Jason Sandford
Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.
WLOS reports that local N.C. National Guard units, the 210th and 211th military police units, have been mobilized to help with hurricane relief. They’re supposed to be gathering now at the armory in Clyde, then headed to Greensboro to stage for deployment.
Anybody got any reports?
I found this, which fits with the local TV report:
WASHINGTON – (KRT) – The National Guard has ordered 4,200 military police officers to New Orleans to help overwhelmed civilian authorities in the swamped city restore order in the wake of deadly Hurricane Katrina, officials said Thursday.
Lt. Gen. Steven H. Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, said 1,400 National Guard military police would arrive in New Orleans by Friday, followed by another 1,400 on Saturday and 1,400 more on Sunday.
“These are trained professionals,” Blum said, speaking at a press conference with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and other federal officials. “They are military-police-trained, badge-carrying law enforcement officers.”
Blum and other officials said the Guardsmen would operate under the direction of civilian law enforcement officials.
Blum didn’t specify which states the Guardsmen would be coming from, but he said that National Guard relief efforts in Louisiana and Mississippi would eventually draw in citizen soldiers from nearly every state in the country.
“We will be there … for as long as they need it,” he said.
Jack Harrison, a spokesman for the National Guard Bureau in Washington, said that more than 13,000 National Guard troops were on duty in the Gulf states. That number was expected to top 30,000 “within the next couple of days,” he said.
My question is why are are they only now being mobilized?