Response to Hurricane Katrina

[Tetrahedrite]

Over the last couple of days I have been watching the situation unfold on the Gulf Coast in the USA. It seems to be a very serious situation with potentially thousands of fatalities. The media is reporting (in Australia) that both the initial evacuation and the subsequent response were seriously inept.

Some commentators here are suggesting that a third world country would have handled the situation better than it has been dealt with by both federal and state administrations (I do not necessarily agree).

 

What is the US media reporting? Do you think the response was adequate? I have no first hand knowledge of the situation and I am wary of pre-judging those in charge with only second hand news reports.

 

I think when things get back to normal, some serious questions will have to be asked, for example:

 

-Is it resonable to "shoot to kill" looters who are stealing to survive?

-Why was there no evacuation of those who could not evacuate themselves, the poor and the disabled?

-Is there an element of racism in the response?

-Was money diverted from a program to strengthen the levy to the "War on Terror (war on Iraq)"?

-Was the National Guard's ability to respond hampered by a lack of personnel and resources due to the war on Iraq?

 

When all's said and done, I think this situation is likely to seriously hurt those in charge, at all levels of government.

[CPL.Luke]

this has been discussed before, I think though that from the responsein the previous threads it appears taht most americans believe that overall the response was adequate under the situation. One thing most people in other counries don't understand I believe is that there was only 48 hours warning and over a million people to be evacuated (judging by the numbers of those who have been semipermanently displaced), also a hurricane is about 500 miles wide (at largest (what was katina's diameter?)), so by organizing large scaleevacuation messures and mobilizing troops into that area beforehand you can severely limit your ability to cope with the disaster afterwards.

[ydoaPs]

there were many people that refused to evacuate as well...odd...

[1dumbdude]

i dont know what people you guys have been talking to, but i havent talked to a single person who was happy with the help before hand or even up to today as a matter of fact. and the news and media of all types are reporting this, i live in a backwoods southern illinois town and even the racist people, that you all know that is found in a community like mine, are upset with the response and fully think that it is because of a race thing. i mean look at how fast we had thousands of volunteers in place when nyc and d.c. where hit, thats cause you had big business and high ranking government hit, but what is in new orleans, how does rushing to help them help out bush or the people of big business???? hahaha kanye west said it perfectly.... look up what he said on the nbc special.......

[Douglas]

The media is reporting (in Australia) that both the initial evacuation and the subsequent response were seriously inept.

The Govenor of Louisiana had called for the evacuation of New Orleans prior to the storm making landfall. People were expected to evacuate on their own, though I've heard that 1 in 6 people in N.O. do not own a car.

 

 

Some commentators here are suggesting that a third world country would have handled the situation better than it has been dealt with by both federal and state administrations (I do not necessarily agree).

nonsense.

 

 

-Is it resonable to "shoot to kill" looters who are stealing to survive?

Nobody was shot for stealing food, water or 42" plasma TV's. There were some who stole guns and rifles, which was when the problems started.

 

-Why was there no evacuation of those who could not evacuate themselves, the poor and the disabled?

Actually, most people refused to evacuate, and had the levees/dykes not been breeched, there was probably no real need to evacuate. Most of the damage due to the winds was in Mississippi.

 

-Is there an element of racism in the response?

Depends on who you talk to. Al Sharpton, a Black activist, claims that if the community were mostly White, the evacuation would have been much faster. A Black rapper claimed (on TV) that Bush doesn't care about Blacks.

-Was the National Guard's ability to respond hampered by a lack of personnel and resources due to the war on Iraq?

Perhaps, Bush recalled 300 soldiers from Iraq.

 

When all's said and done, I think this situation is likely to seriously hurt those in charge, at all levels of government.

Some people are calling for the firing of all top level echelon in FEMA for botching the job.

FEMA = Federal Emergency Management Agency, the agency most responsible for disasters.

[CPL.Luke]

you can't really compare this to the WTC either, the WTC was a disaster localised to a couple city blocks, katrina devastated 3 states.

[Pangloss]

Nobody thinks the response was adequate. I don't think it's a case of media exaggeration, either, I think it's just a clear case of not being prepared. Whether it's possible to have been prepared for this to an adequate degree is another question, but I think it's a very GOOD question.

 

I still don't think this should be a matter of politics. But of course, as is often the case in history, it will become one. The buck stops here, as they say.

 

First, regarding President Bush, heaping all the blame on him is a convenient but false approach. Nothing happened to prepare for this this well-known probability during the Clinton administation either. Or Bush 41. Or Reagan. Or Carter. (Of course at some point you have to stop and look at who knew what, when, etc, but I think the point is made.)

 

The New York Times and other outlets are pointing a finger at Bush for cutting funding to FEMA. But this is not, in fact, what has happened. FEMA was rolled into the larger Homeland Security organization in 2003. This is not necessarily a bad thing, and anybody who suggests such is conveniently forgetting the fact that FEMA was itself created out of a merging of previous organizations by Carter.

 

Regarding the claims that African Americans have been deliberately abused (or however it's being put), I think it's more accurate to say that poor people were dealt a mean blow. Some further investigation needs to take place into specific incidents, such as the Mayor of New Orleans evacuate foreign citizens ahead of his own people, etc. (The mayor is an African American.)

 

More whites were affected by Katrina than blacks. This is not surprising, given the racial makeup of the country. But of course this is not really the issue. You'll hear the far right take this up as a rallying cry, but really the issue was why those people in New Orleans went so long without assistance. This is a valid question and requires further investigation, in my opinion.

 

Regarding the issue of why people didn't evacuate, many were unable to do so, lacking transportation. This was one of the fastest-moving and fastest-developing storms on record, and (in an oddly contradictory twist) also one of the most unpredictable in terms of where it actually hit. There simply was not enough time to get everyone out. It's worth noting, by the way, that no American city has ever been fully evacuated. We're seeing something completely unprecedented here.

 

Getting back to the subject of blame, state and local officials will have to share in the apportionment of this as well. Some of the analysis already put out there has been unexpected. For example, Mississippi is already talking about the fact that the morality-based laws requiring that the casino boats be located off shore directly lead to the deaths of Mississippi citizens. And of course, even a house built with a solid hurricane code has no chance of stopping a 10,000-ton barge from going wherever it wants to go (much less the matchstick houses that existed in the area). This wasn't anything anyone expected at all, and it will be interesting to see whether that results in casinos moving ashore, something Mississippi citizens have rejected in the past.

 

One thing I believe you will see along the gulf coast are stronger hurricane codes. South Florida should be the role model for these improvements. If you look at those pictures, you see a lot of houses replaced with fields strewn with broken two-by-fours. Houses built under Florida hurricane codes are built out of cement blocks (and have been for 30+ years, in fact). I'd like to see the gulf coast redeveloped under SOUTH Florida (post-Andrew) building codes, which entail roof-naildown processes and windows and doors that can withstand 190+ mph impacts. We have seen the benefits from this in South Florida, and they have been tremendous.

 

Another area where the gulf coast will hopefully learn from Florida is in the area of infrastructure. Power companies in the three affected states are already familiar with FP&L procedures, but power company management (driven by shareholders) logically tend to resist infrastructure improvements that they have to pay for. More work needs to be done in this area.

 

I don't mean to suggest that South Florida is perfect at handling this stuff. We had as many residents lose power due to Katrina (when it was a Category 1) as did Mississippi and Alabama combined. That's because the population density is much higher here, but also because we still have many areas with overhead power lines that do not mix well with old trees (especially older ones. The difference is that power was restored to 90% of our residents within 48 hours. That's because (a) our houses were still there (and would have still been there even if Katrina had been much stronger), and (b) the infrastructure was less susceptible to damage.

 

We still have issues here. One of them is underground power lines, which are still prone to flooding (and when they do get damaged, are much harder to repair), but are less likely to fail, and much easier to maintain. A big issue here is whether older neighborhoods should be retrofitted with underground power. I hope that the gulf coast is rebuilt with that issue in mind (many parts of South Florida were NOT, after Andrew, fitted with underground power, but all new development today is).

[Pangloss]

Oh, regarding the subject of whether the military is overextended due to Iraq, this analysis from James Robbins at National Review seems appropriate:

 

Take the Army for example. There are 1,012,000 soldiers on active duty, in the Reserves, or in the National Guard. Of them, 261,000 are deployed overseas in 120 countries. Iraq accounts for 103,000 soldiers, or 10.2 percent of the Army.

 

That's all? Yes, 10.2 percent. That datum is significant in itself, a good one to keep handy the next time someone talks about how our forces are stretched too thin, our troops are at the breaking point, and so forth. If you add in Afghanistan (15,000) and the support troops in Kuwait (10,000) you still only have 12.6 percent.

 

So where are the rest? 751,000 (74.2 percent) are in the U.S. About half are active duty, and half Guard and Reserve.

 

http://www.nationalreview.com/robbins/robbins200509020719.asp

 

The issue with people claiming that the military is overextended in Iraq has to do with the LENGTH of service required there, and the rotational capabilities of the active units. Iraq has basically zero impact on whether they can deal with domestic issues, like natural disasters, uprisings, terrorist acts, etc.

[Pangloss]

Sorry, let me just add one more post, in part to respond to Tetra's original post about media coverage.

 

With regard go the issue of media coverage, I think it's interesting that some of the right-wing elements in the press immediately launched into an attack on foreign countries who are willing to accept our aid but never come to ours. They're eating a LOT of crow today. I'm floored by the amount of foreign aid that's being reported. Canada, the EU, Asia, even Mexico and South America are all contributing. Middle-eastern states are putting up free oil. The list is growing extremely long. I believe I even caught something the other day about aid coming from the tsunami-struck region!

 

I hope the right-wingers are listening. But even more importantly, I hope all Americans get the message on this. People care about us. They're grateful when we help them, and more than willing to extend a hand in return. And just because people don't agree on political issues doesn't mean they can't agree on human suffering.

 

Anyway, let me address one of Tetra's points that I missed earlier:

 

-Is it resonable to "shoot to kill" looters who are stealing to survive?

 

No, it's not reasonable to shoot people who are stealing to survive. Yes, it is reasonable to shoot people who are stealing from you if you are defending your property. Reasonable but not preferable. If it were me, it would depend more on whether I felt physically threatened, and how badly *I* needed the stuff they were stealing.

 

The distinction between looting-for-food/water and looting-for-cash/goods is an important one. Interestingly (because I'm a pretty politically-aware guy), I think this is the first time I've ever heard this particular angle on this debate. We've had looting-to-survive in this country before, but I can't remember ever having this discussion at this level before -- a national debate on the subject. And the agreement seems to be more or less universal -- there doesn't seem to be a debate.

 

I do think it's hogwash the argument I heard put forth in one place that people were stealing TVs to barter for food. That's splitting the hair just a bit too fine, IMO.

[BobbyJoeCool]

I'm going to chime in a little here.

 

First off, I don't know about other countries, but here in the US, the Media blows things completly out of proportion. They report only the exciting, nail-biting news (the news that will attract viewers). So you get a lot of scandels, "incidents," what people are doing wrong, etc. They report facts mind you, but sometimes leave some facts, or make some isolated incident a big deal, and one black getting shot or beaten by a white National Guard, the media can take that and they'll say "look at what the National Guard does to Blacks!" and suddenly, Blacks are being abused. This is just an example mind you, I haven't heard that much on the racism in the NO search and rescue.

 

Secondly, NO (and surrounding areas) has more than a million people. Most of thost people (approx. 6/7) don't have a car, or other means of intercity transportation. Most people use public transportation, walking/biking, or carpool to get from one place to another. Evacuating the city would have been a MASSIVE ordeal, and then you get the people who refuse to leave. People are very possessive, and they don't want to leave their house and all their worldy possessions because they feel that if they lose everything, that they'll have nothing (imagine that) and would rather die. So they figure that they'll take the chance of dying because they feel that if nothing happens, they will have put up a lot of fuss for nothing, and in the time it takes to get out and back, someone could easily break in a steal things. etc. etc.

 

Thirdly, you can say all you want about "diverting funds from the levy repair." This is in hindsight. This happens EVERYWHERE! Find something in your town/city/village that is in need of repair that if some natural disaster came along, it would cause catastrophy. But the funds needed to fix/replace said broken thing(s) is diverted to "more urgent" areas of the govt. Furthermore, anyone remember 9/11? Rememeber all the hype about how there were "signs" of a terrorist attack comming? How the FBI should have known it was comming. Imagine someone's argument for replacing that wooden bridge that connects the town to the rest of the world being that if a tornado comes along, it could be destroyed! Most people (not just govt. officials) would laugh at you. well duh! Tornados are totally destructive! It's what they do!

 

Finally, remember that the hurricane missed NO. It hit some poor town (that I can't even think of the name right now) that no one has heard of. That town is completely destroyed (even more so than NO), and yet most of the relief & aid is going to NO, because everyone's heard of it. (also because that town is much smaller than NO, and didn't requre much aid, and right now really just needs rebuilding). But the media hasn't said much at all about where the hurricane hit (that I've seen anyway).

 

I do believe that the govt. has handled the situation quite nicely. You can't be ready for natural disasters everywhere at all times. Given 24 hours notice (even 48 hours) although it seems like a very long time, it really isn't. You're not talking about evacuating a small town of 10,000 (like the one I live in), you're talking aobut more than a million people! Most of whom can't get out on their own. Next, take into account the feeling of "whew" when the hurricane missed NO, and most people around there were thinking the danger had passed. Next day, whoops! The levy broke! We're all doomed, while relief efforts are helping where the hurricane hit (which the media wasn't reporting on btw, they were talking about NO at the time.)

 

At any rate, that's my two cents.

[Tetrahedrite]

All good points, IMO.

 

Just to further pick up on the response, I heard on the news that the head of FEMA (can't remember his name) says he didn't even know about the people trapped in the superdome (now dubbed the terror dome) and the convention centre until nearly three days after the hurricane.

 

Does anyone else think this is just ridiculous?

 

I live in Australia and I knew before the hurrricane hit from news reports that people were going to be sheltering in these facilities. To say he didn't know about them seems very strange. This may be a media beat-up again, however.

 

Picking up on what Pangloss was saying about aid being given to the USA, Australia has pledged $10 Million. The thing is nearly everybody I've talked to (this is a big talking point here) thinks that it is outrageous that we've pledged any money at all. I must admit that when I first heard about the money I was also suprised. The thinking is that if a similar thing happened here, the USA would not come to our aid at all, and that the richest country in the world does not need our help. Whether or not this is true, I don't know.

 

On another note, the Australian Government and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has been copping a huge amount of criticism about it's response to the Australian citizens trapped in NO. Australians coming out of the disaster zone have had a go at both the US authorities and the Australian Government for a perceived lack of action. This just illustrates that the political "fall out" may not be limited to the US.

[Pangloss]

He knew the Superdome was in use, so you need to be more specific by what you mean. That's part of the problem here -- people are parsing statements left and right and then throwing them back as examples of lies and deception. For example, Bush was accused of lying on various left-wing blogs and debate boards because of a statement he made along the lines of "nobody knew the levees were going to break". That's a true statement, not a falsehood -- nobody KNEW they were GOING to break. But if you look at it in a certain context (i.e. not the one he obviously intended), you could make it a lie (or a hat, or a broach, or a nice pin with a little flower and some gold and chiffon).

 

See, you say above (and I'm not trying to give you a hard time here -- you're obviously not one of these extremists, but you're falling into a trap that I want to point out):

 

I heard on the news that the head of FEMA (can't remember his name) says he didn't even know about the people trapped in the superdome (now dubbed the terror dome) and the convention centre until nearly three days after the hurricane.

 

Does anyone else think this is just ridiculous?

 

And then immediately follow it up with:

 

I live in Australia and I knew before the hurrricane hit from news reports that people were going to be sheltering in these facilities. To say he didn't know about them seems very strange.

 

I added the bold just to point out that it's not even the same subject, much less the same context. You really have to watch out for that kind of thing if you're actually going to try and draw some conclusions.

 

So you really need to know exactly what Chertoff said, as well as the context in which he said it.

 

 

By the way, I don't think the handling of foreign nationals should be a focus of any kind, not now, not later. If anything it's the opposite -- foreign nationals handled with preferential treatment is a political DOWN side, not an up side (for example, the anger of the poor/black people trapped in the Superdome is hardly ameliorated by the knowledge that a white British couple was escorted someplace else when they couldn't get any transport out themselves).

[Pangloss]

Caught a story just now on the local news about how Fidel Castro is pissed because he says the US is ignoring his offer to send thousands of doctors to the stricken area. In typical Castro fashion, he shepherded all the doctors, complete with their little black bags, into a big audience hall to hear his speech.

[Pangloss]

ABC News ran a story tonight in which residents of New Orleans accused the city of deliberately blowing the levee in order to save the French Quarter (by flooding a low-income area). They actually took that nonsense to the mayor and made him take the time to respond to that absurd charge.

 

This sort of thing keeps up and a political response will be required (such as the ridiculous firing suggestion Mongo made above). It that happens, we may NEVER know what went wrong or how to fix it.

 

But hey, at least they'll get to play their little blame game.

 

(Sorry, I don't mean to flood the thread with multiple posts, I just happened to catch this on the news.)

[oatjay]

People are very possessive' date=' and they don't want to leave their house and all their worldy possessions because they feel that if they lose everything, that they'll have nothing (imagine that) and would rather die. So they figure that they'll take the chance of dying because they feel that if nothing happens, they will have put up a lot of fuss for nothing, and in the time it takes to get out and back, someone could easily break in a steal things. etc. etc.

....

 

Finally, remember that the hurricane missed NO. It hit some poor town (that I can't even think of the name right now) that no one has heard of. That town is completely destroyed (even more so than NO), and yet most of the relief & aid is going to NO, because everyone's heard of it. (also because that town is much smaller than NO, and didn't requre much aid, and right now really just needs rebuilding). But the media hasn't said much at all about where the hurricane hit (that I've seen anyway).

....

I do believe that the govt. has handled the situation quite nicely. You can't be ready for natural disasters everywhere at all times. Given 24 hours notice (even 48 hours) although it seems like a very long time, it really isn't. You're not talking about evacuating a small town of 10,000 (like the one I live in), you're talking aobut more than a million people! Most of whom can't get out on their own. Next, take into account the feeling of "whew" when the hurricane missed NO, and most people around there were thinking the danger had passed. Next day, whoops! The levy broke! We're all doomed, while relief efforts are helping where the hurricane hit (which the media wasn't reporting on btw, they were talking about NO at the time.)

[/quote']

 

ok, first of all, people (in my experience) don't stay for hurricanes because they're possesive, they stay because they think they'll be fine and that the storm can't hurt them. my dad was going to stay so that his work wouldn't be interupted... i, along with my family, convinced him to leave once the storm became a cat. 5. my neighbor did stay, and he did ok. people do survive these things, and when they survive, their confidence builds, and they're more likely to stay for the next one. also, in the past, looting during an evacuation (yes, the city has been evacuated many times before) has never been a major issue at all.

 

also, i assure you that more aid is going to new orleans because it needs more aid, not because more people have heard of it. yes, gulfport and biloxi and the surrounding mississippi gulf coast was hit directly and sustained lots of damage, but there, the water receded and affected the region right on the coast. four fifths of new orleans had water, that's a lot of land, and there's a hell of a lot more people in need of immediate help there than in mississippi.

 

i got the feeling that because new orleans was only sideswiped by the eye of the storm, the media sorta put the story on the backburner. then the levy broke and suddenly we're the main story again, and then the national government sends in some help. (it did seem like forever to me). the evacuation actually went better than other recent ones. of course not everyone could get out, and coordinating transportation for people who can't afford to get out or don't have the means would be a nightmare to organize because there are so many of them.

 

that's basically all i have to say. i appreciate anything ya'll donate very much. thanks for the support.

[BobbyJoeCool]

ok' date=' first of all, people (in my experience) don't stay for hurricanes because they're possesive, they stay because they think they'll be fine and that the storm can't hurt them. my dad was going to stay so that his work wouldn't be interupted... i, along with my family, convinced him to leave once the storm became a cat. 5. my neighbor did stay, and he did ok. people do survive these things, and when they survive, their confidence builds, and they're more likely to stay for the next one. also, in the past, looting during an evacuation (yes, the city has been evacuated many times before) has never been a major issue at all.

[/quote']

I'm saying it's one reason for it. Obviously there are people who believe that they, and their homes, are completly indestructable, and that bad things won't happen to them. There are also people who feel that they need to "defend their territory against all enemies, including nature."

 

also, i assure you that more aid is going to new orleans because it needs more aid, not because more people have heard of it. yes, gulfport and biloxi and the surrounding mississippi gulf coast was hit directly and sustained lots of damage, but there, the water receded and affected the region right on the coast. four fifths of new orleans had water, that's a lot of land, and there's a hell of a lot more people in need of immediate help there than in mississippi.

yes it does, but I'm saying that these people who are talking about why NO isn't getting all the aid in the world is that it is also needed elsewhere. NO is not the only (albeit the largest) place affected.

 

i got the feeling that because new orleans was only sideswiped by the eye of the storm, the media sorta put the story on the backburner. then the levy broke and suddenly we're the main story again, and then the national government sends in some help. (it did seem like forever to me). the evacuation actually went better than other recent ones. of course not everyone could get out, and coordinating transportation for people who can't afford to get out or don't have the means would be a nightmare to organize because there are so many of them.

The media did put the story on the backburner, and went back to gas prices and other such things. I mean, the hurricane missed New Orleans, that else is there to report on? Everything is dandy! Opps! The levy broke, now lets do some non-stop reporting for a week, distort the pubics view and make money doing it! Now, all they report on is "New Orleans S&R operations." And how things are bad in NO... I agree, things are bad. But the media's focus isn't based on informing... it's based on ratings. If they can get people to watch their channel as opposed to the other one, they can get more sponsers and make more money. This is the main drive of the media. This creates a vicious cycle that happens all too often. What people will watch is what get's reported on. What get's reported on shapes the general populations image of how things are (which is VERY distorted). The afore mentioned general population then makes assumtions on what needs to be done based on a false image of how things are. People get blamed for not helping when in fact they are doing everything they can.

 

This ranting is against the media.... nothing else.

 

Reporters... vultures... both in the same category. Reporters wait for situations such as this so that they can make more money because people apparently want to hear about "why this happened." The levy broke because it, like most things that require any sort of upkeep, was not in tip-top, Cat 5 hurricane proof, shape. Oh... they had 48 hours to evacuate, all that time and there were still so many people in the city. How about the people who did get out? What percentage did get out? What percentage refused to leave? How long does it take to evacuate a city using public transportation? How long does it take for the National Guard to get involved (ie: people who are trained to evacuate a metro-area that large) to speed things up? The media doesn't answer these questions because people won't sit and listen to it (I would, but that's me). People want to point a finger and blame someone. Everything is someone's fault. The mayor should have done better in evacuating the city. Bush should be giving more aid. blah blah blah. This is no ones fault but Mother Nature. It just goes to show that no matter how high we rise up, we can be smitten down by Mother Nature and there isn't much we can do about it aside from get out of the way, and start over when She is done destroying things.

 

Honestly though, don't trust what you hear on the news. Do a little research behind it. You'll find that they "misplace" some facts and draw a different conclution than they should, because it sells. Watch the movie "Newsies." The guy yells about a sex scandle to sell copies of the paper. What was it? some side story that talked a little about sex on page twelve or something like that. He's trying to sell copies of the paper, because sex, scandles, etc. is what people want to hear about. A rumor can become news in this way. It's astonishing what passes for "The news at 9."

 

that's basically all i have to say. i appreciate anything ya'll donate very much. thanks for the support.

I donated as much as I could spare from my paycheck last Thursday (it was like $35, damn college) to the Red Cross's "Donate to Kat 5" fund or some such thing like that.

[Thomas Kirby]

No one's fault but Mother Nature's, except that we know that these storms happen once in a while and she gave us fifty years to prepare.

[john5746]

Oh' date=' regarding the subject of whether the military is overextended due to Iraq, this analysis from James Robbins at National Review seems appropriate:

 

 

 

http://www.nationalreview.com/robbins/robbins200509020719.asp

 

The issue with people claiming that the military is overextended in Iraq has to do with the LENGTH of service required there, and the rotational capabilities of the active units. Iraq has basically zero impact on whether they can deal with domestic issues, like natural disasters, uprisings, terrorist acts, etc.[/quote']

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050830/us_nm/weather_katrina_troops_dc

 

More like 40 percent of National Guard immediately available to Mississippi and Louisiana Governors. And the ones that are coming back are dog tired. Of course it has an impact. Nothing is for free. That is one reason why we must finish in Iraq.

 

Would it have made a huge difference if they were there? Maybe not. I think after it is all said and done, the important thing will be the cooperation between levels of government. If the mayors and governors are to be the focal point in disasters like this, they need more authority of Federal resources, such as mobilizing National Guard reserves from other states, etc. Otherwise, the Federal Govt needs to jump in more quickly, mobilizing necessary forces.

 

Local Governments will hopefully review evacuation plans. I think everyone realizes we can do better. Unfortunately, more attention is focused on the witch hunt aspect(who to fire) than systemic planning for future problems.

[Pangloss]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050830/us_nm/weather_katrina_troops_dc

 

More like 40 percent of National Guard immediately available to Mississippi and Louisiana Governors. And the ones that are coming back are dog tired. Of course it has an impact. Nothing is for free. That is one reason why we must finish in Iraq.

 

Would it have made a huge difference if they were there? Maybe not. I think after it is all said and done' date=' the important thing will be the cooperation between levels of government. If the mayors and governors are to be the focal point in disasters like this, they need more authority of Federal resources, such as mobilizing National Guard reserves from other states, etc. Otherwise, the Federal Govt needs to jump in more quickly, mobilizing necessary forces.

 

Local Governments will hopefully review evacuation plans. I think everyone realizes we can do better. Unfortunately, more attention is focused on the witch hunt aspect(who to fire) than systemic planning for future problems.[/quote']

 

 

Some interesting points there.

 

I'm sure it was a strain on the guard units from those three states. I imagine this does have an impact on local preparedness and immediate response in the aftermath of an event, and I'd like them to find out more about that subject through careful and objective investigation. You've given me something new to think about.

 

I also agree with the implication (I don't mean to put words in your mouth, but I suspect you might agree with me here) that the Guard units are being inappropriately assigned to extended tours of duty overseas which are beyond the scope of what the Guard was intended for.

 

None of which really changes my point above, which I think should also be carefully considered and not rejected out of hand by Democrats in Congress, which is what I'm afraid will happen. Put another way, we have plenty of troops. But as you say, there may be an issue with local preparedness caused by these inappropriate deployments of National Guard units.

 

Anyway, good post.

[BobbyJoeCool]

Local Governments will hopefully review evacuation plans. I think everyone realizes we can do better. Unfortunately, more attention is focused on the witch hunt aspect(who to fire) than systemic planning for future problems.

 

Yes, hopefully they will re-evaluate evac. plans. Maybe even start with a couple drills? The problem though, with planning this sort of thing is that if one little thing doesn't go according to plan, people panic. When people panic, bad things happen (mob mentality). Another problem is that most people don't bother to have an emergency plan, or know what one is if one is in place for a larger system. At work, I know what to do if the store catches on fire, or if a tornado touches down or if the gas tank explodes (IF everyone isn't dead that is). Not many people know. How many people have an emergency plan for if their house is on fire and all the doors are inaccessable and you're on the second floor, or in the basement with no windows? I know my plan.

 

It is sad though that it takes a natural disaster such as this, and MANY lives being lost to realize that there are flaws in certain things that need to be fixed. Or that it took 9/11 to unite this country under one banner. It's just sad.

[Pangloss]

One thing I would like to know is why the city did not evacuate the poor using city transportation before the storm. The mayor was on the radio pleading with people to get out of the city, but apparently completely forgot that much of the city was incapable of doing so. City buses and school buses sat motionless, and there are pictures of them lined up in flooded-out parking lots, some of them just a couple of blocks from the Superdome.

 

That's one of the reasons I want the anti-Bush rhetoric to calm down, so we can get an ACCURATE picture of exactly what happened, instead of everyone focusing on the federal government's response (which was obviously flawed in some way as well).

[BobbyJoeCool]

That's one of the reasons I want the anti-Bush rhetoric to calm down, so we can get an ACCURATE picture of exactly what happened, instead of everyone focusing on the federal government's response (which was obviously flawed in some way as well).

 

Well... put it this way. how often does everything happen in perfect form. The more there is to do, the greater the chance of something going wrong. Hence in an evacuation that size, something was bound to go wrong. It's a shame that so many things seemed to go wrong though.

[CPL.Luke]

I have a cousin who lives in the french quarter, she had a car and attempted to evacuate as soon as it was ordered, she got to the highway and found the roads choaked with traffic. After seeing this for a couple of hours she decided to pull off and checked into a hotel and stayed on the 17th floor. she was quite alright in the end. but it does demonstrate the inability of the city to evacuate the numbers of people they needed to (by no fault of theirs) there just wasn't enough infrastructure around.

[coquina]

I have a cousin who lives in the french quarter, she had a car and attempted to evacuate as soon as it was ordered, she got to the highway and found the roads choaked with traffic. After seeing this for a couple of hours she decided to pull off and checked into a hotel and stayed on the 17th floor. she was quite alright in the end. but it does demonstrate the inability of the city to evacuate the numbers of people they needed to (by no fault of theirs) there just wasn't enough infrastructure around.

 

Has anyone thought what would have happened if everyone in the city had tried to evacuate by automobile? As the poster above states, the roads were choked already. Suppose there had been ten times the cars trying to get out? They may have been trapped on the road when the storm hit. Then we would be reading about thousands of people drowning in their cars.

 

I was stuck on a road once when we had a near miss by a hurricane, a twenty minute ride under usual conditions took 4 hours. I think New Orleans has very limited means of evacuation by road, because there is so much water around.

 

When I posted the original thread about Katrina being a cat 5, I suggested that the military should have used troop transport planes to take out people who had no access to auto travel and several people said that wouldn't have worked.

 

Yes, there were pictures of school buses flooded that could have been used - but if there were 100 buses that could hold about 30 people each, that's only 3,000 people. When you know you don't have enough transportation to take everyone, how do you decide who goes and who stays?

 

I think the bottom line in this deal is that although papers had been published based on computer models about what would happen in NO - people didn't believe it. It was beyond their imagination. Therefore, no one, neither the local government, the federal government, or the residents had a real idea of the magnitude of the force with which they were dealing. We have had other cat 5 hurricanes, but none of them were as large as Katrina and spread major destruction so far. Also, as far as hurricanes go, people did not have a lot of warning on the severity of the storm, it had weakened to a tropical depression after it crossed Florida. People figured it would gain strength, but I doubt many would have predicted that it would have exploded into a CAT 5 so close to shore. Speaking about predictions - this wasn't a storm that developed way out in the ocean so people had weeks to study it - it developed right in the Bahamas, and headed straight for us.

 

There was a picture of the storm posted here while it was in the gulf. The feeder bands reached all the way from the continental US to the Yucatan. People can usually escape the brunt of the storm by evacuating 50 or 60 miles inland. In the New Orleans area they needed to go over twice as far, and their only choice was to go west to stay out of the storm's path.

 

As far as hurricanes go, it was THE PERFECT STORM. We need to study what happened, but with the idea of mitigating damage from future events rather than to try to pin the blame on someone for this one. Blame mother nature and get on with it.

[Pangloss]

Well that might have happened, or it might not. It's a function of timing, roads used, and so forth. This is one of the reasons I support an independent investigation. ONLY such will determine whether, for example, all of the citizens could have been evacuated.

 

Nobody knows the answer to that question, but I think it's one we should try to answer. Not to apportion blame, I agree, but to figure out what is possible for next time.