A former Army Logistics officer has compared the federal response to Helene to that for 2005’s Hurricane Katrina and had has been abysmal in comparison.

A contributor for The Federalist writing under the name Cynical Publius is a former U.S. Army colonel. At the time of Hurricane Katrina was even nearing landfall, he was a shift officer in the National Military Command Center (NMCC) for hurricane support operations.

So he knows a thing or two about recovery from catastrophic storms.

To begin with, the former colonel reviews who was selected to head the deployment of key response units.

In Katrina, a three-star general was placed in command, along with the two-star commanding general of the 82nd Airborne Division, with a full Airborne Infantry Brigade task force of the 82nd, a corps-support logistics command of thousands of soldiers, a signal battalion, a combat support hospital, robust Army engineer assets, and countless other support units. All of these units were on standby orders days before Katrina hit.