Association. The hurricane season isn’t over until December. To understand what it could be like, it’s necessary to look at the past - and then realise how much less prepared the nation is to handle the equivalent disaster.

Hurricane Andrew, a Category 4 storm, hit the Florida coast in 1992 with the fury of a massive air attack. Neighbourhoods were levelled; schools, churches, stores and factories were destroyed; the people were without shelter, food, water, gas, electricity and jobs. It wasn’t just for hours or days, but weeks, months, and in some cases, years.

Andrew cost an estimated US$25 billion, according to the Red Cross, including insurance payouts of about US$15 billion. Several companies went into bankruptcy, and the Red Cross, at the scene before the hurricane hit, was still working with its victims 10 years later.

Following Andrew in 1992, social service agencies - along with FEMA and the National Guard - fed, clothed, and sheltered the victims. The Guard from several states evacuated victims and policed against looters; it provided tents, water, and food; military trucks hauled debris cleared by Guardsmen, and carried workers and materials to rebuild Florida.

Social service agencies provided emergency food, clothing, and shelter - often as far as 100 miles away from the destruction since utilities were non-existent in the hurricane areas. Although FEMA was slow to react under the Bush I Administration, it eventually provided significant assistance, and then was reorganised under the Clinton Administration to provide a more efficient response. Under Bush II, its efficiency is much less.

The Pennsylvania National Guard has enough manpower, according to Lieutenant Colonel Chris Cleaver, with only 3,000 of its 20,000 member force currently deployed. However, most Guard units in other states have manpower and equipment shortages because of overseas deployment. Most state Guard units should be able to handle the immediate evacuation and recovery according to Guard officers in several states. However, long term recovery will probably be a problem.

Because of deployments not only to Iraq and Afghanistan, but also to Bosnia, Kosovo and Guantánamo Bay, the South Carolina National Guard is “short-handed”, according to Lieutenant Colonel Pete Brooks. That state’s Guard is operating with less than 75 per cent strength. Most of the Guard’s trucks, bulldozers, and heavy equipment are in Iraq, according to Brooks.

Because of current overseas deployment, with much of the remaining Guardsmen on active alert, the North Carolina National Guard is at half-strength, according to Senior Airman Lyndsey Leffel, the Guard’s public affairs specialist.

Senior officers in the New Jersey, Virginia, and North Carolina National Guards agree their manpower and equipment can handle the initial problems. Long-term recovery will drain their states’ resources.

More than one-third of all combat forces in Iraq are the citizen-soldiers of the National Guard. With increasing demands in a war that doesn’t seem to have any conclusion, the demands upon the Reserves and Guard are likely to increase significantly.

Governors can request assistance from Guard units in other states. But, with wide-spread destruction expected, states will have to hire private companies. The cost to do the work the National Guard could be several hundred million dollars.

The Red Cross disaster relief fund is in “a very precarious situation,” according to Kelly Donaghy, Red Cross spokesman. “We like to have at least US$56 million on hand,” she says. “We have almost nothing.” The Red Cross estimates it would need “at least US$100 million” for recovery from Isabel.

Funds donated to the Red Cross for the 9-11 Fund may not be spent on anything but 9-11 victims. All social service agencies which normally would be involved with disaster relief have had to do with less as unemployment and a declining economy under the current administration, combined with the largest national deficit in more than a decade, has affected charitable contributions.

When a substantial minority of Americans opposed sending several hundred thousand soldiers to Iraq and argued that the costs of war would haunt us for decades, they were branded unpatriotic. When they argued that the Department of Homeland Security was more of a public relations ploy than any serious attempt to co-ordinate homeland security, they were branded traitors.

Iraq, as we now know, even under a ruthless thug, didn’t harbour the terrorists the President claimed, it had no weapons of mass destruction, and it posed no imminent threat to the security of the American people.

But, a Category 3 hurricane does pose an imminent threat, as do forest fires, blizzards, and floods. Local and state emergency management agencies, under influence by the federal government, and with significant financial incentive, have redirected much of their focus to anti-terrorism training and prevention. The Department of Homeland Security, instead of concentrating its resources upon a disaster that can kill several thousand Americans and leave several hundred thousand injured and homeless, is still trying to figure out why it can’t stop people with box cutters from boarding airplanes in America.

While we can’t put natural disasters into the same category as an al-Qaida attack, they both present imminent dangers. Death and destruction by a Category 3-4 hurricane is more imminent than an attack by Iraq ever was and could leave more death and destruction than 9-11.