The coordination needed to respond to a natural disaster and a terrorist bombing are very similar. Identifying the threat, planning courses of action, search and rescue, recovery… all virtually identical. The scope is not that far off. On 9/11 we didn’t know how many planes were out there. I was in NY and it seemed every 10 minutes someone reported a bomb in the Empire State Building or Grand Central - that would’ve affected a hell of a lot more people than in NO.
Personally I believe the local government in NO failed big time in the evacuation and immediate aftermath and this was just exacerbated by the slow response of FEMA. That said, it doesn’t give me a warm fuzzy about DHS and FEMA. They planned this exact response, saw the threat coming and still failed to respond appropriately.
“Yes, they track sales. So you probably have to buy a farm first, then divert.”
I’m not so sure about this. How do they track it? You mean every little business everywhere across the nation sends in their sales of fertilizer? I doubt it. Plus, do you realize how easy this stuff would be to steal? It’s typically stored in your basic steel/wood buildings. The company wouldn’t even realize if a few hundred pounds went missing.
I worked for a company that spread fertilizer and chemicals on fields one summer during high school (mid-90’s) and there was no tracking nor really even any safeguards over the fertilizer (the doors to the building weren’t even locked at night. When you are selling tons of this stuff at a time if some bomber came in and stole 200 hundred pounds or so the company wouldn’t have any idea that their pile is just a little smaller.
It is a known fact that Iraq had WMD. For christsakes Saddam used WMD on his own people several times. The only thing we don’t know is where they are now.
"I worked for a company that spread fertilizer and chemicals on fields one summer during high school (mid-90’s) and there was no tracking nor really even any safeguards over the fertilizer "
It is a different world now. Since OKC they track it.