Thinking Outside the Box And Why Things Are Not As Bad As Reported

In a national disaster such as Hurricane Katrina, the state's national guard is called up to help out. It is my understanding that "New Orleans" has requested that the national guard be brought back in due to the heavy crime and homicide rate. How many years has it been since Katrina?

If things are as bad in the Bakken, specifically Williston, as some claim, and if state leaders are as serious as they say they are in helping the oil patch, why has there been no talk of deploying national guard to Williston? Yes, I am aware of military-civilian issues, but calling out the national guard for local disasters is commonplace, and some reports would suggest there is a disaster in Williston related to the boom in the oil patch. Maybe we will see some of that disaster-in-the-making on tonight's heavily advertised CNBC program on the Bakken.

Approximately 2,000 members of the North Dakota national guard have been deployed to Iraq over the past few years; the last member returned in December, 2011, and with the US drawdown there, they are not likely to be redeployed.

The Williston police department is looking to hire less than a handful of new recruits, somewhere between one and five new recruits if I remember correctly. Certainly, this would be a great assignment for some of our young national guard security forces to get training and fill a temporary need in Williston.

I don't know if the North Dakota guard has a medical unit, but it doesn't take a whole of training to get a handful of soldiers to run shotgun with the volunteer force for all those emergency calls. My understanding is that many of these calls are for domestic disputes, and certainly the guard member could provide initial response.

I am not aware of major fire issues in the oil patch. So that leaves security (law enforcement) and medical first responders.

And if fights are breaking out downtown, a few soldiers carrying automatic weapons patrolling the streets would put an end to that. The man-camps have responsibility for managing their own "hotels." Likewise, hotels/motels in Williston could be tasked with providing their own private security (not national guard). Is Wal-Mart providing professional security?

Food shortage? Have the military escort and/or provide convoy training for Albertson's, Economart, and Wal-Mart.

Sewage, water, utilities? Outsource it to Halliburton. They did it in Iraq under much worse conditions. 

Truck reliever route? Bypass? Why isn't that completed yet? At least a temporary fix. Again, outsource it and get it done. I drove the proposed route for the temporary bypass and much of it is already in place. How many years are we into this boom? Five? How long have folks been predicting these problems? Five?

But when I don't see these suggestions making the editorials or in "letters to the editor," it suggests to me things are not as bad as some say.

Based on all I'm reading, it sounds like Williston is looking for a handful of more law enforcement personnel and a handful of medical responders (most non-violent). And if the jail is overcrowded, the military has a core competency in temporary facilities called tents, again manned by the guard.

Certainly if the North Dakota national guard could help Iraq, it could help Williston, and something tells me that assignment would be very comfortable compared to what they saw in the Middle East.

I will post comments that provide additional positive suggestions but I won't post any comments that are negative in nature. This is brain-storming and negativity is not allowed. We're looking for solutions at this point, not looking for "why this won't work." That comes in Part II.