Left: 2 Sept 05; center
6 Sept;
left 30 Aug 05 the day after.
US Navy Lt. David Shand and Lt.
Matt Udkow
thought they'd done the right thing. They left NAS Pensacola on a
logistics mission -- provide much-needed supplies to military
installations along the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast. They ended up
rescuing more than 100 civilians stranded by floods. Instead, the New
York Times reports, they were "chided" for deviating from their
assigned mission. more
(use
browser BACK button to
return) (If link fails, Google the entire 'Net for a
duplicate
copy of article "Navy Denies Disciplining Helo Pilots --Fri,
09
Sep '05 -- They Left On A Logistics Mission And Ended Up Rescuing More
Than 100 Civilians".)
Helicopter
evacuates 11 on Sat 3 Sept to airport.
Major
food and
water deliveries, and military-supported rescues
from
the New
Orleans Convention Center and the Superdome
both
began on
Friday, 2 September, judging by photo dates.
President
Bush
in Marine One makes his first visit to New Orleans on Friday, 2
Sept (Day 5).
Although obviously another authorized aircraft was aloft to take this
photo,
relief flights were ordered out of the air.
The grounding of all
flights with relief
supplies and medical victims
whenever the Presidential helicopter was aloft
has not been widely reported.
Bush used the trip to ask Gov. Blanco to place all Guard units under
Washington's control, and was rebuffed.
Everyone
is white in this image provided by U.S. Navy of the
Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base in Fort Worth, Texas, on Thursday,
Sept. 1,
2005.
New
arrivals are
stabilized and oriented by local Fire and Rescue personnel,
local Veterans Affairs personnel, and other medical services
until they can be sent on to even cleaner and more orderly
local emergency and medical centers.
(AP Photo/U.S. Navy, Photographer's Mate 1st Class Andrew Rutigliano)
Left:
Friday 2
Sept: the Coast Guard copters beat the military services and Reserves.
Right:
Thursday,
1 September.
The
water is
polluted with the gasoline from thousands of storage tanks
(3
at most gas
stations, called Regular, Super and Premium, right?), plus cars and
boats
Right:
to get to
your roof for rescue, first you have to tear a hole in it.
The
person upper
left is disabled (missing one leg). (Thursday, 1 Sept. 2005).
(left)
Prisoners
held
on partially submerged highway, Wednesday, 31 August. Anybody
think of this contingency?
Published photos of these submerged school buses have appeared
alongside attacks on local officials for failing to evacuate their own
citizens (photo 10 Sept).
(left) Natl Guard troops make it to downtown New Orleans, Sunday,
4Sept.
(right) Troops on Friday 9 September in the Garden District.
(left)
Louisiana
National Guard deplane on return from Kuwait (left Thursday, 8 Sept).
It was not clear if the were to find and fix their own
shattered
homes and families or somebody else's.
"Mississippi
troops are refused leave to help families"
Guard
troops return home to wreckage left by hurricane
Dallas
News from Wash Post:
Search on this text if link no longer works: Scores of Mississippi National
Guard
troops in Iraq who lost their homes to Hurricane Katrina have been
refused 15-day leaves to aid their displaced families, according to
members of the Guard.
"Looters
are
black."
Halifax,
Nova Scotia, Saturday, 3 Sept 05.
The
Canadian
destroyer HMCS Athascan loads up with supplies for Katrina
victims.
Canada
sent this destroyer, 2 frigates and a coast guard ship.
MORE
PHOTOS: OTHER FOREIGN AID TO AMERICA
The United
States
pre-positioned no vessels with supplies in the area.
A captain on his way home to Virginia from Naval exercises in
Panama detoured into the Gulf,
followed the storm in towards land, and then sat idle, awaiting orders
that did not come for days,
with the 600 beds on his hospital ship empty.
Chicago
Tribune, 4 September: The USS Bataan, a 844-foot
ship
designed to dispatch Marines in amphibious assaults, has helicopters,
doctors, hospital beds, food and water. It also can make its own water,
up to 100,000 gallons a day. And it just happened to be in the Gulf of
Mexico when Katrina came roaring ashore.
The
Bataan rode out the storm and then followed it toward shore, awaiting
relief orders. Helicopter pilots flying from its deck were some of the
first to begin plucking stranded New Orleans residents.
But
now the Bataan's hospital facilities, including six operating rooms and
beds for 600 patients, are empty. A good share of its 1,200 sailors
could also go ashore to help with the relief effort, but they haven't
been asked. The Bataan has been in the stricken region the longest of
any military unit, but federal authorities have yet to fully utilize
the ship.
...
A
135-foot landing craft stored within the Bataan, the LCU-1656, was
dispatched to steam up the 90 miles of Mississippi River to New
Orleans. It took a crew of 16, including a doctor, and its deck was
stacked with food and water. The craft carries enough food and fuel to
remain self-sufficient for 10 days. [JIN: it was ordered to
return to the mother ship when close to New Orleans, so no relief
supplies were ever delivered to the people of New Orleans.]
--end
excerpt, full
text:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0509040369sep04,1,4144825.story?coll=chi-news-hed\
The Bataan, whose captain chose to to follow Katrina in to New Orleans,
but then sat idle.
On Day 8 (Monday, 5 Sept), the Navy rushed to release this official
photo with an official caption to the media (Reuters). The
USS
Bataan is termed an amphibious assault ship (it is "LHD 5" of 7 such
ships in the "Wasp class"). It is said to be completing its
9th
day of Katrina relief service. anchored off Gulfport, MS.
There
is no mention of the 600 hospital beds, the production of 100,000
gallons of water a day, the 1200 troops aboard or the 135-foot LCU-1656
landing craft that could be lowered into the water to take them
ashore. I have only seen photos of top officials using the
USS
Bataan as a conference room; e.g., the commander of the Mexican troop
detachment went to the Bataan to confer on strategy.
--Official Navy Photo. Reuters, Davit Fitz.
C-130
takes on
meds and sleeping bags, Thursday, 1 September,
at Air Station Cape Code in Bourne, MA.
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