General Russel Honoré
- 01/19/2010
"I have often heard that the two most important days in any person's life are the day they are born, and the day they discover the reason for their existence. For years, I thought my primary mission in life was to provide for my family and serve my country. But during my six weeks as commander of Joint Task Force-Katrina I discovered that my entire Army career, if not my life, had been a training ground to help me understand the importance of creating a culture of preparedness.
The Katrina experience put me in a position to take those lessons and encourage the American public through speeches and writings to embrace that culture because of its importance to the survival of the country. During the last 18 months of my command at First Army, I received and accepted numerous requests to speak about my experiences in New Orleans. People who listened to those speeches often told me they thought a lot about disaster preparedness but did little to actually put those thoughts into action. They had good intentions but seldom followed through on them and almost never committed the time or money to prepare themselves, their families, or their homes for a disaster.
Some of that failure to act is a function of a too busy society overwhelmed by other problems and unwilling to take the time necessary to attend to the details of preparedness. But some of it is a function of believing that the government will step in and make things right when they go wrong. As we saw in Katrina, the government is not always in a position to do that as quickly or as efficiently as we think it will.
Often when I talk to state and local officials about their disaster preparedness plans they start the conversation with "What happened in New Orleans won't happen here because we're better organized." But that "better organization" is often a myth based on good intentions and false premises. Governors tell me that if they see a hurricane heading for a major city in their state they would order a manditory evacuation. When I ask how they will get their people back into the city after the storm passes they say they have a phone tree and people will call one another."
"Governor", I tell them, "if the phone tree works you have an inconvenience, you don't have a disaster. In a disaster, the phones don't work."
-Excerpt from "Survival" by General Russel Honoré
RallyPoint's "Culture of Preparedness" will be hosting a keynote address featuring General Honoré on February 10th, at Canal One Place in New Orleans. If you'd like hear General Honoré speak in person about creating a Culture of Preparedness, contact us to reserve your spot now.
Admission is free, but space is extremely limited. Call 225-288-7466 to reserve your seat.
Before retiring, LTG Honoré commanded Joint Task Force-Katrina. In that capacity, he led the Department of Defense response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, and directed the operations of over 22,000 Service members, 200 aircraft, and 20 ships. In accordance with the leadership and priorities established by LTG Honoré, Joint Task Force-Katrina collaborated with Federal, State and local authorities to coordinate and conduct all response, recovery, and mitigation operations.
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