| Hurricane Isabel a test of
homeland security
(Note: Here are the language deception experts again, hard at work conning senses and using Hegelian Dialectic on unsuspecting readers, fanning the emotions and paralyzing the intellectual power of reasoning.) September 16, 2003 By Gil Klein Media General News Service Washington, D.C. - Call Isabel a wartime hurricane. The storm bearing down on North Carolina and Virginia is the first major hurricane to be tracked by the Department of Homeland Security, which now oversees the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In North Carolina and Virginia, the National Guard is planning its response with troop strength depleted by deployments to the war in Iraq. Federal and state officials insisted Tuesday that all of the emphasis on fighting terrorism and Saddam Hussein has not weakened their ability to meet the demands of a natural disaster. But if the storm's damage is extensive, it will test whether FEMA operates better or worse as part of Homeland Security. Creation of the "Department of Homeland Security has actually made it more efficient," said Michael Brown, the department's assistant secretary overseeing FEMA, which became part of DHS March 1. "Now, many of the partners that I work with in responding to a disaster, whether natural or man-made, are at the table with me," he said. "We are able to discuss our response and how to best protect the country from either terrorists or Mother Nature." FEMA trucked emergency supplies Tuesday to staging areas at Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, N.C., and Fort A.P. Hill near Fredericksburg, Va. Those supplies will be ready to be moved where needed. James Lee Witt, FEMA director for eight years during the Clinton administration when it was an independent agency, worries that folding FEMA into a large bureaucracy has weakened it by creating more red tape. "Hopefully, it will still work OK," he said in an interview. "Call me when it's over." David Paulison, FEMA's director of preparedness, said he is keeping close watch for encroaching red tape. "Everyone is on alert for that kind of thing because that's exactly what we don’t want to do," he said. "We don’t want to make it any worse than it is." Along the coastline, states are mobilizing the National Guard to help maintain order and clean up. Most of the states have contributed troops to the war. In North Carolina, 1,800 of the state's 12,000 National Guard troops have been deployed to support U.S. missions around the world, said Guard spokesman Robert Jordan. Another 4,500 members of the Guard's 30th Heavy Separate Brigade are on alert, waiting for orders to deploy and are not available for hurricane duty, he said. But that still leaves more than 5,000 soldiers and airmen of the North Carolina Air National Guard to contend with the hurricane, Jordan said. Already, Guard commanders have identified 3,500 personnel with skills needed for a large storm's aftermath -- engineers, military police, water purification experts and traffic controllers. North Carolina is calling up 275 soldiers for active duty to provide logistics and planning support, he said. "Even with deploying forces across the globe, even with getting a heavy brigade ready to go, we still have thousands upon thousands of soldiers and airmen ready to respond," Jordan said. In the state's last major disaster, Hurricane Floyd in 1999, more than 6,400 North Carolina guardsmen were activated, he said, with 4,800 serving at the peak of the emergency. "Unfortunately, we are very experienced in dealing with hurricanes," he said. In Virginia, nearly a third of the state's 7,500 National Guard and a third of the 1,200 Air National Guard have been deployed to Iraq, said spokesman Lt. Col. Chester C. Carter. The Virginia guard plans to have 500 soldiers and airmen ready for hurricane duty, he said, although no one had yet been called to active service by Tuesday. Engineering equipment to move debris and clear roads was on the way from southwest Virginia to a staging area at Fort Pickens, 60 miles southwest of Richmond, he said. Although neither Virginia nor North Carolina is expected to need additional troops for this emergency, FEMA's Brown said his agency and the states are part of the Emergency Management Assistance Compact that allows one governor to call on their fellow governors for assistance. "If we need additional guardsmen, we can bring them in from all over the country," Brown said. "We will have all the personnel that we need." Additional recommended reading: Studies in the Hegelian Dialectic http://www.class.uidaho.edu/mickelsen/ToC/McTaggart.htm Links Library http://www.concernedmembers.com/library.htm Including: "The goal of the Delphi technique is to lead a targeted group of people to a predetermined outcome, while giving the illusion of taking public input under the pretext of being accountable to the public." (Becraft) "For the Delphi to work, it is critical that the targeted group be kept away from knowledgeable people who could lead them away from the Delphier's predetermined outcome." |