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-- Tornado destroys town, National Guard assistance not so strong

Tornado destroys town, National Guard assistance not so strong

Very unfortunate. The town of Greensburg, Kansas is just about 100 miles west of my hometown of Wichita, at least it was about 100 miles west of Wichita.

It's now gone. Well, about 95% of it:






It was hit by an F5 tornado, the highest grade of destruction for a tornado. The sucker was about 1 1/2 miles wide with windspeeds peaking at 205 mph:



So far, 10 people have been confirmed dead. Governor Kathleen Sebelius got the ball rolling and called in the National Guard to help with the search and clean-up. Only problem is, much of the Guard just ain't around, nor is there much-needed equipment available. The reason being, of course, is you guessed it:

quote:

OVERLAND PARK, Kan., May 7 (Reuters) - A shortage of trucks, helicopters and other equipment -- all sent to the war in Iraq -- has hampered recovery in a U.S. town obliterated by a tornado, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius said on Monday. "There is no doubt at all that this will slow down and hamper the recovery," Sebelius, a Democrat, told Reuters in Kansas where officials said the statewide death toll had risen to 12 on Monday. "Not having this equipment in place all over the state is a huge handicap," Sebelius said. http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N07358305.htm

Not that hard to believe, really, considering that:

quote:

�90 percent of Army National Guard units in the United States are rated �not ready,� largely �as a result of shortfalls in billions of dollars� worth of equipment.� http://www.forbes.com/prnewswire/fe..._DC_DCF055.html

And to make things worse, in January the nonpartisan GAO found that our Pentagon does not adequately track National Guard equipment needs for domestic missions" and as a consequence, "state National Guards may be hampered in their ability to plan for responding to large-scale domestic events.":

http://govexec.com/dailyfed/0107/013007cdam1.htm

But not to worry, Chimpy's comin' out for a little PR visit to Greensburg, to reassure his grassroots voters that he really kinda sorta does give a shit, kinda:

http://www.kansascity.com/115/story/97430.html

Oh, and of course, right on cue, the lovely anti-gay group shitheads will be out in full force "protesting" the funerals of these victims. I wish I was kidding:

http://www.godhatesfags.com/fliers/...as-tornados.pdf

Oh goody.

It's Katrina all over again...is your governor a Democrat by any chance? That may explain it as well. Remember Katrina, when Bush helped Mississippi 's governor who was a male and a Republican, but was so reluctant to do anything about Louisiana, with a female and Democratic governor (and a Democratic mayor in New Orleans). Obviously the war in Iraq has a lot to do with why the National Guard is so ill-prepared for these types of things, but the lax government response may have something to do with politics (it's just speculation though).

quote:

Originally posted by Spirit5 It's Katrina all over again...is your governor a Democrat by any chance? That may explain it as well. Remember Katrina, when Bush helped Mississippi 's governor who was a male and a Republican, but was so reluctant to do anything about Louisiana, with a female and Democratic governor (and a Democratic mayor in New Orleans). Obviously the war in Iraq has a lot to do with why the National Guard is so ill-prepared for these types of things, but the lax government response may have something to do with politics (it's just speculation though).

She thanked the administration for their quick FEMA response today, so your speculation is most likely unfounded.

What she was concerned about was the fact that half of the Kansas national guard equipment is sitting in a desert 12000 miles away and won't be available until at least 2012 and how that would affect any future disaster response.


MrS

quote:

Originally posted by MrSquirrel She thanked the administration for their quick FEMA response today, so your speculation is most likely unfounded. What she was concerned about was the fact that half of the Kansas national guard equipment is sitting in a desert 12000 miles away and won't be available until at least 2012 and how that would affect any future disaster response. MrS

Okay that's fine. I was just speculating cause it seemed that way during Katrina.

quote:

Originally posted by Spirit5 Okay that's fine. I was just speculating cause it seemed that way during Katrina.

Yeah, she is a Dem., but she's also won her last two elections pretty decisively in a very Republican state. A healthy number of moderate Republicans have supported her in the past.

And as Squirrel pointed out, it's not so much Bush's response, which was fine and appropriate, but rather the lack of equipment and manpower needed. The town itself had trucks and flatbeds that would have helped out, but those were destroyed in the tornado as well, so the reliance on outside government help is enormous.

BTW, I grew up in Wichita, and saw the 1991 tornado that wiped out McConnell Air Force Base and Andover (outside of Wichita). The tornado went about 1 1/2 miles due south of my house, and I watched the outer skirts of the tornado in my back yard. I helped a couple of friends with cleaning up their completely destroyed houses. The devastation these suckers bring is both breathtaking and horrendous.

And this one in Greensburg was a night-time tornado. Can't even see the thing coming very well. What a nightmare.

Wow.

I read about it but those pictures say so much more than any print can do justice.
My heart goes out to those affected.

quote:

Originally posted by MisterOpus1 And this one in Greensburg was a night-time tornado. Can't even see the thing coming very well. What a nightmare.

This was also one of the largest tornados in decades as well.....they estimate it was almost 2 miles wide when it hit the town.


MrS

the latest email making the rounds.....

quote:

Got to love the can-do self reliance of the folks in the American heartland. I was watching coverage of the disaster in Kansas, where a F5 twister wiped out the entire town of Greensburg. The reporter, some east-coast pinhead, was talking to a guy trying to salvage anything he could out of his demolished business. The reporter asked him " what is the one thing you'd like to see the government do for you?" He said " I'd like to see them get the heck out of our way and let us get to work!" A little different attitude from what you heard from victims of other recent well publicized disasters.

quote:

Originally posted by LazFX the latest email making the rounds.....

Awesome!

Like, drop the camera and help out would yea?

quote:

Originally posted by MisterOpus1 BTW, I grew up in Wichita, and saw the 1991 tornado that wiped out McConnell Air Force Base and Andover (outside of Wichita). The tornado went about 1 1/2 miles due south of my house, and I watched the outer skirts of the tornado in my back yard. I helped a couple of friends with cleaning up their completely destroyed houses. The devastation these suckers bring is both breathtaking and horrendous.

When a tornado that can wipe out an airforce base passes a mile and a half from your house, its probably a sign that you should move to somewhere a bit safer

quote:

Originally posted by Moongoose When a tornado that can wipe out an airforce base passes a mile and a half from your house, its probably a sign that you should move to somewhere a bit safer

I was in high-school, and was a much bigger idiot than I am now .

that dumbass Governor of yours is backing off of what she carelessly commented earlier on.

there are no issues with the NG. there never was.

quote:

Originally posted by MisterOpus1 I was in high-school, and was a much bigger idiot than I am now .

One of the scariest moments in my life was a tornado that hit my childhood house...in the middle of the night....you could actually see a small glow of static electricty emmitting from the center.....then we went into the basement.....it passed just a few yards away from our house.. picking up my dad's chicken coop, but all of the chickens were found a mile away.. all alive... I am looking for the article now, but it happened in the later 70s so info from the local paper might be scarce..... every chicken was alive... freaky

quote:

Originally posted by Q5echo that dumbass Governor of yours is backing off of what she carelessly commented earlier on. there are no issues with the NG. there never was.

Don't look now, but the White House backed off fast and furious at the same time. Sebelius was 100% correct, BTW, which was a possible reason why the WH backed off a bit. For example, Snow said he was not aware of any complaints from Sebelius about equipment. The record clearly demonstrates otherwise:

quote:

�The Guard was critical to responding to recent blizzards and floods in Kansas, yet its ability to respond to similar situations is being diminished by a lack of equipment,� wrote Sebelius. http://cjonline.com/stories/062906/kan_ftriley.shtml

Included with her letter to Rumsfeld in December of 2005 was a list of equipment Kansas had lost to the Iraq war.

January 2006, Sebelius urges Bush to increase NG funding:

http://cjonline.com/stories/012406/leg_bush.shtml

Sebelius sends the Army a list of equipment lost in war in January of '06:

http://cjonline.com/stories/062906/kan_ftriley.shtml

Sebelius lobbies for replacement of NG equipment that's over in Iraq in October of '06:

quote:

�Kansas� congressional delegation, Sebelius and governors from around the country have been lobbying the Pentagon for increased funding to replace National Guard equipment that has been left in Iraq or damaged beyond repair after repeated use in war.� http://www.cjonline.com/stories/090506/bre_secure.shtml

Sebelius asks Congress and the WH for more funding last February of '07:

http://www.governor.ks.gov/news/new...nr-07-0227b.htm

Snow even conceded as much:

quote:

Snow said no one had asked for heavy equipment. "As far as we know, the only thing the governor has requested are FM radios," the spokesman said. Well, not exactly. At Snow's second, midday briefing with reporters, he offered that it turned out that the state had requested several items that the federal government supplied - those radios, and also a mobile command center and a mobile office building, an urban search and rescue team and coordination on extra Black Hawk helicopters. Snow recounted a phone conversation on Tuesday between Sebelius and Bush's White House-based homeland security adviser, Fran Townsend, in which the governor said she was pleased with the federal performance on the tornado and had everything she needed. About the same time, Sebelius was doing her own backpedal from across the country. http://www.kansascity.com/449/story/98288.html

We can speculate 'till we're blue in the face as to why both backed off, but what's clear is Sebelius is anything but an idiot considering she's easily won both of her elections in a very Red state, and has broad state-wide support from Democrats and moderate Republicans. My guess is the last thing Bush wants is more Republicans being peeled off his party and voting Democrat or completely going Democrat themselves (like Morrison kicking the shit out of Kline for AG, or like Boyda defeating wingnut incumbent Ryun for example).

In any case, both have backed down, and the town is getting the help it needs. Playing politics is all fun and games at times, but this is my backyard we're talking about. As long as they're getting what they need, I don't give a shit how it's done.

Lastly, I'll throw this out just in case anyone is wanting to give a donation who lives outside of Kansas:

quote:

Red Cross Make donations three ways: � Call 800-RED-CROSS (733-2767) � Mail check to your local chapter, specifying it for Kansas tornadoes (in Wichita, that is the Midway-Kansas Chapter, P.O. Box 3726, Wichita, KS 67201). � Go online to www.redcross.org. United Way Make checks payable to United Way Greensburg Disaster Fund and mail to United Way of the Plains, 245 N. Water, Wichita, KS 67202. Catholic Charities Make check payable to Catholic Social Service and specify it for tornadoes. Mail to Catholic Social Service, 906 Central Avenue, Dodge City, KS 67801. United Methodist Kansas Area Disaster Fund Make checks payable to Kansas West Conference and write Area Disaster Fund on the memo line. Mail to Kansas West Conference, 9440 E. Boston St. Suite 110, Wichita, KS 66207. Mennonite Relief Service Donate online at www.mds.mennonite.net or mail check to MDS Binational Office, 1018 Main St., Akron, PA 17501. Christian Reformed World Relief Committee Call 800-55-CRWRC or make donations online at www.crwrc.org. Checks should be made out to CRWRC, earmarked Spring Storms 2007, and sent to 2850 Kalamazoo Ave. SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49560. Kansas Humane Society The Kansas Humane Society will serve as a drop-off site for pet relief supplies going to Greensburg. Donations will be accepted from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. today and Wednesday. Northcutt Trucking will provide a semi to haul the items to Greensburg. Items needed include crates, dog and cat food, cat litter, towels, blankets and water. For more information, call Jennifer Campbell at 316-524-1590, ext. 212. http://www.wichitaeagle.com/233/story/64532.html

I donated to the Red Cross myself. If you do decide to donate to Red Cross, make sure you specify either over the phone or in the Notes part of your check that it goes to the Greensburg relief fund.

quote:

Originally posted by MisterOpus1 Sebelius was 100% correct

only in "not letting the facts get in the way of politicizing a natural disaster"

that we can all depend on our Lady Donks.

quote:

Mining the Disaster Is the governor of Kansas using the rubble of Greensburg to build a national campaign? By Denis Boyles Politicizing natural disasters is pretty heartless. Just ask Ray Nagin. Or ask the homeless citizens of Greensburg, Kansas. Their homes, their businesses, and their lives have been torn apart by bad luck and worse weather. The last thing they needed was to be turned into a political football. But today, as George Bush and Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius meet on an empty field that used to be a town, that�s exactly what the people of Greensburg have become. It�s been less than a week since a mammoth tornado tore apart the small, south-central Kansas hamlet that, until 9:45 last Friday night, was home to 1,500 people. The story that first went around the world was a testament to the self-reliance and resiliency of Kansans. (NRO�s coverage is here.) Greensburg, it was clear, was no New Orleans. When the clouds lifted, local residents started digging out. Their neighbors were there in minutes: Local towns and villages descended on the small town and got to work because, as any Kansan will tell you, that�s how you get �er done. People get together and get to work. Greensburg was not a huge metropolis. Three thousand yards would have taken you from one end of town to the other, easily. So, using whatever was at hand, in a few hours the streets were open for emergency vehicles � which, in small-town parlance, means not only ambulances and fire trucks from other small towns, but also an armada of pick-ups, tractors, dozers, loaders, and heavy trucks owned by practically everyone within a 50-mile radius. After all, this is a part of the world where most people commute to work on a big machine that beeps when it goes backwards. The next day, the state�s Republican U.S. Senator, Pat Roberts, along with two local congressmen, were on the scene, surveying the destruction and reporting back on what they were seeing. On Sunday evening, two full days after the disaster, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius made her appearance. During that two-day period, two things happened that changed the story from one of small-town heroism to one about the Bush administration and the war in Iraq. In Greensburg, outside civilian help was kept out by emergency management teams � perhaps accounting for the �unmistakable emptiness in Greensburg, a lack of heavy machinery and an army of responders� reported this morning by the New York Times. Kansas legislators started getting complaining phone calls from area residents and from people who wanted to help, but were being kept away, even as Sebelius was telling reporters, �As you travel around Greensburg, you�ll see the city and county trucks have been destroyed.� (Not that the village of Greensburg had a lot of trucks to begin with.) Melvin Neufeld, the Speaker of the Kansas house � and also a farmer from Ingalls, another small town about an hour northwest of Greensburg � explained what he thought accounted for that �unmistakable emptiness� reported by the Times: �We had people there, people who had been doing the work and other people who wanted to be included. That�s how we do things here. We don�t wait for the government. We just get the job done. But all those people were kept out.� Now, one might argue that, despite the way Midwesterners have always successfully responded to these calamities in the past, there are acceptable, safety-inspired reasons for keeping civilians out of a civil-emergency area. Less certain is the reasoning behind the other thing that happened during that two-day period of �unmistakable emptiness.� While Roberts and the congressmen were on the scene, and while people were waiting to get back in to reclaim whatever they could of their broken lives, the governor�s office in Topeka was busy changing the story. As the Topeka Capital-Journal�s Ric Anderson writes this morning, �Sebelius works without a carefully crafted game plan about as often as Ashton Kutcher finishes a novel. She�s calculating and cautious, which is a big part of why she�s won two terms as governor in a Republican state.� It took a couple of days, but finally Sebelius released a statement claiming that relief efforts in Greensburg were being hampered by the absence of state National Guard equipment. It had been taken to fight the war in Iraq. This complaint is a common one made by Democratic governors who want to put their oar into the rising anti-war tide. Sebelius is a star in that galaxy; she�s an Emily�s List liberal, and like almost all of Kansas�s governors, she�s a product of the state�s eastern precincts, where Democrats and �moderate� Republicans have long used their power to defeat conservatives who are often popular in the state�s rural areas. Moreover, she�s not from Kansas � she�s the daughter of former Ohio governor John Gilligan, a Democrat � and, according to Neufeld and others, she has aspirations to the vice-presidential slot on the Democrats� national ticket. Her critics charge that she used the disaster in Greensburg as a chance to take center stage to help fuel her political ambitions. If so, it worked. By Monday morning, the Greensburg story had a new hook, one that played much more comfortably in the national media. It wasn�t about those resilient Kansans, after all. It was about Bush and Iraq. When the A.M. talk shows went on the air, Sebelius was ready. �[Having Guard equipment in Iraq] is a huge issue,� she told Fox�s Steve Doocy. �We�re missing Humvees, frontloaders, and dumptrucks.� And, she added, she couldn�t ask for help from neighboring states, because their stuff was in Iraq, too. Her closer: �We need those assets back in the United States.� Suddenly, Kansas was on the Huffington Post, and by what Kansans call �dinner time� � lunch to us � this was how Reuters was covering Greensburg: A shortage of trucks, helicopters and other equipment � all sent to the war in Iraq � has hampered recovery in a U.S. town obliterated by a tornado, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius said on Monday. "There is no doubt at all that this will slow down and hamper the recovery," Sebelius, a Democrat, told Reuters in Kansas, where officials said the statewide death toll had risen to 12 on Monday. "Not having this equipment in place all over the state is a huge handicap," Sebelius said. The press has run with this story, of course. The Katrina effect � exploiting a natural disaster for political gain � is irresistible, and for Harry Reid and anyone else who needs a good attack bite, Greensburg will do. By Tuesday, according to the AP, Barack Obama was blaming Bush and Iraq for the death of 10,000 people in Greensburg. Today, it�s on the front page of the New York Times, right where Sebelius apparently wanted it to be: �The emergency response was too slow,� the Times reports her saying, �and there was only one reason.� But, say Kansans like Neufeld, there are troubling questions that should be asked. First, if the governor thought there was going to be a delay, or if she felt she needed more equipment, why didn�t she ask for it Saturday? �All she had to do was ask,� the Defense Department�s Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke told me. �We can�t make that decision on our own and start imposing people and equipment on our own. The state has to ask.� In addition to thousands of available Guard personnel, Krenke said, there�s enough heavy equipment available to Sebelius to turn tiny Greensburg into a heavy-equipment parking lot � including more than 350 Humvees, hundreds of trucks, tractors, trailers, and other pieces of heavy machinery � along with thousands more sitting parked in neighboring states. �It�s all there,� Krenke said. �The equipment and people are available and a process is in place for getting it. But they haven�t chosen to use it.� The adjutant-general of the Kansas National Guard is working with Washington, Krenke said. �He should be advising her of all this.� The adjutant-general�s press officer didn�t respond to a request for a comment. But the governor�s office did. Last night I asked, if equipment is the problem, and the equipment is there for the asking, how does the war in Iraq �slow down and hamper the recovery� effort in Greensburg? And why hadn�t the governor taken those two days to ask for help, if she thought she needed it? Her spokesman first disputed that she had meant Greensburg, specifically, but when pressed, he said simply, �We�ll get back to you.� An hour or so later, the governor�s office released a statement backing down a little. It wasn�t about getting help quickly to little Greensburg, after all. Let me be clear: With the equipment we have, the men and women of the Kansas National Guard have the initial response to the Greensburg tornado under control. I have said for nearly two years, and will continue to say, that we have a looming crisis on our hands when it comes to National Guard equipment in Iraq and our needs here at home. So if it wasn�t about trucks in Iraq hampering �recovery� in Greensburg, and if it wasn�t about the delay in response time, what is the governor�s point, exactly? �This is one hundred percent about politics,� Neufeld said. �It has nothing to do with the people of Greensburg.� In Greensburg itself, a �slow� relief effort certainly isn�t quite what people are seeing. �I�m very impressed,� Deborah Factor, one of the few homeowners in Greensburg to still have a home, told me by phone yesterday. �There are Guardsmen everywhere � picking up, cleaning up, shoveling stuff. And there�s food everywhere. I have not found one single person from Greensburg with a complaint. We�re grieving our losses, but most of us are grateful for friends and family and glad to be alive.� Factor didn�t want to cast a political stone � �we�ve got other things on our minds,� she said. Instead, she simply described National Guardsmen out on the high school football field clearing it of tree branches and FEMA people working in the streets, asking townspeople how they can be of help. �I�m just amazed at how quickly everybody � local, state and national � have been with this.� I talked to several other area residents who were unsure why Sebelius had used Greensburg as an excuse to attack the White House. Two state employees spoke to me on condition of anonymity. �Our governor is using this incident to take cheap shots at the war in Iraq,� said one. The other was more puzzled. �I don�t know why she didn�t ask for help if she needed it,� he said. �That�s her job, isn�t it?�

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