Former 2nd Infantry Division Commander General Honore Critical of Federal Response to Hurricane Harvey
The former commander of 2ID who became famous for leading the military response to Hurricane Katrina is now making the rounds in the media with his critical comments about the federal response to Hurricane Harvey:
Former Joint Task Force Katrina Commander Russel Honore said Wednesday the military’s rescue efforts in states affected by Hurricane Harvey resembles “amateur hour” because the federal government lacks a strategy for how to respond to large-scale natural disasters.
“The American people have put too much confidence in us,” Honore told CNN host Erin Burnett. “We have been too successful overseas to come out in amateur hour and incrementally deploy the force.”
The retired Army lieutenant general said the federal government should have “come in big” and arrived at the “edge of the storm” so that rescue efforts could begin immediately after it passes.
“We don’t have 100 helicopters here as of last night,” said Honore, who handled the response in New Orleans to Hurricane Katrina 12 years ago.
Despite an extensive study by the Army Corps of Engineers on how to handle these types of disasters, Honore said the government has left it to the states to create and carry out their own responses.
“The problem is we have 50 different solutions,” Honore added. “The federal government took their hand off it and went off to fight terrorism — and each time we have a Sandy or Harvey, the solution is different … It’s cooked up locally by the state.” [Washington Examiner]
You can read more at the link.
“The problem is we have 50 different solutions,” Honore added.
Go fųck yourself, Honore.
We have 50 different solutions because we have 50 different situations and, mostly,federal one-size-fits-all does more harm than good.
How about the federal government shut the fųck up and help out in the way local government requests.
Federal forces have good skillsets. They can help best when those are applied by local experts to local conditions rather than by federal know-it-alls who think everything is a shadow of the Washington DC to NYC corridor.
This requires the existence of “local experts” of course…
…which may be hard to find…
…as local leaders aspire to be regional leaders… and regional leaders aspire to be federal leaders… and federal leaders aspire to be globalists…
…and globalists aspire to whip the world into a unified civilization so we can join the Galactic Council and take our rightful place among the Grays, Reticulans, and Squid People.
…or something like that.
I find it ironic that he mentions ovearseas success. This, considering that the US Military is almost constantly lambasted for being overly controlling and culturally insensitive. The solution that keeps getting put out is that we have to let the locals take more control, and take note of the local nuances, etc. With that experience, you’d think that these folks will apply that in the US, hence giving the state autonomy to operate. Instead, the same folks that insist that the US should let locals lead the way also tend to be utterly authoritarian with regards to the Federal government and leading the way. Just how hypocritical is it to insist on greater central authority here, while demanding that the US devolve greater authority to locals when it’s a foreign country? This reeks of oikophobia.
Only ass cnn could find to critize the response. Guess CNN gave him a kitkat a cigar to talk. Loudmouth in and out of uniform.
Per the Constitution, the Federal Government wasn’t designed to be the keeper of the states. In order for the Federal Government to step in, the state has to request help.
THEN the federal government can step in as required, according to the expressed needs of the state.
Honore knows this since he was involved in Katrina.
Or he should know this. (forgot to add)
I heard him make some specific points that were not in the article.
During and after Katrina they came up with some procedures that were probably written down somewhere as guidelines. Such as ‘how to mark a house that’s been cleared’, and many other lessons learned. Apparently now, none of that is being used. Each agency is having to create their own way of doing things, ad hoc.
There is a lot wasted effort, time, cost and maybe even lives. If there is a playbook out there that everyone can refer to that could reduce needless redundancy they should be using it.
He has a point.
JoeC,
A good job for the federal government is to formulate procedures and then have frequent training meetings for each state’s disaster response leaders to keep them informed of best practices and available resources.
The feds are all hot in the áss to do this with fun stuff like law enforcement and anti-terrorism.
So perhaps old Honore has a point.
But, with many Americans having little faith in federal institutions, the federal government taking states’ power whenever possible, and northeast coast values being pushed on the rest of America, it is rather insensitive to suggest the feds come in to all 50 states and do things the Washington DC way.
Though, upon consideration, this is yet another case of the media trying to stir up shít… and I fell for it.
There are 106 different federal law enforcement agencies.
I learned that a couple of years back, at the last base (when they were coordinating a different disaster preparation exercise).
“Go fųck yourself, Honore.”
Nuff said. I hate that guy.
I understand that the entire city of Houston cannot be evacuated with only 24-48 hours notice, but wouldn’t it be possible to have a graduated evacuation? Does the city not know which neighborhoods or areas will be effected based on the amount of rain that has fallen?
Being the nation’s 4th largest city and in a hurricane prone area, what if there were evacuation centers designated at higher elevation points in the city. Centers could open pre-emtively to people from certain areas based upon the severity of the storm expected. I am sure it is much cheaper and with much less loss of life to put these people up for a day or two extra than to spend weeks on end searching these neighborhoods for flood victims.
He’s just another of many other armchair quarterbacks, trying to get their 15 minutes of fame.
Honoré will probably be a news headliner over the next couple of days after what he just said about Trump.