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Tuesday, September 06, 2005What I have learned about Hurricane KatrinaAs I was out of town and in essentially a news void for about a week ending Wednesday, I really did not know the scope of what had happened until about Thursday. Sure, I had heard that there was a hurricane that might hit New Orleans and then after it did I heard that there was flooding...I had no idea what was actually going on. So, this weekend, in addition to catching up on other things (expect a follow up to this post soon), I decided to find out what I could about the hurricane. In the process, The Corner pointed me here which gives a great, in-depth timeline of events and is the basis in part or whole of a lot of these points. First of all, I would like to say that the scope of this disaster could not be truly comprehended by the lay person until it actually happens. People may have talked about New Orleans flooding before, but very few people take it seriously. This is just like the 9/11 attacks: sure, al-Qaeda was a problem but no one seriously ever thought that they could hit us like that until they actually did. Therefore, no one should really be blamed in the prelude to the hurricane...everyone makes mistakes, sometimes those mistakes have tragic consequences. This case was particular devastating because, unlike normal floods (those of rivers), the water will not recede...not unless the ocean is dropped by 20 feet, anyways. Also, the reason that this New Orleans devastation can be considered a "national disaster" (as opposed to a "local" disaster) is because of the particular economic activity that occurs in and around New Orleans, namely importation and refinement of oil.
Anyways, I know that is a little long, but I feel that it needs to be said more often than not that no individual person is to blame for the thousands dead. That being said, there were obviously mistakes made, and it was the responsibility of the Governor of Louisiana and the Mayor of New Orleans to compel (by force, if necessary) people to leave the city. They did not judge this hurricane as being a hazard of this magnitude, and now the Mayor is blaming everyone except himself, while the media seems to be trying to blame Bush. Comments:Have you and Richard lost your minds? What about the fact that he spent three days touring the country before he visited the Gulf Coast? Is that not a failure? How could he take 3 days for the Hurricane and leave Crawford immediately for Schiavo? And what about the people at the convention center who did not recieve food and water for 5 days? Why is it that Rumsfeld says 1 8 helicopted batalion can run thousands of sorties and yet those people could not get an air drop of supplies? Why were they turned around when they tried to leave the area? There is gross failure at all levels, mainly at the federal level. The Governor has yet to officially sign off on federalizing the situation and yet the Armed Forces are conducting missions because Bush authorized them to. Why did it take so long for Bush to just forget what the Governor says and act on his own accord. You guys need to let go of your partisanship and really look at the situation on face value; a disaster at ALL levels. That you are trying to compare the failures made on 9/11 to a hurricane that was known days in advanced is a complete error in comprehensive thought. Looks like that MP was right all along, huh Richard? It was a failure at the local level. The feds are responding in a decent timeline - but the space betwen the hurricane and the arrival of the feds was not bridged by the city state or county (if they even have counties). The finger pointing toward washington is so strident by the locals because their culpability is so raw, obvious. And who is going to have their greasy hands out for the federal rebuilding contracts? The same local leadership who abandoned its poor and its jewel of a city. Disgusting. It was a failure at all levels and one that was many years in the making. [FEDERAL] So far people aren't talking about the National Hurricane Center, but let's face it, their "chicken little" hurricane warnings over the past 20 years have not helped. They knew this one was different, but they couldn't convey that to officials or the general public. They said it was a category 5, then 4, hurricane, but people in the region knew Andrew was Category 5 and Charley was a 4. These hurricanes were nothing compared with Katrina, but the NHC couldn't get that message across. One of the levees that burst was apparently only recently upgraded. What does that say about the people doing that work? And, what about the government officials overseeing this work? [LOCAL] How could you plan - PLAN - to use the Superdome for an evacuation center, but not think to store sufficient food and water - WATER for God's sake. Do you think they have sufficient water in there when 70,000 people come to see a football game? How could you not have arranged security? How could you not have a maintenance team to keep the bathrooms usable? And, what sort of police force do you have when nearly 1000 (of 1600) officers quits when they're most needed. The contrast with the FDNY couldn't be more stark. [STATE] If you know that you have a large number of National Guardsmen in Iraq, how can you NOT have made provisions to borrow some from other states (e.g. Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, whatever). If you know that your emergency plans for your biggest city call for its total evacuation, how can you not have planned how to get the people out and where to put them? [FEDERAL] You were in charge on Sep 11 and have spent 4 years warning about the potential of a major catastrophe hitting one of our cities. You continuously talk about the possibility. Yet, you are completely dumfounded by a storm that was flagged well in advance. Nobody in the Federal Government seems to watch t.v. and there seems to have been precious little preparation for the kind of interaction and cooperation with state and local forces that will guarantee good communications in the event of a disaster. I don't know. There is so much blame here to share around that blaming Bush is insufficient. They've all failed. Completely. This would be the equivalent of the $200m NY Yankees finishing in last place 25 games out. Best resources, abysmal performance. Eagle, The Yankees don't need to finish 25 games out. They just need to be one game below the Indians. |
