Sleeping Dog Blog

FEMA is run by a bunch of sniveling bureaucrats and political hacks whose only qualifications are their slavish loyalties to the worst U.S. President in history. The rescue and recovery efforts in the Gulf Coast (and all the money for those efforts), are FEMA's responsibility, but rather than putting all their considerable resources into saving lives, their main priority seems to be covering their own asses.

FEMA has ordered searchers not to break into homes to search for survivors; they are to knock politely, and if no one answers, move on. Some members of the California National Guard disobeyed those orders. Unlike the little men at FEMA, their main priority is to help people. They are Americans.

Survivor rescued 16 days after the hurricane

A human foot arching at an odd angle was visible through the front window of a locked and dark home.

The National Guard team of searchers was about to call in a "DB," or dead body, at 1927 Lopez St. in the Broadmoor district when Lt. Frederick Fell decided to investigate.

In the past few days, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has ordered searchers not to break into homes. They are supposed to look in through a window and knock on the door. If no one cries out for help, they are supposed to move on. If they see a body, they are supposed to log the address and move on. (snip)

But Fell broke the rules and ordered his men to bash open the door, launching a series of events that would save a man's life and revitalize California Task Force 5 from Orange County. In the past two days, the 80-member task force had identified seven dead bodies in the same neighborhood, and they had rescued no one.

But Tuesday, 16 days after Hurricane Katrina smacked this aging community in the face, an unconscious and emaciated man identified as Edgar Hollingsworth, 74, was rescued. The man is expected to survive. (snip)

Medics from California Task Force 5, which had been searching in the same neighborhood, were eventually able to get intravenous fluids through a vein under the man's clavicle in an intricate curbside medical procedure that may have saved the man's life. (snip)

"They were surprised at the hospital that anyone in his condition would still be alive," Czuleger (one of the medics, an emergency-room doctor at Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo) said. "In 24 hours, he would have been dead.

"I think the young Army guy that found him saved his life."

Afterward, the Guardsmen, like the members of Task Force 5, were excited to have finally saved someone. (snip)

The rescue pumped up the spirits of Task Force 5, which has been mostly marking the locations of bodies for the last week. Earlier, they had been frustrated when FEMA delayed their deployment for four days, housing them in the Hyatt Regency in Dallas.

They were frustrated further when they were given the FEMA order that they weren't allowed to force their way into houses to search them. They hope Hollingsworth's rescue will coax FEMA to rethink its directive.

I hope so too, but I ain't holding my breath.