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More Hurricane 2006

• FEMA relief aids in Tropical Storm Fay yard debris cleanup
• Collier seeks aid as state asks for federal disaster declaration
• Tropical storm leaves Collier with plenty of rain, no major injuries or loss of life

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Reprinted from the Oct., 30, 2005 edition

Pavlovian dog; bell; salivate.

American; hurricane; complain the government is slow to respond.

This country has been conditioned to expect Big Brother to step in immediately after any crisis and make things right.

It is as if we count on the mayor or the governor or the president to make food, water, ice and whatever else we might deem necessary materialize outside the front door as soon as the storm is over.

Barely 24 hours after Wilma, relief workers were on the ground handing out supplies in Naples and Immokalee. The distribution didn’t go as planned.

Some supplies just flat out didn’t show up. Collier County Emergency Management Director Dan Summers briefly fell into the “I Want It Now” mentality Tuesday when he said the state government’s inability to get supplies into Collier was the same incompetence witnessed after Katrina “rearing its ugly head again.”

By Wednesday, Summers had cooled down, attributing the delay to several factors, including hurricane damage around the supply depots, downed communication lines and competing demand in other counties. “If we have as good a day (Thursday) as we had today (Wednesday), I’m going to call (Tuesday) a glitch and let it go,” Summers said.

It should not be surprising that a government-run operation did not go smoothly. Government is notorious for its inefficiency. And the bigger the government, the bigger the inefficiency. While Summers and his staff did yeoman’s work leading up to and right after the storm, as the higher echelons of government got involved, a lower degree of proficiency was to be expected.

Instead of being shocked that the official response was slow, we should marvel at how fast the help that did arrive got here.

We should be amazed at the free market economy that rushes gasoline, bread and generators to a disaster area literally overnight. The most effective action government can take now is to pressure the power companies, which operate without market competition, to make repairs as quickly as possible.

Hurricane planners say you should have a three-day supply of food, water, batteries and other necessities on hand prior to a hurricane. It’s not a figure pulled out of a hat.

Three days is a reasonable time to allow for supplies to be trucked in from outside the region, distribution to be set up and the usual government snafus to be ironed out.

In some cases, Katrina being both recent and vivid in memory, the ineptitude of the government response goes above and beyond the call of dereliction of duty and warrants all the scorn that can be conjured up by the most vociferous critic.

And places like Immokalee — where reliance on government assistance and private charity are more prevalent and where a spotty economy, a language barrier and substandard housing are the norm — warrant special attention before and after a storm.

But in the rest of Southwest Florida, where warning was ample and supplies were available, the pace of government relief hardly constitutes a crisis.

Wilma hit Monday morning. Were you prepared to subsist without outside help for 72 hours, until Thursday morning? If not, you can hardly blame the government’s response for your predicament.