Thanks to Guy for this submission. Makes a point…
We have been seeing the sad spectacle of all the people suffering losses from hurricanes not being able to be helped by those willing to give such help. We’ve made all the nasty snarky remarks about how the government wants to hog all the glory (which recalls “the scariest sentence in the English language”). Some may justifiably wonder if there isn’t a bit of Sam Kinison going on here, i.e., the government wants them to “MOVE!” So, what truly IS the deal about what’s going on?
In law school, you are taught in first-semester Torts class that “Danger invites rescue,” a doctrine that says that anyone who makes the effort to help someone in peril and is also injured while doing so has the same rights of action against the defendant that the person being saved would. Usually what the defendant is blamed for is some sort of negligence, i.e., “You left that poor person in the lurch by your inattentiveness, and somebody had to step in to make sure things didn’t get even worse!”
What the government MAY be doing is to say, a la the corny dialogue in disaster movies, “We don’t want to have to come and rescue YOU too!”, thus looking to dissuade potential rescuers by insinuating that those rescuers don’t REALLY know the situation on the ground, and even if they did, how much could they really accomplish, again suggesting something like “drop in the ocean.”
In fairness to the authorities (and I’m NOT including FEMA here), there are logistical issues to be dealt with. An example might be, “Where are you gonna refuel them helos?” There might be issues like, a helo going out to the site might have a medical situation on the backhaul– how will that be dealt with? Does the helo have cargo? Is it something that’s needed desperately, or can it wait, bringing up, who’s gonna do the triage?
Now in a rural area this might not be THAT great a problem, but if you’re a local/cop/highway patroller, how can you tell whether those showing up from out of town to do “rescue/recovery” aren’t actually there to loot? Who’s supervising them? Up there in the hollows, I expect that many who made it through with barely a scratch, so to speak, are still loaded for bear, and I don’t mean the ursine sort, either. Seeing some really sketchy people prowling around might prompt some MORE medical emergencies, if you catch my drift, and so, attempts to loot would be few and far between, but even so, it can’t just be hand-waved away.
What we certainly do NOT need is the sort of higgledy-piggledy tail chasing by well-meaning amateurs, but most of the efforts that one would encounter in these sorts of disasters probably would deter all but the “LEEROY JENKINS!” type/ Likewise, we certainly do NOT want the sort of sneering officiousness of, “Who the hell are you? You can’t just bogart your way in just because you THINK you know what to do– leave it to the pros and ONLY the pros!”
I hesitate to bring this up because it has overtones of posse comitatus, but one would imagine that if ANYONE knew how to move men and materiel, it would be the military. One would want such a well-practiced organization that thinks on its feet and is nimble and “does this for a living.” Now, I’m sure ALL our vets could probably regale us with stories of various soup sandwiches they encountered while in the service. But generally, they do a good job, one would hope.
During WWII, we had organizations that still exist to this day, the Civil Air Patrol and the Coast Guard Auxiliary, which placed themselves and their particular “-craft”, be it water- or air-, for the war effort. While I do NOT want the whole thing turned into a federal bureaucracy, one wonders whether a “Civilian Rescue Corps” could be set up which would incorporate some sort of adjunct services for the National Guard to avail themselves of.
