Kansas Governor: Guard Troops Needed at Home

May 7, 2007
Kansas Governor: Guard Troops Needed at Home

CHICAGO — For months, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas and other governors have warned that their state National Guards were ill-prepared for the next local disaster, be it a tornado or a flash flood or a terrorist's threat, because of large deployments of their soldiers and equipment in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Then, on Friday night, a deadly tornado all but cleared the small town of Greensburg off the Kansas map. With 80 square blocks destroyed, Sebelius said her fears had come true: The emergency response was too slow, she said, and there was only one reason.

"As you travel around Greensburg, you'll see that city and county trucks have been destroyed," Sebelius, a Democrat, said on Monday. "The National Guard is one of our first responders. They don't have the equipment they need to come in, and it just makes it that much slower."