Sebelius: Kansas as the New Katrina

A massive tornado hit Greensburg, Kansas. And the town was destroyed.

At least ten people lost their lives.

It was a natural disaster. No preparation could have prevented the destruction. A monster tornado is going to do what it's going to do.

The images from Greensburg remind me of the devastation after a tornado wiped out Barneveld, Wisconsin.

At approximately 1:00 am CDT on June 8, 1984, a large severe tornado swept into Barneveld. It was part of a large outbreak of storms that started the evening before with tornadoes also touching down in Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, and Minnesota. Although a tornado watch had been issued, most residents were unaware that a storm was approaching until they were awoken by sounds of thunder and bright lightning. The 0.4-mile (0.60-km) wide tornado caused F5 damage, the highest level on the Fujita scale. The human and property toll was extensive. Two hundred of the village's 584 residents were injured, and nine were killed. Seventeen of the 18 businesses in Barneveld were destroyed, including all the government offices; the fire station, library, post office and churches were all flattened. In all, about 170 of the village's 225 commercial, agricultural and residential buildings were either destroyed instantly or damaged seriously enough that they were unable to be rebuilt. In fact, the only remaining and largely undamaged structure was the water tower, which has since been repainted. Damage to the village of Barneveld was estimated at $25 million with damage to the surrounding area put at about $40 million. Rebuilding began immediately, and by 2000, the population of Barneveld was almost exactly double what it was at the time the tornado nearly destroyed the town.

It took years to rebuild, but Barneveld did rise out of the rubble.

Rebuilding doesn't happen overnight.

Libs, of course, expect the federal government to wave a magic wand and clean up the mess and restore areas devastated by natural disasters immediately.

That's not how it works, but the libs don't care. It's not that they care about the people. They care about scoring political points.

So the governor of Kansas starts whining that the war in Iraq is causing delays in cleaning up and rebuilding.

She's crazy. She's being completely unreasonable, and she's distorting the reality of the situation.

From The New York Times:

For months, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas and other governors have warned that their state National Guards are ill-prepared for the next local disaster, be it a tornado a flash flood or a terrorist’s threat, because of large deployments of their soldiers and equipment in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Then, last Friday night, a deadly tornado all but cleared the small town of Greensburg off the Kansas map. With 80 square blocks of the small farming town destroyed, Ms. Sebelius said her fears had come true: The emergency response was too slow, she said, and there was only one reason.

“As you travel around Greensburg, you’ll see that city and county trucks have been destroyed,” Ms. Sebelius, a Democrat, said Monday. “The National Guard is one of our first responders. They don’t have the equipment they need to come in, and it just makes it that much slower.”

For nearly two days after the storm, there was an unmistakable emptiness in Greensburg, a lack of heavy machinery and an army of responders. By Sunday afternoon, more than a day and a half after the tornado, only about half of the Guard troops who would ultimately respond were in place.

It was not until Sunday night that significant numbers of military vehicles started to arrive, many streaming in a long caravan from Wichita about 100 miles away.

Ms. Sebelius’s comments about the slow response prompted a debate with the White House on Tuesday, which initially said the fault rested with her. Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, said the governor should have followed procedure by finding gaps after the storm hit and asking the federal government to fill them — but did not.

“If you don’t request it, you’re not going to get it,” Mr. Snow told reporters on Tuesday morning.

I think it's pretty clear that Sebelius and The Times are eager to play the Katrina card.

Their gripes are a joke.

There's plenty of manpower and plenty of equipment.

From CNN's Paula Zahn Now:

GOV. KATHLEEN SEBELIUS (D): Here in Kansas, about 50 percent of our trucks are gone. We need trucks. We're missing Humvees. We're missing all kinds of equipment that could help us respond to this kind of emergency.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SENIOR PENTAGON CORREPSONDENT: But, as bad as it is, the Army insists the devastation in Kansas isn't overly straining the Guard's admittedly limited resources. There are still thousands of troops and hundreds of vehicles available. In fact, of the state's more than 7,600 Guard troops, only around 10 percent are deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan. And Kansas has not asked for any reinforcements or extra equipment from neighboring states.

MAJOR GENERAL TOD BUNTING, ADJUTANT GENERAL, KANSAS NATIONAL GUARD: I think we got here in good shape. But we have limited resources. So, if we had another big storm right now, we would be hard-pressed to cover that.

MCINTYRE: In another sign that the Guard is not yet overtaxed, there's been no talk of canceling exercises, under way this week, in which thousands of Guard troops are practicing how to handle an even larger disaster, such as a massive storm, or even the detonation of a nuclear device by terrorists."

The Army says it has enough equipment for both the simulated drill and the real-life disaster, and argues, if the governor of Kansas has an urgent need for more bulldozers, backhoes, or Black Hawk helicopters, she only has to ask. Jamie McIntyre, CNN, the Pentagon.

ZAHN: And with me now is someone we saw in Jamie McIntyre's report, Major General Tod Bunting of the Kansas National Guard. Thanks so much for joining us.

We know your governor is very concerned about the shortage of equipment, National Guard equipment, in your state to handle this disaster. How will that compromise the efforts to get the job done?

BUNTING: Well, at this point in time, we're fine with this job. What the governor is saying is, with the shortage of equipment, if we had another storm anywhere near this magnitude, we wouldn't have enough equipment to handle it. We have got plenty of soldiers and airmen here, but we would be short on equipment. And we would be forced to go to other states, through the Emergency Management Assistance Process, to get the equipment in here.

Oh really?

Sebelius is talking about another disaster?

In addition to Tony Snow's clarifications on the ludicrous claims of Sebelius, Senator Sam Brownback made her look like a fool for trying to connect the deadly tornado and its aftermath directly to Iraq and Bush.

Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback also disputed Sebelius after visiting the destroyed town on Monday. Brownback, a Republican candidate for president, said local officials and the Kansas National Guard commander all told him they have the resources needed to respond.

"That's what really got me, is her saying that," Brownback said of Sebelius.

But Sebelius said she asked the Pentagon in December to replenish lost resources. She also said she spoke about the issue at great length with Bush over a year ago, in January 2006, when they rode together from Topeka, Kan., to a lecture in Manhattan.

"What the Defense Department said then and continues to say is that states will get about 90 percent of what they had," Sebelius said. "Meanwhile, it doesn't get any better. I'm at a loss."

The woman is nuts.

Greensburg has been devastated, but this is not Katrina revisited.

Although the damage is the worst case scenario for the small town, the scale of the disaster is not on the scope of the hurricane that brought such destruction and misery to New Orleans, Mississippi, and the Gulf Coast.

...Late Tuesday, in a statement, Ms. Sebelius repeated her message:

“I have said for nearly two years, and will continue to say, that we have a looming crisis on our hands when it comes to National Guard equipment in Iraq and our needs here at home.”

So according to Sebelius, it's a "looming crisis"?

Everything is under control in Kansas?

What a hack!

She's running for cover, trying to save face.

She should be worrying about managing the crisis at hand, not taking shots at the President or making statements about Iraq.

Her first concern should be the people of her state.

I think it's pretty sleazy for The Times and Sebelius and the anti-war crowd to exploit the deaths and the destruction of the Greensburg tornado to advance their Iraq "cut and run" agenda.