Posted by Lew VB on Sunday, September 04, 2005 at 10:48PM :
In Reply to: Re: Convoy! *UPDATE* posted by Ugg on Friday, September 02, 2005 at 8:55PM :
I thought about the samething earlier this week with my M-35A2 from West MI, this was the night before all heck broke loose. Unfortunatly we would be looked at as getting in the way and that is only because in situations like this, they can't even utilize their own men and equipment to it's potential let alone anyone elses. In the Spring of 2004 when flooding hit the local river I called the local fire cheif who I knew from my time in a neighboring FD. At first he did the normal no thanks thing, but later in the day he called back and asked me to come up to take some township officals in to survey the damage. This winter when an ice jam flooded the same area he was on the phone to me by 10AM. We were up loading people out of their houses by noon. It is hard to convince these "professionals" that "ametaurs" can be a vaulable resource. Unfortunatly, it's the victims who ultimatly pay for the arrogance of the "professionals" whether it's the NOPD, Nat Gaurd, local FD, or Red Cross and with a dependence of the "citizens" on the "professionals" this kind of mentality will only get worse. I guess it was a good thing things didn't work out in NO, considering when I got home from work, feeling bad that I didn't set up my son and I to go down there to help, I saw what kind of warzone it turned into that day, I would not have wanted us in the middle of it. FWIW, I estimate that we could get around 100-125 people a day out of there for the last 4 days with our M-35, that's disappointing.