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I recommend you read COUNTERCOLUMN. He is an Army reservist in Florida that has not only served in Iraq, but has also been in on his share of hurricane disaster relief. He is been posting how what it takes to do what’s being done in LA.
He posts an entry from someone on the front lines doing the work.
I went in Jason. Hauled a half dozen generators and five 50 gal fuel drums to run them. Plus two drums I needed to increase my range in order to make the end destination. No fuel was available closer than Tuscaloosa coming in from the east (Atlanta area). I run a short truck and am normally an expediter. My niche is delivering to job sites. I run 26,000# although weight restrictions were removed for disaster relief. When I went in I was hitting about 34,000#. Six wheels at 24' vs eighteen at 48/53' and 34k vs 80k. It took me 42 hours to run just south of Baton Rouge coming in from Meridian, MS to the north. I had nothing left to give at the completion of one run and was asked repeatedly to run again. A human body can only do so much.Posted by The Vorlon at September 4, 2005 9:14 PMShort trucks are the answer though. This is the tenth disaster aid run I've made in only the last two years. Going in with a road crew with chainsaws takes time and a whole lot of labor. There are just simply not many rigs like mine around. You can forget trying to pull a trailer into some of those areas. It won't happen. You have to pipe out your exhaust and run two granny gears just to poke through. It's a nightmare but one desperately worth facing. Command posts and comm run on power. It is critical to supply that power and you never know where it's going to be needed.
We had quite a few short trucks running. Rollbacks (car haulers/tow trucks) couldn't make the run unless they were full size (13 ton FL 70s, KW T-300s, etc.). Plus there is a problem with securing loads on slick aluminum beds. Two tried to run with me and had to turn back. They were simply too low to the ground. Two others in the 33k 26' class made it through. One of my cousins came over from the west side of Baton Rouge in his rig like mine and ran in my stead for a second run. The sheer logistics of the situation was a nightmare!
It'd be nice to have a fleet of short trucks just sitting around waiting on disasters to strike like I hear some idiots wanting to have. Shoot, I'll take that gig if the pay is equal to what I make now. Think the taxpayers would pay me to sit around and wait on Cat 4 storms to roll through? heh! All of a sudden we've got all these logistics experts in the media and in Congress. Sounds like the MSM and their ability to cover the military properly huh? Yep! Lots of brand new experts out there in the press and general populace! :-o
I would like to take one of these experts in one time though. Nothing like A 23 Stihl to give them a real education! :-)