Weird stuff

Okay, I found it mildly odd that the National Guard wouldn't let the American Red Cross enter New Orleans. They had a putative reason, which the ARC gives here, to wit: if help is available IN the city, it might discourage people from leaving, or even encourage people to return.

So it's kind of cold and calculating, but at least logical - if a few more babies and grandmothers have to die of dehydration or dysentary to persuade the holdouts to remove themselves, well, the greatest good to the greatest number, you know?

Then we hear this, from Aaron Boussard, President of Jefferson Parrish on Meet the Press:

Three quick examples. We had Wal-mart deliver three trucks of water. Trailer trucks of water. Fema turned them back, said we didn't need them. This was a week go. We had 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel on a coast guard vessel docked in my parish. The coast guard said come get the fuel right way. When we got there with our trucks, they got a word, FEMA says don't give you the fuel. Yesterday, yesterday, fema comes in and cuts all our emergency communications lines. They cut them without notice. Our sheriff, Harry Lee, goes back in. he reconnects the line. He posts armed guards said no one is getting near these lines.

This is just baffling. I mean, WALMART, delivering tractor-trailers full of water! It's inspiring - it might even been considered a Point of Light! Why did they get turned back? Would a journalist somewhere track down the truck drivers and find out what reason they were given for being turned back?

I can vaguely imagine that there might exist somewhere, a Frank-Burnsian bureaucrat who was so by-the-book that he would return humanitarian relief because they didn't fill the paperwork out right. But I can't imagine why such an individual is still employed.

It's almost as though they want to maximize casualties, rather than minimize them. Do you suppose there's a typo in their manual?

But that thing about cutting the emergency communication lines? I've tried to think of a NON-sinister reason for that. I've tried, but I've failed.

Help me out here, people - in the middle of the biggest clusterfuck in our history, why would an organization want to cut off a line of communication? I can think of a lot of reasons, but they're really really ugly.