Capitalist Pig Is Hurricane Hero (Guess Who?)
Edwin Feulner’s commentary at the Heritage Foundation goes through the litany of government failures in the response to Hurricane Katrina, and then names a hero that would probably surprise those who believe everything reported by the WORMs (Worn-Out Reactionary Media, known to most as The Mainstream Media) and their allies (bolds are mine):
….. But let’s remember, not all answers can be found in Washington.
It would be better to look toward an institution that didn’t fail during Katrina: Wal-Mart.
The world’s largest retailer had 171 facilities in the path of the storm. But as Jason Jackson, the company’s director of business continuity, told a Senate committee, “We were able to recover and reopen 83 percent of our facilities in the Gulf area within six days.”
One key reason for Wal-Mart’s success, Jackson said, is “associates who are dedicated to their communities.” That local connection helped it deliver goods when government failed. As Investor’s Business Daily reported in September, “While local and federal groups suffered communications problems and bickered over who was in charge, Wal-Mart sprang into action.”
And while Chertoff admits Katrina caught the government flat-footed, Wal-Mart is always ready. In his book The World is Flat, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote, “The minute Wal-Mart’s meteorologists tell headquarters a hurricane is bearing down on Florida, its supply chain automatically adjusts to a hurricane mix in the Florida stores.” That means plenty of non-perishable food and critical items such as generators appear in stores even before disaster strikes.
Wal-Mart has plenty to teach the government. “When FEMA or another agency places a blanket order of 100 trailers of water, we often question if the person placing the order really knows what 100 trailers of merchandise looks like,” Jackson testified. “Usually the answer to this is that the person making the order was given a dollar amount to spend, and they do not comprehend the size of this order or what it means.”
….. After Katrina, even Wal-Mart’s critics sang its praises. “It’s hard to imagine any government program matching the efficiency of a Wal-Mart,” wrote consulting firm Lynch Ryan on its Weblog, adding, “Government has a lot to learn from Wal-Mart.”
Unless we change our approach — bringing in more private, local expertise and less federal bureaucracy — we’ll be reminded of that the next time disaster strikes.
Feulner’s last paragraph echoes Daniel Henninger’s suggestion in early September that many aspects of diaster relief should be privatized (from last three paragraphs at link), and I agree:
But we ought to at least recognize that our increasingly tough First World problems–terrorism, viruses, the rising incidence of powerful natural disasters–are being addressed by a public sector that too often is coming to resemble a Third World that can’t execute.
I’ll go further. We should consider outsourcing some of these functions, for profit, to the private sector. In recent days, offers of help have come from such companies as Anheuser-Busch and Culligan (water), Lilly, Merck and Wyeth (pharmaceuticals), Nissan and GM (cars and trucks), Sprint, Nextel and Qwest (communications gear and phone cards), Johnson & Johnson (toiletries and first aid), Home Depot and Lowe’s (manpower). Give contract authority to organize these resources to a project-management firm like Bechtel. Use the bureaucracies as infantry.
A public role is unavoidable and political leadership is necessary. But if we’re going to live with First World threats, such as the destruction of a major port city, let’s deploy the most imaginative First World brains–in the private sector and academia–to mitigate those threats. Laughably implausible? Look at your TV screen. The status quo isn’t funny.
