Private Efficiency

Since Hurricane Katrina devastated America's Gulf Coast, there have been reports of the outstanding efficacy of one relief agency: Wal•Mart.

The private sector, it hardly needs mentioning, is not as fettered or burdened as the public bureacracies of FEMA, The Army Corps of Engineers, or The Dept. of Homeland Security. Each of these has been tripped by knots of red tape. Even the American Red Cross, a well-respected albeit private charity, has hit hard times, admitting that the size of the devastation exceeded the agency's worst-case scenarios. The Cross has similarly received criticism that it placed beauracratic priorities above relief work.

The whole thing about aid and efficiency reminds me of a large house fire I photographed in the early morning hours one autumn. The beautiful home was "fully involved", at least one wing of it, and the house sat alone, atop an open ridge, with a driveway at least 1,200 feet long.

As firefighters struggled up the hill, laying lines to draw water from a street-side hydrant, the homeowners and their guests were hindering the firefighting efforts by at times direct interference. You see, the fire chief (in charge of the situation), ignored the fact that directly outside the house was a beautiful in-ground swimming pool full of water. Dismayed at this oversight, the homeowners screamed at the firemen, at times getting directly in their faces, even, at times, directing hoses and nozzles in directions they thought most effective. Eventually the police were brought in, removing several people from the scene. The house was a total loss.

But unknown to the homeowners was that there are rules firefighters must follow when engaged in firefighting, and drawing water from a swimming pool is not permitted. In part, the problem is that a swimming pool is a limited source: if a pumper sets up to use a pool, it remains useless once the water supply is depleted.

Irrespective of the rules, there was one overwhelming fact which I witnessed: the house would have experienced less damage had the family not interfered with the process. And their interference was based on an ignorance or rejection of the rules dictating firefighters' behaviors.

Red tape slows down nearly everything, but not all red tape is bad. The worst cases are like those which dictate, at least in this state, the rules surrounding a motor vehicle accident in which resuscitation of a victim is instantly deemed impossible. I've seen traffic re-routed for hours as a corpse lies in a car, 30 feet off the road, while rescuers wait for a medical examiner to travel from some distant spot solely to declare the dead officially dead (there are decent reasons for this, but some are absurd). The best cases are those which I've witnessed when protocol is followed to the Nth-degree at a fire scene, for example, and though the whole crowd of witnesses is screaming at the apparent absurdity of the firefighters' staging, a raging fire that looks foregone is suddenly knocked down so spectacularly one might think a miracle occurred (and all this to the sudden applause of the once bickering crowd).

That Wal•Mart could perform similarly spectacularly should not surprise anyone, despite the incredulities that I heard muttered this morning by such notables as Don Imus and Sen. John McCain (on Imus in the Morning). Every second of the day a business like Wal•Mart works at perfecting the distribution of goods as efficiently as possible, with fiscal responsibility. Wal•Mart, being private, can on the fly change certain rules in order to meet needs when crises hit, mindful that their actions must remain within the law. But the public sector is neither so practiced nor so free: The public sector is always a second-responder to any crisis, with the first-responders being the private citizens who are in crisis. This is not to say that the public sector must always fail, or be second rate. I know I am far less able to extinguish a fire at my home than my town's fire department is, though I would argue that I, in my privacy, am far better equipped to prevent a fire here than anyone else on the planet.

Kudos to Wal•Mart for doing something well. And kudos to all the private and public agencies that try their damnedest to please everyone – and they do please – within a quagmire of regulations.

Contratimes

The photograph above is of a Wood Duck drake, North America's most gloriously plumed indigenous water-fowl.