It is amazing we are not hearing much about this from many governors. Crist is quiet, Senator Bill Nelson spoke out once and appears to be aware that something needs to be done.
Three hurricane eyes hit Central Florida in 2004. Another hit North Florida. Devastation was all around. All the news talked about how great Jeb's response was. It wasn't really that great. There were too many instances of spoiled food, no gas, people being turned away from trucks filled with ice. No plans, just a lot of chaos.
Little Boots stood in an orange grove and said for neighbors to look out for one another. It was a good thing, too, because FEMA was screwed up by then.
Now with hurricane season nearing, little is being said about the lack of national guard and the equipment they need for emergencies. I expect Bill Nelson, Mel Martinez, Adam Putnam, Charlie Crist...to be far more vocal.
Florida's National Guard in serious situationTroops of the Florida National Guard, at least for the moment, have apparently avoided participating in President Bush's planned "surge" in Iraq, although almost half - about 13,000 - of the 30,000 U.S. troops slated for that mission will be Guardsmen from Arkansas, Indiana, Ohio and Oklahoma, reports the Pentagon.
But the Bush administration's decision to rely so heavily on these, in normal circumstances, part-time soldiers has raised questions about the preparedness of the Guard for its duties closer to home, including in Florida. As if plucking these cogs of our communities away from their families and jobs for service in Iraq wasn't stressful enough - many Guard members will be entering their second tour of duty in Iraq when the surge reaches high tide later this year - National Guard units are woefully lacking in supplies.
...."This month, Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, chief of the Army's National Guard Bureau, told the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee that "the National Guard today, I'm sad to say, is not a fully ready force." Blum testified that the Guard faces a $40 billion shortfall in providing equipment and training necessary to respond to missions at home.
The Florida guard must leave 50% of its equipment in Iraq, leaving Florida vulnerable to more emergencies.
What I did not realize is that Florida and other states must negotiate with the Pentagon to use their own National Guard equipment which is in storage. Nelson plans to do that later. I don't know how much later.
In the interim, however, Nelson is hoping to broker an agreement between the state and the Defense Department that would allow the Florida Guard to use the equipment stockpiled around the state by the U.S. Army Reserve units, which are commanded by the Pentagon.
Did you read that? Florida must negotiate to use its own stockpiles of equipment.
I think we could be in serious trouble here. Crist and Nelson are not speaking out nearly enough on this issue.
Here is more about what Bill Nelson is doing. I have not heard anymore from him since this article.
Nelson: War Sapping Fla. Of SuppliesIf the state doesn't have the equipment it needs, Tittle said it can borrow it from Guard units in other states or rent it. But Nelson questioned the lag time and the fact that the other state Guard units also are facing the same depletion of equipment problems.
Florida is not the only state with depletion problems, the GAO report states.
Texas only has 51.6 percent of its dual-use equipment available to non-deployed Army National Guard forces. In California, the figure is 50.3 percent. Louisiana is at 49.5 percent, New Mexico is at the bottom of the list with 33.8 percent.
Despite their shortages, "National Guard officials in California, Florida and West Virginia express similar levels of confidence in their forces' ability to respond to typical state missions using currently available equipment," the report states.
"However, some state National Guard officials expressed concerns about whether they would have enough equipment to respond to large-scale events similar to Hurricane Katrina or those described in the Homeland Security Council's national planning scenarios," the report states.
Florida is at 53 percent of the dual-use equipment it once had for responding to a storm or domestic disturbance. the Guard was down 500 Humvees, 600 trucks, short 4,000 pairs of night vision goggle and needed 30 more wreckers.
And quite frankly it alarms me that Tittle, the Florida spokesman for the National Guard says everything will work out fine...they can handle it. Sounds like la la land to me.
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