Sunday, September 2, 2007

They should put this woman in charge at disasters

The feds want to require federal ID CARDS
for disaster sites. As this is part of what I do for a living let me give you a little insight into the situation. After 911 our wonderful government promised to provide funding for training to the many workers like myself who actually deal with dangerous situations on a daily basis. Did we see that money? Not for nearly 5 years after the event. Is there a training program in place yet? Sort of. There is one 16 hour course in dealing with disaster site preparedness. The problem. Almost all of these workers belong to unions and as we all know Shrub hates unions. Hence no money and no training program. The other issue in all of this is who is in charge when a disaster happens? The WTC was not only a disaster area but a crime scene as well. Needless to say there was much infighting as to who was in charge. Who would you pick? The city police? Fire department? FBI? Mayor? Or god forbid homeland security??? The other issue in all of this is the problem of communications. Each agency has its' own type of communications and own terminology and nothing has changed to this day.
Now if somebody had some smarts rather than political butt kissing there wouldn't be a need for id cards. You'd simply sign up at a support zone and tell the person in charge your qualifications, sign in, pick up any safety gear and instructions and be directed to where you are needed. If somebody is dumb enough to go into a disaster zone without training they can be picked out quite easily. And I've even seen people with training freeze up and have to be sent home.

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