Virginia and Maryland have dispatched aid to New Orleans in preparation for Hurricane Gustav, a decision applauded by experts who say reciprocity among governments is increasingly critical to emergency response.
Thirty officers with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries left Sunday for the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries in Baton Rouge. The team has been trained in search and rescue missions as well as evacuation operations in high-water areas.
The team, equipped with chain saws, axes, extra fuel and equipment designed for self-sufficiency in the bayou, is expected to work for about a week before returning to Virginia.
“We have been working for several days with other states to be ready to respond as soon as requests come in from affected areas,” said Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine. “We will share our resources and help in any way we can.”
Kaine has asked that any volunteers refrain from self-deploying to the area, instead directing those who wish to help to contact a volunteer organization.
Maryland on Saturday sent a staff of 26 — along with five support ambulances and six support vehicles — to Louisiana.
William McLain, a law professor at the University of the District of Columbia, commended these local authorities for sending aid, saying that sharing resources between states and regions is crucial nowadays.
“Quite frankly, we’ll need reciprocation if there’s a nuclear [attack] in D.C.,” he said.
McLain has co-taught a course on government accountability in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina with law professor Matthew Fraidin.
He said that a principal lesson learned from Katrina was that there was a significant lack of communication among levels of government, which helped contribute to the brutal aftermath of the storm.
Fraidin said that when Katrina hit New Orleans, 8,000 prisoners were stuck in the Orleans Parish jail for four days without electricity or food. He and McLain are trying to study the District’s Department of Corrections’ evacuation plan for its jail, and are working to assess
D.C.’s preparedness for a disaster.
