[protomyth]

> And don't the victims deserve organized, professional response?

Frankly, there is never enough money to hire enough people to do all the work. This is the US and we have a long tradition of neighbor helping neighbor. Many of the "amateur" responses are professional grade people. Many areas of the country are covered by volunteer fire departments.

The Red Cross often banks the money, and people should really read the authorizing legislation for FEMA since it is a more limited organization than many think.

[wnissen]

There are 3.5 million people working full-time for the US Department of Defense (including contractors but not the reserves). Wouldn't it make sense to train a few thousand of them to make sure there is efficient dispatch of rescues? I'm extremely glad the Cajun Navy was there, please don't misunderstand. I think they would have been an essential part of the response under any circumstances. It's just that they would have been able to do more if there was effective triage of calls; in the article many of the victims were unable to get 911 to pick up. The ad hoc system (which, again, was extremely impressive and valuable) worked but not as well as having a single point of dispatch, where you could target the people who were in their attic before the ones who were in less precarious situations.

Not that the pros are necessarily in good shape themselves. On 9/11 the NYC emergency command center was located in the towers and there was extensive compatibility problems with radio communication. Or the firefighters after the Loma Prieta quake who rushed to help only to find they couldn't use the hydrants. But shouldn't we, as a country, resolve that in a major disaster we'll at least have enough people and communications infrastructure on the ground to coordinate the local resources? Especially one like Harvey where you have a 48-hour forecast with a small error.

[protomyth]

> Wouldn't it make sense to train a few thousand of them to make sure there is efficient dispatch of rescues?

Why DoD? You might as well double train all the Fish & Wildlife people. The US has a long tradition of volunteers and they are enthusiastic and fairly effective. Single point of dispatches fail, badly. Its in the national character of the US. Having the government do everything isn't.