CHUCK DEVORE: Comparing Biden-Harris bungled Helene response to past disasters
For five days, the U.S. Army’s helicopters stayed on the ground.
The Biden-Harris administration’s response to Hurricane Helene has been slow, weak, and deadly—but, except for Fox News, you wouldn’t know it from the major media.
Hurricane Helene made landfall on Thursday, Sept. 26, at 11:10 p.m.
The following Thursday, a reporter asked President Joe Biden about the storm zone. Biden responded, "Oh, storm zone? I don’t know which storm you’re talking about…" Biden then recovered and claimed, "They are getting what they need, and they are very happy across the board."
The day before, five full days after the storm dumped up to 30 inches of rain in some mountain locations, Biden ordered 1,000 active-duty troops to provide assistance with 22 helicopters as well as tactical vehicles from Fort Liberty (formerly Fort Bragg), some 250 miles east of hard-hit Asheville, N.C.
There are about 50 utility helicopters in the 82d Airborne Division’s Combat Aviation Brigade at Fort Liberty. The military installation in Fayetteville, the U.S. Army’s largest, has almost 100,000 active-duty and reserve soldiers available for presidential call-up—so, Biden sent 1% of Fort Liberty’s personnel and less than half of the base’s much-needed helicopter inventory.
Meanwhile, the federal government’s emergency management arm, FEMA, warned it’s out of money because it has spent $1.4 billion on aid to "sanctuary cities" swamped with illegal aliens and mostly fake asylum seekers. FEMA said it sent 150 generators to the stricken region. But there are at least double that number of generators available for purchase within an hour’s drive of any typical city.
Displaced citizens in the Appalachian region hit by Helene are at risk of illness due to contaminated water—and in danger from human traffickers who prey upon the confused, weak, and vulnerable. The hundreds of military police from Fort Liberty’s 503rd Military Police Battalion and the 82nd MP Company could prove a powerful deterrent in shelters—if they were activated.
So, how does the Biden-Harris disaster response compare to other recent events? The media and Democrats heaped scorn on President George H.W. Bush’s federal response to the L.A. Riots in 1992 and then again on President George W. Bush’s Hurricane Katrina actions in 2005.
I was a California Army National Guard captain during the 1992 L.A. Riots. Within three days, we had 10,000 Guard soldiers on the ground, quelling looting and arson. Rioting started the evening of April 29. The following evening, a National Guard MP company was on the scene. The next day, 4,000 Guard soldiers were in the city and President Bush ordered active-duty Army and Marine forces into action as well as 1,000 federal law enforcement officers. By May 2, there were 10,000 Guard members and 3,500 active-duty soldiers and Marines keeping order in L.A.
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So, the elder Bush ordered 3,500 active-duty personnel into L.A. three days into the emergency while Biden took five days to decide to send 1,000 soldiers to help.
Hurricane Katrina made landfall on Monday, Aug. 29, 2005, around 4:30 a.m. At Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s request, President George W. Bush had issued an emergency declaration on Saturday, Aug. 27, two days before landfall. Within a day of impact, U.S. Coast Guard helicopters were already working, rescuing some 350 people from rooftops. Bush viewed the devastation from the air on Aug. 31 and was roundly criticized for flying over, rather than seeing things on the ground. On Sept. 1, Bush asked Gov. Blanco to allow a federal takeover of the relief efforts, which by then included 15,256 Guard members expected to grow to more than 40,000 personnel from neighboring states.
Bush visited the scene of the disaster only two days after landfall. Two days after Helene, Biden was on the beach in Delaware, "commanding," as he claimed, with two hours of phone calls. Vice President Kamala Harris was fundraising on the West Coast.
The U.S. military’s chain of command for this disaster runs from Biden to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to the commander of the U.S. Northern Command. Biden’s slow and confused response to Hurricane Helene—taking two more days to come to grips with the crisis than did his two recent predecessors—speaks of a president who is out of touch and not up to the job.
The Biden-Harris administration’s sluggish and half-hearted disaster response has put hundreds of thousands of Americans at risk in Helene’s swath of destruction. Biden’s lackluster engagement in the most powerful office on the planet puts the entire nation in peril as the world spirals into chaos while Harris focuses her time and energy on running to replace Biden while hiding from the media.