Honoré in charge, refusing excuses that slow cleanup
By Donna Leinwand,
USA TODAY
NEW ORLEANS — Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré is the go-to guy here.
Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, a Louisiana native, has become the symbol of New Orleans' emergence from chaos to reconstruction.
By Rob Carr, AP
When he bounds off his truck in downtown New Orleans and lights his third cigar of the day, he is immediately surrounded by soldiers, volunteers and city workers who shower him with praise and requests.
"I don't know what they say about you anywhere else. All I know is you get the job done," volunteer Eddie Boy Woerner says.
That job was getting 1,000 pounds of donated beef that was stranded outside the city. Woerner, a group of his employees at his turf business, and some friends came to New Orleans from Gulf Shores, Ala., and set up a massive barbecue to feed the federal workers, soldiers and volunteers who have descended on the disaster zone.
Woerner was having trouble getting the beef into the city. Word got to the general. He sent a helicopter.
Honoré, a Louisiana native with a cigar-smoking habit that begins before noon, has become the symbol of New Orleans' emergence from chaos to reconstruction. He is commander of the 1st Army, which is now charged with the largest humanitarian effort in U.S. history.
Honoré, 57, was raised on a subsistence farm, land his father rented and worked in Lakeland, La. He graduated from Southern University in Baton Rouge, where he studied agriculture. He spent four years in ROTC and got a deferment from the draft. He said he wanted to go in as an officer, serve and then go into farming. He joined the Army in 1971 and never left.
In 1971, the military had only a handful of African-American general officers. Honoré, who calls himself a Louisiana Creole African-American, did not have it in his mind then to become a general. "I just did every job as best as I could," Honoré says.
Honoré (AHN-ur-ay) is married and has four children — two boys and two girls. One daughter lives in New Orleans. She went to Florida before Hurricane Katrina struck to visit her sister who had just had a baby — Honoré's first grandchild. His son, Sgt. Michael Honoré, 27, of the Louisiana National Guard, returns home next week after a year in Iraq.
The nerve center of the military's response to Hurricane Katrina is at Camp Shelby near Hattiesburg, Miss. Honoré pops in often, as he did at 11:30 p.m. Sunday after a day spent in New Orleans. The night briefing is underway.
Honoré has a few stock lines. He calls everyone "Tiger," particularly before issuing a demand. His second most common line: "You're looking at the calendar. I'm looking at my watch." That's his way of saying: "Get it done now."
Although Camp Shelby is a 45-minute helicopter ride north of New Orleans, Honoré prefers to spend his day in the disaster zone. He has an air-conditioned tent with computers and communications equipment set up in a garage at the Port of New Orleans. But a good deal of his time is spent riding in the back of an Army truck.
"This is my office," Honoré says. "This truck. I can see all the leaders and find out what they are struggling with."
"It's what commanders do to get the feel and the smell of the situation," explains Brig. Gen. Tony Cucolo of the U.S. Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Va., who is part of Honoré's team. A few days ago, as he drove around the city's convention center, Honoré noticed the stench of the trash and rotting food. The next day, it was clean. "We're not here to talk about things. We're here to get it done," he says.
He parked his "office" outside City Hall on Sunday. After a 45-minute chat with a city administrator, Honoré is on the phone to his engineering task force: "You need to get City Hall stood up. The water needs to be pumped out of the basement. And the generator. And get in some street sweepers. Get this glass out of the street. The police officers are getting flat tires."
He says restoring City Hall is a priority. "The people who make things happen within the city have been evacuated. We need to bring them back."
It seems a daunting task. "Better be someone over here before the day's out," Honoré says.
Hah! Wrap....
No comments:
Post a Comment