At 01:39 PM 9/5/2005, Donna Mosesmann wrote:
I gave up a labor day trip because I live in Houston and wanted to help
with the evacuees here. <snip> So far I haven't been contacted by email
or phone.
Overall, I feel disappointed that I've had this time off from work and
have been able to do so little.
I believe it was Winston Churchill who paraphrased an earlier statesman
when he said:
"They also serve who only sit and wait--or go pot holing."
The "Incident Command" concept arose out of a need for standardization and
consistancy--a need for everyone involved to understand the chain of
command and how to act, react, and communicate along established
guidelines--and to establish a heirachy of personnel and groups trained
(and perhaps qualified) to perform certain technical tasks. That is
supposed to minimize screw-ups--probably does. Nobody said it will
eliminate all of the them--there are a lot of variables that can't be
planned for in nominally rigid systems. That lack of flexibility is one of
the system's shortcomings. Way too often incompetent or poorly informed
leadership, combined with unknowns such as the credibility of volunteer
organizations, a intellect which by design gives priority to government
trained and certified teams, and other such things result in the inability
to integrate and utilize all available resources.
Just because a volunteer (or group of associated volunteers) displays a lot
of enthusiasm for a project doesn't mean that those in charge will always
become enthused enough themselves to find a place to use them--or will even
find a need for them to begin with.
Wanting to help is a good thing. But when the effort to help becomes more
trouble than the good it'll probably wind up providing, it might be best to
just leave the problems to the established system. Sometimes it might be
best to just go caving and not get involved in other folks' incompetencies.
We all know that they are perfectly capable of screwing up without any help
from us.
--Ediger
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