New Orleans - The beginning of the end?

[Ron Ecker]

Hopefully you are in a minority and America will eventually get its problems of an incompetent and corrupt government sorted out.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

John,

Americans in general basically don't care that they have an incompetent and corrupt government. They just recently "reelected" the one they presently have. Americans in general even seem to think that smirk-face George Bush is likeable, in spite of everything he's done to them.

Yes, there's a big ruckus right now about what happened to New Orleans, but this too shall pass like everything else.

You would have to be here to know how weird it is to live in America today. There is really no way to describe the inexplicable. It has to be experienced.

Ron

[Tim Gratz]

Mark Knight had posted that every city should have an evacuation plan for emergencies. This obviously makes logical sense. Well I heard on a talk show that New Orleans did indeed have such a plan, and it even called for the use of school buses to assist in the evacuation of citizens without cars! The problem is the plan was never implemented. (Makes you wonder if the mayor had even read the plan.)

What follows is a partial excerpt from an article on Salon today:

Engineers have warned for decades that a massive hurricane might drown New Orleans. So why are the efforts to evacuate the city in such chaos? Didn't somebody have a plan?

Well, yes, kind of. The "Southeast Louisiana Hurricane Evacuation and Sheltering Plan" does note that a hurricane the strength of Katrina might push a 20-foot storm surge into New Orleans, that levees might break, pumps might fail, and the drinking water supply, electricity and sewage system might go kaput. The plan "prescribes the actions to be taken at each stage of a catastrophic hurricane emergency."

But the plan doesn't mention anything about how a killer hurricane might make evacuating the city rather tricky, much less a logistical nightmare. In fact, it says absolutely zero about how to handle an evacuation once the city is flooded.

The plan appears on the Web site of the state's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness under a button labeled "Plans." It was last revised in January 2000 and goes hand-in-hand with the state's Emergency Operations Plan, which outlines government agencies' responsibilities in big emergencies.

Mark Smith, the office spokesman, did not return requests for comment on the plan. In a conference call with reporters on Wednesday, Walter Baumy, chief of the Army Corps engineering division in New Orleans, says authorities could not have anticipated Katrina's impact. "There was a plan in place," Baumy said. "[Katrina's impact] was much more than envisioned. The city has never seen anything like this."

According to the plan, state officials had a good idea how a storm like Katrina would deluge the city. "Tidal surge, associated with the 'worst case' Category 3, 4 or 5 Hurricane Scenario for the Greater New Orleans Metropolitan Area," it reads, "could cause a maximum inundation of 20 feet above sea level in some of the parishes in the region, not including tidal effects, wind waves and storm rainfall."

The evacuation planners also knew that New Orleans could not handle that much water. "The area is protected by an extensive levee system, but above normal water levels and hurricane surge could cause levee overtopping or failures," it reads. It also says the city's now-famous pumps might give out, and that a catastrophic hurricane would result in "complete roof failure on many residences and industrial buildings" and might require a "massive evacuation." It just does not say how to do that when 80 percent of New Orleans is underwater.

The plan states that to avoid danger, most people should get in their cars and drive away before the storm comes. "The primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles," it reads. School buses and government vehicles will move everybody without a car. Interstate highways will be converted into one-way outbound evacuation routes (All of that did happen.)

Although the article states that all of that did happen, we know that it did not. I am sure you have seen by now the photographs of the school buses sitting parked. I understand that most of the buses were destroyed by the flood.

Of course, an effective plan would have included provisions for who would drive the buses. It is possible the buses were not used because such arrangements could not be made in the face of the emergency.

Does anyone know whether the City has yet answered why the buses were not used for evacuation?

[Tim Gratz]

John, regarding your post #116, I will research what you said and respond to it.

Did Brown and FEMA make mistakes? They probably did. I posted an article (blog if you will) by the now famous "Irish Trojan" highly critical of Brown.

But the Irish Trojan still believes primary responsibility rests with the mayor.

At least Dawn agrees that the mayor has a lot of explaining to do. As noted above, there was even a written evacuation plan that called for the use of buses to evacuate people without cars. And, as I suspect you know, Bush had to call the mayor and urge him to issue the evacuation order.

Re your criticism of Bush for not fully funding the request to reinforce the levees, would you admit that you have heard of a football term "Monday morning quarterback"? It strikes me that that is what that criticism amounts to. At that time the Bush administration had to decide whether to: a) ask Congress for an additional appropriation; fund the reinforcement of the levees to protect against the occurence of an event that had not yet happened, and might not happen in our lifetime, and that would benefit only the city of New Orleans; or c) use the funds to fight terrorism to protect the citizens of the country.

Had he used the funds on the levee, despite the pleas of the bureacrats pleading the funds were needed to fight terrorism, and had there been a major terrorist incident that killed not thousands but hundreds of thousands, do you suspect he would have been criticized for spending money in the wrong place? I can hear it now: "New York was destroyed so New Orleans could get better levees."

Even if the money for the levees had been allocated, I doubt whether the project would have been completed in time to prevent this disaster.

Again, I am not stating that no mistakes were made on the federal level. Nor am I stating that there should never be an examination of those mistakes and accountability where necessary. I just find it curious that you will not admit the obvious, that the failure of the Mayor to implement the written evacuation plan was what led to the disaster in the first place. Had the city been properly evacuated, the failure of the levee system would only have cost loss of property.

When Key West issues a mandatory evacuation plan, citizens who refuse to evacuate are told that if the disaster occurs they will be without police or fire or medical services for an extended time. Key West ensures that anyone whgo wants to evacuate will be able to do so, whether or not they have private transportation out.

[Gregory Carlin]

Mark Knight had posted that every city should have an evacuation plan for emergencies.  This obviously makes logical sense.  Well I heard on a talk show that New Orleans did indeed have such a plan, and it even called for the use of school buses to assist in the evacuation of citizens without cars!  The problem is the plan was never implemented.  (Makes you wonder if the mayor had even read the plan.)

What follows is a partial excerpt from an article on Salon today:

Engineers have warned for decades that a massive hurricane might drown New Orleans. So why are the efforts to evacuate the city in such chaos? Didn't somebody have a plan?

Well, yes, kind of. The "Southeast Louisiana Hurricane Evacuation and Sheltering Plan" does note that a hurricane the strength of Katrina might push a 20-foot storm surge into New Orleans, that levees might break, pumps might fail, and the drinking water supply, electricity and sewage system might go kaput. The plan "prescribes the actions to be taken at each stage of a catastrophic hurricane emergency."

But the plan doesn't mention anything about how a killer hurricane might make evacuating the city rather tricky, much less a logistical nightmare. In fact, it says absolutely zero about how to handle an evacuation once the city is flooded.

The plan appears on the Web site of the state's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness under a button labeled "Plans." It was last revised in January 2000 and goes hand-in-hand with the state's Emergency Operations Plan, which outlines government agencies' responsibilities in big emergencies.

Mark Smith, the office spokesman, did not return requests for comment on the plan. In a conference call with reporters on Wednesday, Walter Baumy, chief of the Army Corps engineering division in New Orleans, says authorities could not have anticipated Katrina's impact. "There was a plan in place," Baumy said. "[Katrina's impact] was much more than envisioned. The city has never seen anything like this."

According to the plan, state officials had a good idea how a storm like Katrina would deluge the city. "Tidal surge, associated with the 'worst case' Category 3, 4 or 5 Hurricane Scenario for the Greater New Orleans Metropolitan Area," it reads, "could cause a maximum inundation of 20 feet above sea level in some of the parishes in the region, not including tidal effects, wind waves and storm rainfall."

The evacuation planners also knew that New Orleans could not handle that much water. "The area is protected by an extensive levee system, but above normal water levels and hurricane surge could cause levee overtopping or failures," it reads. It also says the city's now-famous pumps might give out, and that a catastrophic hurricane would result in "complete roof failure on many residences and industrial buildings" and might require a "massive evacuation." It just does not say how to do that when 80 percent of New Orleans is underwater.

The plan states that to avoid danger, most people should get in their cars and drive away before the storm comes. "The primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles," it reads. School buses and government vehicles will move everybody without a car. Interstate highways will be converted into one-way outbound evacuation routes (All of that did happen.)

Although the article states that all of that did happen, we know that it did not.  I am sure you have seen by now the photographs of the school buses sitting parked.  I understand that most of the buses were destroyed by the flood.

Of course, an effective plan would have included provisions for who would drive the buses.  It is possible the buses were not used because such arrangements could not be made in the face of the emergency.

Does anyone know whether the City has yet answered why the buses were not used for evacuation?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The British and Dutch experience of similar flooding is that plans do not live up to expectation on the day. The British invested a large amount of money to protect London. I am not sure how they responded in other parts of the UK.

The military handle disasters and the sensible expectation is that the best laid plans will frequently go astray.

http://www.open2.net/naturalhistory/1953.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/essex/features/1953_floods/index.shtml

http://www.bbc.co.uk/essex/features/1953_f...xperience.shtml

Edited September 7, 2005 by Gregory Carlin

[Tim Gratz]

Gregory wrote:

The military handle disasters and the sensible expectation is that the best laid plans will frequently go astray.

Didn't a Scottish poet pen a famous saying about the "best laid plans"?

You are, of course, correct.

I think one of the problems is New Orleans should have designated one official to do nothing but plan a bus evacuation, line up drivers and do all else that was necessary to get the bus evacuation ready.

I'll post it later but just read a USA Today article that states that Bush was hopping mad at the delays in the federal assistance. One suspects heads will roll, but again I think the problem started with a failed evacuation plan. I'll try to look up the statistics re the percentage of Keys residents who evacuate when a mandatory evacuation is ordered.

Edited September 7, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[Tim Gratz]

Dawn wrote:

Listen to that video clip I supplied yesterday Mr Gratz and tell me why FEMA would behave in this murdrerous manner.

I found this comment interesting. As we know, many of the Cuban exiles thought JFK guilty of murder because of mistakes made re the Bay of Pigs. I certainly agree, however, that it is a tragedy when innocent people suffer and die because of mistakes made by bureaucrats, mistakes often made in comfortable offices in faraway places,

[Tim Gratz]

See this re the availability of 146 buses (that could have evacuated close to 8,000 people) sitting, flooded, less than a mile from the Superdome:

http://junkyardblog.net/archives/week_2005_08_28.html#004752

Edited September 7, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[Guest Stephen Turner]

Hopefully you are in a minority and America will eventually get its problems of an incompetent and corrupt government sorted out.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

John,

Americans in general basically don't care that they have an incompetent and corrupt government. They just recently "reelected" the one they presently have. Americans in general even seem to think that smirk-face George Bush is likeable, in spite of everything he's done to them.

Yes, there's a big ruckus right now about what happened to New Orleans, but this too shall pass like everything else.

You would have to be here to know how weird it is to live in America today. There is really no way to describe the inexplicable. It has to be experienced.

Ron

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Ron, I find this utterly depressing. I have many friends, and relatives in the States and cant believe that the majority of good Americans will allow this state of affairs to continue unchecked for much longer. Then again I could be wrong..

[Mark Knight]

Tim wrote:

One suspects heads will roll...

Ain't gonna happen, Tim...at least based upon W's past history in office.

THERE IS NO ACCOUNTABILITY IN THIS ADMINISTRATION.

The identity of a CIA operative was revealed by someone in the administration. But because Karl Rove revealed her identity, but not her NAME, he's off the hook.

Mistakes were made and people died in New Orleans. But since those who died weren't wealthy contributors to the two political parties, no heads will roll; the administration will continue to claim that "mistakes were made," but will take responsibility for making NONE of them.

The first example cited above shows a Clintonian response; it's not what was done, but how the language was twisted. The second example shows a Nixonian response; acknowledge the mistakes, but disavow ownership. So the current administration has already sunk to the level of the two worst crooks to have ever occupied the office of the presidency. And in the latter case, they are denied the Clintonian defense that "nobody died" because of their action.

If it walks like a skunk, looks like a skunk, and smells like a skunk....nah, in Key West they'd probably call it a duckbilled platypus, as long as it's Republican.

[Tim Gratz]

Mark, we shall see whether I am correct or not. I read in "USA Today" that Bush was hopping mad at certain of his subordinates for the problems that occured.

[Mark Knight]

I read in "USA Today" that Bush was hopping mad at certain of his subordinates for the problems that occured.

OK...but if Fox News didn't report it, did it really happen? Or is it just the "liberal media" trying to paint a president as being out of control of his emotions?

I'll believe in repercussions for actions/inactions when--and if--they happen; otherwise, they're just rumor, speculation, and conjecture with little basis in fact.

[Mark Knight]

Evacuees Strain States' Social Programs

September 07, 2005 12:15 AM EDT

WASHINGTON - Hurricane evacuees seeking food stamps in Texas started as a trickle and quickly turned into a torrent - eight applications the first day mushroomed to more than 26,000 within four days. To varying degrees, the same story is playing out around the country as state and local governments take in Gulf Coast refugees by the thousands, taxing social programs that in many cases already were stretched thin.

Minnesota, already working to absorb a wave of roughly 5,000 Hmong refugees from Laos, is preparing for up to 3,000 Katrina victims while still feeling budget cuts in health assistance and job training that have taken effect since 2001.

"We're not what we were five years ago," said Marcia Avner of the Minnesota Council of Non-Profits. "And the reality is, private charity cannot make up the difference."

In Oklahoma, Gov. Brad Henry spoke for many Tuesday when he talked of a desire to be helpful tempered by the concern that "we don't want to stretch ourselves too thin."

"We know it will be a strain," he said. "I think we will be OK."

In many places, concerns about cost were taking a back seat to the impulse to help, at least for now.

San Francisco was moving ahead with plans to house at least 300 Katrina evacuees despite warnings that the city could lose out on federal money by responding too quickly to a Red Cross request for help.

"We're taking these 300 whether we get reimbursed or not," said Annemarie Conroy, director of the city's Office of Emergency Services.

That thought was echoed across the country, in South Carolina, which prepared to take in as many as 18,000 refugees.

"The cost associated with this is kind of secondary at the moment," said Chris Drummond, a spokesman for Gov. Mark Sanford, adding that the state still remembers the help it got when hit by Hurricane Hugo in 1989. "We're going to return the favor."

Each state is coping in its own way. Arkansas' governor wants to tap the state's $100 million budget surplus; Tennessee is dipping into its rainy-day fund, at least temporarily; Massachusetts was working on an emergency spending bill.

And states are counting on significant help from the federal government, which approved a $10.5 billion down payment for hurricane relief last week. Congress is likely to approve far more in the days ahead, including assistance targeted for housing, health care, education and other needs.

Texas expects the Federal Emergency Management Agency "to reimburse us 100 percent for everything," said Robert Black, a spokesman for Gov. Rick Perry.

But the notion that Washington would pick up the tab for all hurricane-related costs seemed a bit rosy.

Ron Pollack, director of the health care advocacy group Families USA, said that before Katrina hit, Congress had been considering cutbacks in Medicaid "which will make a very bad situation a whole lot worse" if they come to pass.

Likewise, there are federal housing programs in place, but even before Katrina only a third of people eligible for assistance were being served, said Stacy Dean of the private Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. There are federal job-training programs, too, she said, but "the dollars are far too short to deal with the demand."

Federal Emergency Management Agency spokeswoman Mary Margaret Walker said Tuesday that by 4 p.m. EDT, 317,186 households had registered for state and federal disaster assistance. The agency is registering about 50,000 people per day.

It appeared clear that the federal government would not need to take the states up on all the offers to shelter evacuees.

FEMA spokeswoman Natalie Rule said late Tuesday night that more than half the states had offered to take in evacuees and "obviously we're not going to need that much capacity."

She said many evacuees are choosing to stay where they are to be closer to home and relatives or because they are "feeling safe and secure."

School districts nationwide have begun enrolling students displaced by the hurricane, despite logistical and financial strains, hoping they will receive aid and leniency from state and federal education leaders. President Bush said the government is working on a plan under which the federal government can help the states pay for bills.

"I'm confident that this government of ours will be able to help the local school districts," Bush said.

Jerry Friedman, executive director of the American Public Human Services Association, said states are "acting with good intentions" while officials sort out who will ultimately pay the bills. For example, he said, other states have sent workers to Texas to help process food stamp applications, but it's not clear whether they are there simply as good neighbors or the federal government will pick up the tab.

"It's very much a work in progress," said Friedman.

The hurricane hit just as state budgets are starting to perk up after a protracted fiscal crunch.

A study released by the nation's governors this summer found that income, sales and corporate tax receipts beat expectations in 42 states during the budget year that ended in June. But long-delayed spending needs and rising costs for education and Medicaid still are putting heavy pressure on state budgets.

Dean said the willingness to help so far has been fabulous, but she added, "The states' generosity is going to run out as their coffers empty" even if their desire to help continues.

"It will place an enormous strain on their social services," she said. "It's vital that governors speak up and ask for the federal financial support they'll need."

Charities, too, are being asked to help take up the slack.

In Georgia, which has 5,000 evacuees, Gov. Sonny Perdue is taping an appeal for help that will go to churches statewide. In Washington state, King County Executive Ron Sims spoke of the "enormous task" ahead.

"We're going to ask the public to work with us because that's going to be absolutely critical," he said. "Faith-based communities are going to be absolutely essential to provide housing and clothing and places for people to live."

Dean, cautioned, however, that while charities have an extraordinary ability to act quickly in an emergency, "their capacity and resources will be drained almost immediately. This is truly something that government has to deal with."

---

AP reporters who contributed to this story include Ron Harris in San Francisco, Felicia Fonseca in Albuquerque, David Hammer in Little Rock, Ark., Jennifer Holland in Columbia, S.C., Stephen Singer in Hartford, Conn., Michael Kunzelman in Bourne, Mass., Ben Feller and Kevin Freking in Washington, Joshua Freed in Minneapolis, Kelley Shannon in Austin, Texas, Ron Jenkins in Oklahoma City; Jacques Billeaud in Phoenix, Beth Rucker in Nashville, Tenn., and Greg Bluestein in Atlanta.

Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Edited September 7, 2005 by Mark Knight

[Tim Gratz]

Agreed, Mark. New Orleans will certainly be a historic tragedy in this country. Unfortunately, it appears the death toll may approach or even exceed 9-11. Let's hope not!

[Tim Gratz]

(Computer hiccupped! Sorry.)

Edited September 7, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[Tim Gratz]

The Travel Industry Association of America, in partnership with the Travel and Tourism Coalition and the Travel Business Roundtable are creating a job bank to help travel industry workers whose jobs were destroyed by Katrina.

In 1998, I experienced the same thing when my regular job was shut down for several months because of Hurricane Georges. We then had a one and a half year old daughter and we had to rely on Red Cross Assistance. We faced none of the problems faced in New Orleans but we had no electricity for several weeks; had to change residences, etc. It was not the easiest thing to go through. But again, nothing like the problems that Katrina victims will be facing for months to come.

Edited September 7, 2005 by Tim Gratz