Sep. 18th, 2005
"Phil Capitano (Mayor of Kenner, LA): FEMA showed up about 8 days after the event; certainly I think they could have been a bit more mobilized, they could have been a little bit more ready for this emergency. I'll tell you who was ready, which I find unbelieveable. Wal-Mart was ready. Now, we can joke about it, but the reality is, is Wal-Mart put the logistics together to give water and food into my community when FEMA wasn't around. Now how did Wal-Mart manage to get truckloads of water, truckloads of food to my community when others were still trying to decide where they were going, what they were going to do, and how they were going to do it? So I would certainly tell some of these federal agencies and maybe even a few state that they ought to go over to Wal-Mart and figure out how to do their setup for them to be able to mobilize quickly and have some kind of logistics to be able to bring into these affected areas the food and water that's necessary.
David Brancacchio: But you'd prefer that the whole job of disaster relief not be in the future subcontracted to a chain store?"
David Brancacchio: But you'd prefer that the whole job of disaster relief not be in the future subcontracted to a chain store?"