MORE PROGRESS?

A convoy of military vehicles plowed through the flooded streets of New Orleans on Friday bringing food, water and medicine to the thousands of people trapped at a downtown convention center.

The relief effort came as President Bush toured the Gulf Coast to survey damage from Hurricane Katrina and shortly after the mayor of New Orleans said the city was “holding on by a thread.”

More aid is arriving elsewhere, though this email explains some of the problems:

I run a trade association of tank truck carriers trying to assist in the relief efforts by transporting food and potable water. I’m in regular contact with many of the companies, and here are some “on the ground” facts:
1) Large trucks (80,000 lbs. gross weight) almost always have to use the Interstates. For trucks attempting to come in from outside the area, most of those roads (approaching the disaster area) are either closed or have bridges out. The so-called secondary roads may be somewhat passable, but their bridges (over rivers and streams) are not built to sustain such loads. Simply stated, you can’t get there from here.

2) Trucks domicled in those areas (because that’s where the companies traditionally serve customers) are still underwater, thus the equipment is not accessible;

3) Nobody in their right mind is going to take loads of gasoline and fuel oil into a city controlled by unfriendly folks carrying automatic weapons. A tank truck loaded with 8,000 gallons of gasoline can produce a very impressive fire;

4) Those local trucking companies can’t contact their drivers. There’s no power, thus (even) cellular is unavailable, and many of the drivers homes (in places like Kenner, Slidel, Metarie, etc) have been destroyed and families dispersed. I have one member with about 120 drivers and mechanics in that immediate area. To date, management has been able to contact 12. Those in the National Guard have been mobilized and are not available to drive.

5) Pumps — needed to load the vehicles — don’t work because there’s no power.

I suspect that things will improve throughout the weekend.

UPDATE: Reader Ian Jay emails:

I wanted to thank you for cross-posting the email from the National Review, from the trade association representative. It raised a lot of very valid explanations for the problems that have been experienced so far with getting aid to those in New Orleans. Reports of those sorts of infrastructure and safety issues go a long way in alleviating my concerns about the actual response to the disaster, and I think most people are doing as much as they can.

But, I think it’s important to bear this in mind, as well: I’ve been reading, watching, and listening to the news for about 12 hours a day since the beginning of the week. Yet if I hadn’t read your updates this afternoon, I wouldn’t have known about those problems. Obviously, they’re logical problems to have in the wake of such a disaster, and it certainly makes sense when I think about it. But if I didn’t know about it, then we can all be damned sure that the people holed up in the Superdome, the Convention Center, and on rooftops across New Orleans had absolutely no idea that logistical problems were to blame.

I haven’t been watching that much TV, but it does seem that there’s far more reporting on the problems from the disaster sites than on the process of responding.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Okay, the coverage isn’t quite this bad. But then, bear in mind that I haven’t been watching that much of it . . . .

MORE: Reader C.J. Burch, who’s been watching more TV, emails:

Oh yeah, it is just that bad. If anything Jeff understates the case. One begins to wonder if the founding fathers got that freedom of the press thing right, after all.

Okay, it’s not that bad, but it has been pretty shameful. When all is said and done the press will be stunned to discover that the only people they have impressed are themselves.

Well, that’s usually how it works out. I thought they were doing a pretty good job earlier in the week, actually, but I haven’t watched much TV since Wednesday.

MORE: Roger Simon is watching CNN from Japan and is unimpressed:

We hear a litany of criticism of the administration and everybody else involved in the rescue program, but barely one single concrete suggestion about how things could be done better. It’s like attending a Conclave of the Fatuous.

I watched a bit of Headline news earlier, and Soledad O’Brien did seem a bit overwrought.