jlf1961
Posts: 14840
Joined: 6/10/2008
From: Somewhere Texas
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Made2Obey
quote:
ORIGINAL: Lucylastic
I disagree about the NFL, but totally with you on puerto rico, its fucking disgusting.
Puerto Rico is a logistics problem. All the ships had to get well clear of the area, so aren't all that handy for immediate resupply and relief.
The airport runways are intact, but needed cleaning before planes could land. The radar and navigation facilities are out and the tower controllers are using handheld radios to communicate with aircraft. So far they have only been able to get half a dozen planes per day in.
Everything will improve as they can repair the airport and begin landing planes in larger numbers.
The airport and shipping docks need to be fixed before much can be done in mass.
Helicopters can't carry enough, and PR is out of their range from the mainland.
It's not that nothing is being done. All is being done that can be until repairs are made. That makes the repairs a priority and may leave people on the ground there feeling left out for the moment. But you can't bring help until you have a way to get it in.
Okay, a few points in response.
1) when Haiti got hit with the big earthquake a few years ago, a hospital ship, aircraft carrier, and of all things, an amphibious assault ship (you know, one of them there boats that carry LCAC's or really big cargo carrying hovercraft) and all of them are either in the Atlantic now, or at the Norfolk VA navy base.
So, while the president had been tweeting about the NFL, he could have been on the phone with the Navy Chief of staff telling him to get those ships heading for Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, which has not been done as of yet, or, if they have, it has been kept out of the media.
2) The United States air force has units with one purpose, after an airport has been secured (see Baghdad airport operations after we invaded) and could have a fully operational air traffic system operational with in 12 hours of having a runway to land on.
The MAC C130 wings can land anywhere with clear flat ground and a guy on the ground with rudimentary radio and wind detection gear to give them landing instructions so they can deposit those guys that make non operational airports operational.
One such combat air control squadron who's job it is setting up those facilities under fire is presently sitting on its ass at Dyess AFB along with two wings of C130 aircraft.
Oh, and besides San Juan International and the 8 other airstrips that can handle 130's, there are a number of smaller 'unprepared' landing strips used by C130 crews to practice rough landing areas, so, again it is not like there is no other options.
Hell, if absolutely necessary, all a herk needs is about 1200 feet of uninterrupted fairly flat ground (like a beach) to land on. Not saying it would be a pleasant landing, everyone on board would probably lose fillings in their teeth (know from experience) but hey, those herky bird crews is Nucking futs. And the navy boys are worse, they land those birds on aircraft carriers!
As far as electricity is concerned, the ACOE has the equipment to do the work to get power restored, but even if they had the help of every utility maintainance firm in the US, that would take months.
Drinking water on the other hand is a different story, the Army, Marines, and Navy have the units which can set up portable water treatment plants all over the island.
they could not put out enough to bring the existing distribution system back up, but they could easily provide more than enough water for the people, and at a lower cost than shipping bottled water to the islands.
While things are getting done, they are not getting done with the same expediency as with disasters in other countries. Hell after the Indian ocean earthquake and tsunami, they pulled hospital ships and a couple of carriers out of the Persian gulf as humanitarian aid.
As of today, and his nice little statement about how proud he was with the relief effort in Puerto Rico, no military units with the ability to actually do anything substantial in the way of getting something that can be used on a large scale have been dispatched.
And I am quite sure that the white house has been getting calls from the Joint Chiefs trying to make the point that there are some pretty significant things that can be done other than the 10000 FEMA workers either on the ground or on the way to the island.
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RE: Trump may have handed dems a silver platter.... - 
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