Have You Sent A Team?

[ShldBaDOCTR]

We arived in Atlanta last Wedensday and didn't get shipped out to Tx 'till Monday morning. All these people on CNN with no place to stay and needing all this help and I am in a 4 star hotel. Makes me feel like ____!
If you can pull your guys out do it! But if they like to a goog dog and pony show they are in the right place.
-Lu

[newbomb]

it said right from the begining you wouldnt be operational why would u riot?

[ShldBaDOCTR]

My team and I came into Atlanta on Tuesday of last week and we were told during our manditory training that they don't want a riot last the day before. I guess when you put 600 or so experienced operators in a room w/ some not knowing that they would not be operational due to their departments not telling them. They were not so happy. I guess it was compared to a union meeting that went bad after a 50% salary cut!

[Greenacres2]

DOC, you got to get your story straight. In one post you mention FEMA being misleading ("...lead FF's down here under false pretenses", "...say one thing and do another"), and in a later post it's the department's fault ("...due to their departments not telling them"). In one post you and your team arrived on Wednesday, in your next post you arrived on Tuesday. All the stuff FEMA announced about this mission that i have seen, and i've probably not seen it all, uses the words non-operational and community relations. I read in multiple places that the reason for using FF's was so that they could be hired without a background check--others have mentioned that too. Most of the guys on our department read the same stuff, and they aren't exactly news hounds.

I dropped two of our guys off at the airport shuttle this morning to head to Atlanta. They KNOW what they will be doing. They READ it themselves and made the commitment. They would RATHER go to operate, but they are WILLING just to and help because they CAN. This info was published in enough places that I believe that anyone who claims they weren't informed just didn't read what they were handed or simply chose to ignore and assume they could make it different when they got to town. FEMA's got enough legitimate issues to address that I don't think they need to get hammered for one where they disclosed reality in VERY CLEAR TERMS. For those who didn't choose to read what they signed, may you learn to do so.

Finally, to those who have accepted a role in recovery, God bless your time in the field, and keep your families well cared for back home. They may not be running headlong into deadly peril, but to watch our Brother Rick say good-bye to his family for three or four months this morning--I think his wife and kids would have preferred that he was heading out on a fire call. How about if a few of those who think that this is some FEMA bu** sh## tell his 10 year old son about it. If folks choose not to read, don't denegrate the honor of those who willingly go to serve. 'Nuff said.
earl

[Truck189]

There are four members in our Team from High Point NC that is currently assigned in College Station TX. We were deployed on Sunday Spet. 4, to Atlanta for training and processing. We sat there for 5 and half days before receiving orders to fly out to Austin TX, for futher assignment. From there our SHELTERS were located in College Station Texas. Since Thursday the 8th, we have currently assisted a few hundred people with there federal assistance. And as of September the 14, we will still be here another 2 weeks.

[N2DFire]

Have you sent a team in response to the FEMA request?

No - the team I went down with was invited/requested directly by acadian ambulance prior to FEMA getting up & running.

Where has your team ended up for duty?

Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Kenner, Livingston, Franklinton, and Bogalusa.

See my thread VA Medic Students Return from LA for more information.

[captjab]

We were sent on August 31st and just got back today. We had another 12 man team come in today both in Pascagoula and Gulf Port. It's good to be home, but alot of work is still ahead for the people in MS, and LA. My department will continue to rotate 12 man teams for the next 3 to 6 months.

[LFD7796]

I was part of a 2 man team that answered FEMA's request for firefighters. I did expect to do community relations as it said. What I didn't expect was 8 days of waiting in Atlanta, 2 days waiting in Baton Rouge and 3 days in Algiers, New Orleans. A total of 13 days and did 4 hours of community service work. FEMA needs to get it's act straight. We couldn't take the sitting around anymore while knowing people needed help, so we came home.

[DeputyMarshal]

A total of 13 days and did 4 hours of community service work. FEMA needs to get it's act straight. We couldn't take the sitting around anymore while knowing people needed help, so we came home.

IOW, you welshed on your 30 day commitment because you were bored? How many tax dollars were wasted bringing you down there only to have you bail out half way through your tour? How many firefighters would have given anything to be given the opportunity to help any way that they could but missed out because you wasted everyone's time? FEMA made it very clear what they were recruiting for but you went anyway. (Did you forget? FEMA is a preparedness & management agency -- not a response agency. They have virtually no part of firefighting nor EMS operations under the NRP.)

Y'know, I'm getting pretty fed up reading about people whining about how they can't volunteer to do what they want to do on their own terms... NEWSFLASH: IT ISN'T ABOUT YOU. IF YOU AREN'T GENUINELY INTERESTED IN DOING WHATEVER IS NEEDED, STAY HOME! Katrina and Rita are not excuses for you to go on an adventure holiday.

There are opportunities to help the victims of Katrina and Rita every day if you're willing to volunteer. IMHO, if you want to help; do it. If you want to dictate your own terms to suit your own ego, stay home -- you aren't needed.

[runt1978]

I've been in this FEMA deployment for about 22 days now. Just about all the guys that I've met haven't been "Glory-hounds." Our mentality isn't about being the hero, it's about pulling people from a rock and a hard place. The frustration isn't nessecarily with the task per se, instead it's with the manner that things are being addressed. Most firefighters just want to know where the problem is so they can take care of it. We can't just sit and wait for somebody to tell us to do something. We're pro-active and efficient. When a pro-active person sits around for two weeks, they tend to get a little ****ed off.

Am I frustrated with FEMA? That goes without saying, but it's not because I'm sitting at a computer handling applications and correcting information. I'm frustrated because I came here to help and ended up sitting on my ***** far to many days than I did help people. The "hurry up and wait" mentality was even pressed upon my partner and me by full-time FEMA employees. They said for us to get used to it - that's just the way that FEMA does things. Well, if the right hand knew what the left hand was doing, a hell of a lot more assistance would reach the people that need it. It's been said that FEMA is a managment agency, let's correct that to a mis-managment agency.

Federal Exaustion of Manpower Assets

[ColdFireJT]

Today is day 22 of my "FEMA adventure." My team, like everyone else, spent 6 days sitting around in Atlanta waiting to do something. We eventually got shipped out to Jackson, MS, and from there to Camp Shelby just outside Hattiesburg, MS. We've had something like 10 different assignments since we got here two weeks ago, and right now we're actually staying in Natchez on the MS River and we're operating a Disaster Recovery Center in Woodville. It's been a wierd mix of exciting and incredibly boring. The only thing thats kept me here is knowing that doing something - anything - is better than doing nothing. A lot of the other firefighters didnt like it, so they left, but there's really no hard feelings. Everyone has their own priorities.

[DeputyMarshal]

...right now we're actually staying in Natchez on the MS River and we're operating a Disaster Recovery Center in Woodville.

Right across the river from the Red Cross shelters I was deployed to.

Nice area; good people. Unless they've finally opened the DRC in LaSalle Parish you've probably processed a lot of my new friends from the Concordia, Catahoula, and LaSalle Parish shelters.

Keep the faith and remember you're doing good things in whatever part of the disaster response you participate in.

[batchief99]

Our guys are back. They are tired and worn. Their last area was Port Arthur TX. They said those folks took a real beating.

[coldfront]

Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Lexington and Louisville Kentucky Firefighters Return From Duty in Mississippi
Twenty-one Lexington Firefighters and 20 Louisville Firefighters returned September 24th from a 2 week deployment to Hurricane Katrina ravaged Mississippi. The crews spent their deployment manning fire stations in Jackson County, Mississippi while firefighers there tended to their own losses from the storm. Lexington crews manned stations in the City of Pascagoula, Moss Point, Three Rivers, Forts Lake, and Escatawpa. Louisville firefighters spent their deployment manning stations in Ocean Springs, Fort Bayou, Gautier, Vancleave, and others. Jackson County is located on the Gulf Coast, about 20 miles from Biloxi. The crews responded to numerous medical aid runs, several working fires in Ocean Springs and Moss Point and a shrimp boat fire in Fort Bayou all while assisting local firefighters and the communites with their storm losses. Lexington crews reported that many of the fire stations they were working out of had received heavy damage from the storm.

[E40FDNYL35]

October 14, 2005- The FDNY should train disaster response teams in other cities, given its stellar performance in hurricane-battered New Orleans, says Rep. Peter King."The FDNY asserted themselves in a positive way and did take control," said King, (R-L.I.), chairman of the Homeland Security Committee.He said the department's special disaster teams' performance set a nationwide standard for managing urban catastrophes, and he plans to call several FDNY chiefs to testify at congressional hearings into the federal response to Hurricane Katrina.
King and John Schulte, disaster and emergency operations specialist for the U.S. Forest Service, want the FDNY to train other major cities' firefighters.Schulte said the FDNY teams have an expertise in urban firefighting and haz-mat emergencies that his wildland fire teams lack."If we get asked to go to a major bio-chem event, we'll be looking to bring New York in to help us because they have bio-chem specialists," he said.
The FDNY's special disaster teams were first activated last summer in the management of thousands of firefighters battling Western blazes.
They were called up again when Hurricane Katrina struck. The last of the FDNY teams left the flooded city yesterday. "They did an outstanding job. They commanded things in New Orleans," Schulte said.
King has met with several top FDNY commanders, including Chief of Department Peter Hayden and Deputy Chief Bob Maynes, the training coordinator for the Incident Management Teams who spent two weeks in New Orleans."The FDNY teams were ready to go ... but were not deployed for another four or five days after," King said. "The city could have burned down, there was a real danger there."The chiefs told him there was not enough police protection on fire runs, no one with authority to purchase equipment for them, and little food, water or power."The good, the bad and the ugly will come out at the hearings," King said. "The positive story should get out of what did go right down there. These guys did a terrific job."

[emsbrando]

My company, ETMC/EMS sent 5 ambulances. We got our ok to go on Tuesday, August 30 at about midnight and left early on Wednesday. We had some at the Causeway, some doing transfers from PMAC at LSU and some at the airport. We were there until Friday Sept. 2. We actually had to deploy ourselves for the most part since there were too many people in the EOC arguing over where to send the different units. the unit I was on spent the first full day on the Causeway, and the second was at the Causeway and then we helped evacuate a hospital in Gretna. The second "wave" of employees was increased to 10 ambulances and we sent a third "wave" to relieve them. In all we sent employees there over a two week period. The first ones slept in the unit and ate MRE's, and second and third slept dorm rooms and ate regular food. Our first day we were sent at about 11am and got back to Baton Rouge at 2am. Got up at 5am, were back on the Causeway at about 730am, and worked again until 3am. Got up at 6am on Friday and were told that our replacements would be there shortly after noon.

Ed

[doughesson]

It's hard work but rewarding in ways other than a paycheck.
My area has sent people,mostly from the local ambulance service and firefighters have been down that way with their employers that have business relations in the area to rebuild utilities and the like.
A cousin is on his way from Alabama to assist with the additional body recoveries(brrrr-you can have that)and he would have brought more people to help if it wasn't for the ones that asked"How much will it pay?".Those that asked"What needs doing?"got the nod to go.
Like another poster said,it's not so y'all can be the heroes,but so the jobs that need doing will get done.