Hurricane in context

[Ephemeral]

No doubt most everyone has heard of the disaster that is has affected southern eastern USA. If fact, it was two natural disasters. First the actual hurricane, and then the flooding of the city of New Orleans.
But I would like to add some context to these events for those people who only glean their information from 30 second sound bites in the media.

First, this country was prepared as well as it could be prepared. Everyone had plenty of chance to get out of town and get away. The response to the disaster was as good as any country could have responded. The response was as fast, if not faster than when other hurricanes have hit USA. When Andrew wiped out the lives of tens of thousands of people in Florida, it took 4-5 days before relief showed up. When Hogo wiped out the lives of tens of thousands of people in South Carolina, it took 4-5 days before relief showed up.
The scope of the affected area is huge. In fact, for the context of my European friends, the affected area is the size of Great Britain. So imagine a storm that size, then London flooding to the roof tops of many of the houses.
Additionally, George Bush (or any other politician) did not make a decision to only build the levy's to handle a Cat 3 storm. The public had plenty of opportunity for input and actually voted in several cases to not spend that money to build a Cat 5 levy years ago.

Keep in mind that well over a million people got out of the way of the coming storm. What you are seeing on news reports are those 75,000 people who did not. Of those people, there are some who actually could not for various reasons, but we are talking about perhaps a few thousand. The majority of those 75,000 made a decision to stay. In fact, a large number of them are still refusing to leave now.
These people also made decisions to live in an area where the risk of this kind of trouble was well known. Again, their may be a very small number of people who circumstances might have forced them to live there, but 99% choose to make it their home.

The news media is showing a lop-side view of the disaster and the relief efforts. For every 'bad' story you see or hear, there are 6000 good stories of people getting help. Keep the numbers in mind, over 1 million people displaced, yet we only hear about the 75,000 in trouble, and of those the majority made the decision to stay behind.

My heart goes out to everyone affected by these disasters. I have already made a donation to help. But I also believe that everyone needs to be responsible for themselves and the decisions they make in life. If a person decides to not build a personal support system of family, church, and friends, they should not expect that the rest of society 'owes' them anything in a timely manor. Those that made a decision to stay when they had plenty of time and the means to leave, then whine about not being rescued fast enough should be ashamed. Bus fare to get out was under $5, and many, many means of leaving for free were also available.

It is time to stop pointing fingers at the rest society as the thing to blame for a natural disaster that everyone knew would hit and had time to get out of the way of. It is time for the stupid media to stop reflecting the 'if it bleeds, it leads' mentality. It is time to step up and help these people, but in the context of understanding that most made decisions that put them in the path of this disaster. As humans we owe it to them to help them, they owe it to us to take responsibility for their decisions.

[Ilya]

the ilyaz thing to do would be not to read any of that and to post "terrorists were behind katrina"

but i agree. well said

[Yojo]

Let me play the other side of the spectrum for a moment.

When the Tsunami hit Southeast Asia, the United States has monetary relief to the area within the first 18 hours and physical relief (people in the area) within the first 48. In addition, people had no idea the Tsunami was coming, actually it was instantaneous. However, we all knew Katrina was coming and going to hit New Orleans three days in advance. It took us a week to get any kind of serious, federal aide to the region.

Now, one may conclude that because the country has warning that a storm was coming, the national guard, active military, coast guard, FEMA etc. left the region to safeguard their equipment and their people. This is in fact true. They did leaf New Orleans, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida and moved all their equipment to nearby states - most of it went to the bases in Tennessee and North Carolina - at most 300 miles from any area. The storm passed through on Monday and was downgraded to a Tropical Storm by Monday Evening.

Few know that three years back there was a project being completed in New Orleans that would have built large gates (a lot like Venice) that would have closed to stopped storm surges. The project also included the reinforcement of the levys. Four of five months into the project the Bush Administration withdrew all funding, justifying it by saying it could be better spent elsewhere.

Blame here lies not with any specific group or administration but the complete lack of organization and communcation within the state and national levels of our country.

In no way, shape or form, do I want to take away from the indredible acts of heroism committed by the people of the Gulf Coast and the rescuers.

[Kolar]

The handling of it was slow and stupid to me. The army should have taken over rescue operations from day 1, not a week after. If the federal Govn. did it on day 1 then a lot of people would be up in arms over it. Leaving it and letting the existing groups fail then taking over was smarter politically.


Many of the people that stayed didn't have the fucking GAS money or were to old to be moved to get out, remember 1/4 of the black comunity was below the poverty line and a majority of the dead will be old or disabled. I don't see how it could have been prepeared, having a war going south isn't always something civil defense will takes into account.


The bad stories (looting, human suffering ect..) will always be more exiciting news to cover and it's what people want to see. If the different levels of Govnerment are not blamed for being slow and unorganized then nothing is fixed. This is not unamerican, wrong or uncalled for. People have the right to question their elected officals anytime.

[K2Grey]

Bus fare to get out was under $5, and many, many means of leaving for free were also available.

Many of the people that stayed didn't have the fucking GAS money or were to old to be moved to get out, remember 1/4 of the black comunity was below the poverty line and a majority of the dead will be old or disabled.

These two quotes conflict with each other. Since Kolar posted 2nd, you should make reply to Ephemeral's claim that inexpensive or free methods of leaving the area were readily available. For example, even if you don't have enough money to buy the gas needed to vacate the area, you should still be able to get $5. Or if you don't have $5, there are still (supposedly) many free methods of leaving the area, which presumably do not require bicycling or walking.

As far as being too old to be moved to get out goes, I'm not sure how much the government can do about that. If they're too old to be moved to get out, then they simply can't be moved out. Now, if they're too old to move out on their own, then the government may be able to do something, but it's still going to be very limited because of the size of the area.

Now, I haven't done extensive research on this issue (most of what I've said is off basic reasoning and not specific knowledge), however, I think all people should keep their counsel to themselves unless they are certain that talking will not result in people being (unintentionally) misled.

[Ephemeral]

My post (opinion) was based upon talking to EU squadies who seem to be getting only the media version of what has happened.
Add this (negative media spin) and the fact that some people seem to use any opportunity to be critical of the current US administration, the USA itself, or just simply just find blame somewhere, and I felt the need to post another way of looking at this.
It was a natural disaster, nature does not discriminate against countries, administrations, or types of people.
All-in-all, I think the response was well organized and as prompt as possible. Obviously, search and rescue activities started immediately. Time was also needed to access and prioritize the situations. I am not sure that many people understand the logistics and what it took to coorindinate the scope of what had to be done.
Sure, it is easy to sit back in hind-site and point fingers. People died. But when people say we reacted too slow, compared to what? Hogo and Andrew? No, the reaction time was the same.
Some say the Tsunami hit Southeast Asia had faster response, I disagree. It was well past 5-6 days that the vast majority of people saw any kind of help.

[Arikel]

No doubt most everyone has heard of the disaster that is has affected southern eastern USA. If fact, it was two natural disasters. First the actual hurricane, and then the flooding of the city of New Orleans.
But I would like to add some context to these events for those people who only glean their information from 30 second sound bites in the media.

First, this country was prepared as well as it could be prepared. Everyone had plenty of chance to get out of town and get away. The response to the disaster was as good as any country could have responded. The response was as fast, if not faster than when other hurricanes have hit USA. When Andrew wiped out the lives of tens of thousands of people in Florida, it took 4-5 days before relief showed up. When Hogo wiped out the lives of tens of thousands of people in South Carolina, it took 4-5 days before relief showed up.
The scope of the affected area is huge. In fact, for the context of my European friends, the affected area is the size of Great Britain. So imagine a storm that size, then London flooding to the roof tops of many of the houses.
Additionally, George Bush (or any other politician) did not make a decision to only build the levy's to handle a Cat 3 storm. The public had plenty of opportunity for input and actually voted in several cases to not spend that money to build a Cat 5 levy years ago.

Keep in mind that well over a million people got out of the way of the coming storm. What you are seeing on news reports are those 75,000 people who did not. Of those people, there are some who actually could not for various reasons, but we are talking about perhaps a few thousand. The majority of those 75,000 made a decision to stay. In fact, a large number of them are still refusing to leave now.
These people also made decisions to live in an area where the risk of this kind of trouble was well known. Again, their may be a very small number of people who circumstances might have forced them to live there, but 99% choose to make it their home.

The news media is showing a lop-side view of the disaster and the relief efforts. For every 'bad' story you see or hear, there are 6000 good stories of people getting help. Keep the numbers in mind, over 1 million people displaced, yet we only hear about the 75,000 in trouble, and of those the majority made the decision to stay behind.

My heart goes out to everyone affected by these disasters. I have already made a donation to help. But I also believe that everyone needs to be responsible for themselves and the decisions they make in life. If a person decides to not build a personal support system of family, church, and friends, they should not expect that the rest of society 'owes' them anything in a timely manor. Those that made a decision to stay when they had plenty of time and the means to leave, then whine about not being rescued fast enough should be ashamed. Bus fare to get out was under $5, and many, many means of leaving for free were also available.

It is time to stop pointing fingers at the rest society as the thing to blame for a natural disaster that everyone knew would hit and had time to get out of the way of. It is time for the stupid media to stop reflecting the 'if it bleeds, it leads' mentality. It is time to step up and help these people, but in the context of understanding that most made decisions that put them in the path of this disaster. As humans we owe it to them to help them, they owe it to us to take responsibility for their decisions.

I've heard different stories in the news all days... some of those are similar to what you wrote but some others are quite different, despite that, the fact that probably 10000 persons might have lost their life in this catastrophe is a synonimn that the preparations were not the best and that much more could and should have been done before the Katrina had hit New Orleans. Another point that i really dont understand is the fact that you defend that it was those persons fault because they choosed to live there... and the fact that they choosed to live there didn't allowed them to make any kind of comment about their corrent situation and about the lack of support that they clearly didnt received on the early days after the katrina had hit New Orleans, isn't a person allowed to live and estabilish a home in the town where she was probably born and raised? what if san andreas fault one day decides to crack open and a huge earthquake shakes San Francisco for example... would you use the same argument as "everyone one knew... sooner or later there would be a huge earthquake".
I also heard in the news that the authorities hadn't evac some persons at the hospital... some of them ended up dieing for lack of medical assistence. I don't think that everything that could have been done for the people of New Orleans was done, i believe that whoever had the responsability "im not pointing at Bush has i dont know how does the things work in the US" could have done much more and in fact should have doen much more... the people of New Orleans where neglected and the price to pay was to steep. Blaming the people that didn't wanted to abandon their homes, the homes where they had always lived and where they had grown up and for wich they had work all their lives is a weak excuse.

[Ephemeral]

I am NOT 'Blaming the people that didn't wanted to abandon their homes'. I am pointing out that once you are told to leave, and make a decision NOT to, that you have to understand that YOU are responsible for that decision. In fact, YOUR decision has now put many other people at risk and added to the cost to the rest of society for wanting to stay.
Same for people choosing to live there, and yes, same for earthquakes. I will fight for anyone's right to live where ever they want to, but I don' want to be in the same insurance pool as them.
When people choose to build and live in dangerous places, they should take responsiblity for their decisions. This means having backup plans, extra insurance, whatever it takes to let them deal with what might happen.
Are you saying they these people should get to have the rest of the country, who have made decisons to play it safer, pay for the people who want to take these risks?

[Arikel]

I am NOT 'Blaming the people that didn't wanted to abandon their homes'. I am pointing out that once you are told to leave, and make a decision NOT to, that you have to understand that YOU are responsible for that decision. In fact, YOUR decision has now put many other people at risk and added to the cost to the rest of society for wanting to stay.
Same for people choosing to live there, and yes, same for earthquakes. I will fight for anyone's right to live where ever they want to, but I don' want to be in the same insurance pool as them.
When people choose to build and live in dangerous places, they should take responsiblity for their decisions. This means having backup plans, extra insurance, whatever it takes to let them deal with what might happen.
Are you saying they these people should get to have the rest of the country, who have made decisons to play it safer, pay for the people who want to take these risks?

EW! The word pay and insurance appear a lot in your sentences...

Katrina costs could top up 100bilion...

is that all you guys care for... besides oil costs of course...

[Ephemeral]

EW! The word pay and insurance appear a lot in your sentences...

is that all you guys care for... besides oil costs of course...

In my posts in this thread, I count myself using 'pay' once and the word 'insurance' twice. You really don't seem to read my posts carefully.

[Krusnik]

It's also a very low region. The annual flooding of the river brought in dirt, which kept the area above sea level. By not allowing the river to flood they have molded the gulf region into a big bowl. Imagine losing a wetland the size of a football field every day? Well that's what is happening everyday. They should allow a controlled flooding of the river, to atleast decrease the damage of a hurricane. It's loosing more and more land each day. The sea is eventually gonna absorb the gulf region if this continues. It has already absorbed islands that existed 20 years ago.

[Ephemeral]

It's also a very low region. The annual flooding of the river brought in dirt, which kept the area above sea level. By not allowing the river to flood they have molded the gulf region into a big bowl. Imagine losing a wetland the size of a football field every day? Well that's what is happening everyday. They should allow a controlled flooding of the river, to atleast decrease the damage of a hurricane. It's loosing more and more land each day. The sea is eventually gonna absorb the gulf region if this continues. It has already absorbed islands that existed 20 years ago.

I agree 100%. With the levy system and other flood control they have removed much of the natural protection that once existed.

[Jerome Scuggs]

Ephemeral said it better than most of us Louisianians could.

[Kolar]

I'm not basing my perception of the slow reaction to other hurricanes. One week is too long in my opinion for people to go without food, water or security. I'm not blamming or bashing any party, person or level of Govn. but the actual idea that the responce to the disaster was alright, worked and saved as many people as possible. I hate people who want to make it political but if any one of those said groups or people want to stand by that then they're open to attack from other people in my opinion. No one living in North America should live like that on that scale, it's the United States...

All most people have is the media so all of this is my opinion based on a filtered view of happenings.

Edit: Also yes some people didn't have the money to leave the city. I'm sure there were a lot of a lot of public transits and Govn. help to get people out
but that doesn't mean every single person knewn or would use it.

[Epinephrine]

Eph, you seem to be defending the government quite readily in your post. Not only do you chide the victims for their own carelessness in not leaving, you also readily praise the government for it's fast response.

The problem is your arguments are really defeatist and it's that line of thinking that is the problem.

1a) You point out that the people who didn't leave basically deserved it. Has it occured to you that some people may have been too old, sick, or poor to leave? Sure some young and nimble could have walked 100 miles away, or taken a greyhound for $50. Where were the convoys of $5 buses and free transportation that you just assert existed? In fact a lot of people barely made it out in time thanks to transportation nightmares caused by huge traffic jams and the like. Let's not forget that while some people would have had the money to leave, they wouldn't have had the money to find a place to stay for 5-6 days before they could go home. It's not so simple.

1b) The fact is, while the experts have constantly warned about the levees being insufficient, no one did anything about it. There were plenty of people I'm sure who didn't equate a hurricane with the levees bursting and having 80% of the city being flooded with water. Remember, these people survived the hurricane itself, they found places to shelter against the initial rain and wind, it's the flooding that got them. Chiding them about staying is pretty stupid considering it's not hard to see why they thought they would be safe if they could just ride out the storm. Note that this doens't excuse the government's late response because FEMA definately had drills and contingency plans for this exact type of incident in it's past.


2) The government created a safe point at the Superdome for those who could not leave. Then they left nothing there, and didn't return for days. No food, no water, no air conditioning (in sweltering 95 degree 100% humidity weather, dangerous for the old and sick). The government not only KNEW about these people, they TOLD them to go there. Yet they were abandoned for days. It's not even a case where people were scattered and no one knew where to find them so it's understandable if the response of the S&R teams was slow... they KNEW these people were there.

3) The director of FEMA didn't even know people were trapped at the convention center until a full day after it was reported constantly on every TV channel that people were trapped there. So while help started trickling into the Superdome, people at the convention center were screwed. Yet again, this isn't about a S&R mission gone wrong. If the US military can drop precision munitions 11,000 miles away, why can't they airlift some food or something to these places at least?

4) http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/n...ck=1&cset=true

5) Comparing this with Andrew is pretty pointless. Andrew was 13 years ago. Are you saying that it's completely useless to learn from past mistakes? So when the next disaster strikes the US you will just go and say 'see all those people got help at around the same time as they did in New Orleans, so it's okay!'. It wasn't acceptable back then, and it certainly shouldn't have recurred now.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/loc...fla-news-miami



The fact is Eph, the government really dropped the bomb from all levels except perhaps for the mayor of New Orleans with his very limited resources due to a completely ruined city. They knew that something like this was going to happen (they had contingency plans for this type of deal with levees breaking and all) two days before the hurricane actually struck New Orleans. And then it took another 4 days for any meaningful help to actually come when there were ample military and national guard supplies near the vincinity to help... just that no one actually told them to do it.

Again I don't think comparing this to past disasters and saying 'it was bad last time, so it being bad this time is okay' is a good thing to say. You should learn from your past mistakes not repeat them over and over, and to blindly say that the government did the 'best it could' when it very obviously did not is basically allowing the government to be lax after this event so that the next time this happens a similar tragedy will occur again.