In today's Washington Post Section A, on the top half of page 13, there is a jumped story entitled "Cities Find They Are Often On their Own With Evacuees." The point is that cities are being left on their own trying to figure out how to accommodate Katrina victims relocated there.
The bottom half of the page is a color ad that must have cost tens of thousands of dollars --maybe more-- that says: "When I first got to Iraq, all the troops were living in tents and makeshift shelters they built themselves. I helped move containerized housing units into the camps ... so that soldiers could have a decent place to come back to at the end of the day. We got 80,000 troops out of the sand in 3 months. It was awesome. No other company could have done that." -- Jay Patterson, operations, Halliburton
COMMENTS (2)
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It pretty much confirms my opinion that just about any organization can do things better than a government body. The layers of red tape, layers of agencies, layers of compliance, all cause layers of delay. I haven't researched the story but I read somewhere that a group of rescue teams from Iowa had to stay in Atlanta for cultural sensitivity training before being released to go to New Orleans. People were suffering at the Superdome and the Convention Center and government is still working through the process, not the crisis. I'm not surprised at all that a non-governmental body can do things faster or better.
Posted by: David N | September 19, 2005 at 09:29 AM
I agree with you that frequently private sector entities can do things faster; however, I don't think that was the full point of the posting. What stands out is that Haliburton placed the ad.
Posted by: Kristin | September 21, 2005 at 02:31 PM