Thoughts on Katrina
I'm just as horrified as you are. Hurricane Katrina is a disaster that defies definition, much less comprehension. Desipite the rancor over how slow the response was to Katrina, the more I look at satellite images from the Internet and video from TV, the greater my understanding on how overwhelming the magnitude of the challenge for local, state and federal authorities in the first week following landfall of this unthinkable Category 5 hurricane.
Now for some thoughts.
Like everyone else, I can't stop thinking about the suffering of the people in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Today (Sunday, September 4), it is becoming visible that the tremendous effort to respond is visibly taking hold. The Superdome has at last been cleared. The focus is now on clearing people stuck at the New Orleans Convention Center. Louis Armstrong Airport has now been turned into a triage center, and the tarmac is covered with military air transport jets and helicopters. The cavalry has finally arrived.
Do I think it took too long? Absolutely. Do I think George Bush could have done a better job? Of course. He waited too long to go on the air. He did not jump on his subordinates to get in gear. Worst of all, the federal government reacted to the hurricane, instead of being proactive. Sadly, that is typical of American culture. We react instead of being proactive. The good news is that when we react to a crisis, we we do so with great effort. That we got off to a terrible start, in full view of the world, perhaps motivated people as much as anything else.
What is terrible is that in the first four days following the hurricane, the lack of organization and timely response caused countless lives to be lost. It's proof that bureaucracy can be deadly.
That does not mean that the state and local governments in Louisiana get a free pass. Just the opposite. Mayor Ray Nagin made a lot of news when he started swearing at the federal government's slow response to bring help to beleagured New Orleans. But I am appalled at the lack of organization by the City of New Orleans to plan for a Category 5 hurricane. All the griping by the Mayor cannot excuse that. I have seen a number of images of city busess and local parish school buses by the hundreds buried in water. How many people could have been evacuated before the hurricane had the Mayor ordered that these be used to transport thousands of people to safety? New Orleans is a major railroad destination, as the Port of New Orleans is the nation's largest port. Why could freight and passenger trains not have been used to get people to safety before the storm?
Then there is the Superdome. The city had at least 48 hours to get portable toilets, food and water, medicines and other necessary materials there to handle the influx in advance of the hurricane. None of that was present. Nor were doctors, nurses or police. Chaos ensued. People died. Mayor Nagin can bitch all he wants about the slow federal response. But I see no evidence that he did anything in the critical 48 hours prior to the landfall of Katrina to prepare the Superdome for the events that followed. Such negligence was inexcusable.
Likewise, Governor Kathleen Blanco was not aggressive enough. If she saw that the preparations by the city of New Orleans were insufficient, she should have put her foot down immediately. It's all well and good that she was saddened and horrified by the damage, but I saw little evidence that her state government was very effective. Further, the lawlessness that spread quickly the following day was evidence that before the hurricane hit, that marshal law should have been declared. It wasn't.
In the critical 48 hours prior to the hurricane, the Louisiana National Guard should have been mobilized. Knowing that New Orleans would likely be under water, why was a convoy of food, water, medicine, cots, boats, generators and other critical materiels not staged and ready to go? Why was it that neither the New Orleans police nor the National Guard were not equipped with satellite phones or walkie talkies? In hindsight, it is easy to see how little the city and state did to prepare for what many people for so long said would be inevitable.
The people of the City of New Orleans don't get a free pass either. To the credit of both the Mayor and Governor, both were unambiguous in their urging that people flee the path of the hurricane. It is estimated at 20 percent of the city's population ignored the order. While I think authorities should have gone door-to-door to urge this, people in the Big Easy took it easy, at the cost of their lives and safety. Having been to New Orleans a number times, and having been all over the city (in good parts of town and bad), I know from experience that people of all demographic levels have cars. In photo after photo, I have seen countless numbers of cars under water.
Like I said, Americans react. We don't plan.
The sad part is that the cost and effort to rescue those who disobeyed the Mayor's orders to evacuate is dramatically higher and more difficult. Even now, with the streets flooded with fetid, polluted water, volunteers who are traveling by boat to rescue the thousands still trapped on rooftops have encountered countless cases where people still don't want to leave their homes, asking only for supplies. Is it human nature to be so stupid?
Had the people of New Orleans reacted logically in response to the evacuation order instead of trying to ride out the hurricane, countless lives could have been saved. Had the city commandeered municipal buses and school buses to get the elderly and those without cars out of town, imagine how many lives could have been saved.
If only we planned.
The Bush administration should be chastized for not having Army and National Guard staging troops, equipment and materials in the hours before the hurricane. It did not help of course that all three airports were flooded. But the US Army and the Air Force Military Airlift Command are experienced in getting materials and manpower to difficult areas. There are many military bases near New Orleans, but at a safe distance from the carnage. That rapid response was not ready to go in the initial 72 hours following the hurricane is simply inexcusable.
Then there is Congress. Yes, the Bush administration should take it in the shorts for cutting funds to improve protection of the levee system. But Congress played its role too. Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska saw to it that funds were cut for levee improvements in the Federal Highway appropriation bill. The $250 million requested got slashed. But Stevens saw to it that $258 million was earmarked in an appropriation rider that allowed for the construction of a bridge to an uninhabited island in the Aleutian islands. Of course, the airwaves are filled with members of Congress blathering on about how much they care about the people suffering in the hurricane from the comfort of air conditioned offices. But they share in the blame. How does pork feel now?
I could not help but to save some wrath for the media and pundits. Every time I see Horrendo Revolver on Fox I want to puke. Leave it to self-important TV newsidiots like Geraldo to not report the news, but to try to be the news. The people he interviews are merely props to make him the star. And too, the media have reported almost exclusively on New Orleans. But the hurricane's swath was much greater than that. Countless cities and towns in other parts of Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi were also badly damaged. And the media is missing countless stories of personal tragedies of lives broken of the families who managed to escape. People will have neither homes nor jobs to return to, something the media have failed to report adequately.
Then there are the pundits. (Even though I'm just another schmuck, I guess I am one too, given that I'm blogging.) If I read one more pundit diatribe on how George Bush is the cause of the hurricane and how all this is his fault, I will go postal. Of course the Bush administration screwed up. But to blame him for the hurricane itself, an ACT OF GOD, for God sakes, is ridiculous. If another liberal enviro-whack job blathers on about how global warming is all W's fault, it only makes them more silly. Yes, I believe that the US should have signed the Kyoto Accord. And yes, we should take global warming seriously. But global warming is everybody's fault, not just George's. And yes, I've also read liberal diatribes about the New Orleans levee system and the barrier islands not being protected, and of course, guess who was blamed. But the destruction of the barrier islands at the hands of man has taken place over decades, not one presidential administration. As for the levee system, it was designed to handle a Category 3 hurricane at best. It was designed decades ago. Countless administrations, both Democratic and Republican alike, have had a chance to improve it. They did not.
I am worried about the coming weeks and months. In a time of disaster, the initial week is a week of numbness. Humans often react inadequately to a calamity. And the lost time in the first few days is often what determines whether people live or die. The longer term will impact many more not directly touched by the hurricane itself.
I mentioned earlier that the Port of New Orleans is the largest port in the nation. It lies at the foot of the Mississippi River, and is a junction of barge, freight train and truck traffic to this critical port. I read that 25 percent of our oil and gas flows through New Orleans, as well as a substantial volume of our agricultural products, manufacturered goods, chemicals and other major exports. With the Port out of action, farmers across the midwest will have no place to ship their harvest. The price paid to them will drop as grain elevators across the country have no place to store the fall harvest. Oil prices, already rising at a stunning clip, will doubtlessly go higher. Quite simply, every day that the rail lines, barge traffic and highways are brought to a halt by high water and a Port of New Orleans out of action, millions, if not billions of dollars will be lost every day. Suddenly, our grocery shelves will be thinner, and the prices we pay much higher. The impact on the economy in the coming months could be noticeable.
The long term impact of Katrina will be felt for years to come. With New Orleans under water perhaps for months, much of the city will be condemmed and bulldozed. Thousands of people have been dispersed, and many will never return. New Orleans will likely rise again, but not as we know or knew it. Many businesses will never return. For that matter, many businesses have been destroyed. Insurers will shoulder what will be the greatest single disaster loss in the industry's history, far worse than Hurricane Andrew. It will mean that each of us pay higher insurance premiums on our homes, as insurers who covered the damaged area will call on reinsurance to cover them. And each of us pay the tab for reinsurance. Despite that, many insurance carriers may experience losses that could render them insolvent. And too, banks covering mortgages on thousands of homes and commercial properties could be made insolvent by this disaster.
What matters now is that we act. What matters is that we learn from this tragic disaster. We're not even through the hurricane season yet. There is much for all of us to do to to right the wrongs and to deal with a disaster that will take years, if not decades, to repair. This is something we cannot handle with the tepid measured response we have shown so far. We have to respond like the US did in the wake of Pearl Harbor, or how the British did following the World War II blitz. An entire region, not just New Orleans, has been destroyed. Recriminations and finger pointing aside (something we seem to do better than anything else, especially more than planning for disasters and preparing for them), how we respond will be how history measures us. If we return to business as usual, we will be in denial. This will be the greatest test of many years. I can only hope that we respond in a way that makes us proud. And the cost on the US government to pay out disaster relief will be staggering. The economy will surely feel the impact of Katrina. And it won't be pretty.
What matters now is that we act. What matters is that we learn from this tragic disaster. We're not even through the hurricane season yet. There is much for all of us to do to to right the wrongs and to deal with a disaster that will take years, if not decades, to repair. This is something we cannot handle with the tepid measured response we have shown so far. We have to respond like the US did in the wake of Pearl Harbor, or how the British did following the World War II blitz. An entire region, not just New Orleans, has been destroyed. Recriminations and finger pointing aside (something we seem to do better than anything else, especially more than planning for disasters and preparing for them), how we respond will be how history measures us. If we return to business as usual, we will be in denial. This will be the greatest test of many years. I can only hope that we respond in a way that makes us proud.
I'm just as horrified as you are. Hurricane Katrina is a disaster that defies definition, much less comprehension. Desipite the rancor over how slow the response was to Katrina, the more I look at satellite images from the Internet and video from TV, the greater my understanding on how overwhelming the magnitude of the challenge for local, state and federal authorities in the first week following landfall of this unthinkable Category 5 hurricane.
Now for some thoughts.
Like everyone else, I can't stop thinking about the suffering of the people in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Today (Sunday, September 4), it is becoming visible that the tremendous effort to respond is visibly taking hold. The Superdome has at last been cleared. The focus is now on clearing people stuck at the New Orleans Convention Center. Louis Armstrong Airport has now been turned into a triage center, and the tarmac is covered with military air transport jets and helicopters. The cavalry has finally arrived.
Do I think it took too long? Absolutely. Do I think George Bush could have done a better job? Of course. He waited too long to go on the air. He did not jump on his subordinates to get in gear. Worst of all, the federal government reacted to the hurricane, instead of being proactive. Sadly, that is typical of American culture. We react instead of being proactive. The good news is that when we react to a crisis, we we do so with great effort. That we got off to a terrible start, in full view of the world, perhaps motivated people as much as anything else.
What is terrible is that in the first four days following the hurricane, the lack of organization and timely response caused countless lives to be lost. It's proof that bureaucracy can be deadly.
That does not mean that the state and local governments in Louisiana get a free pass. Just the opposite. Mayor Ray Nagin made a lot of news when he started swearing at the federal government's slow response to bring help to beleagured New Orleans. But I am appalled at the lack of organization by the City of New Orleans to plan for a Category 5 hurricane. All the griping by the Mayor cannot excuse that. I have seen a number of images of city busess and local parish school buses by the hundreds buried in water. How many people could have been evacuated before the hurricane had the Mayor ordered that these be used to transport thousands of people to safety? New Orleans is a major railroad destination, as the Port of New Orleans is the nation's largest port. Why could freight and passenger trains not have been used to get people to safety before the storm?
Then there is the Superdome. The city had at least 48 hours to get portable toilets, food and water, medicines and other necessary materials there to handle the influx in advance of the hurricane. None of that was present. Nor were doctors, nurses or police. Chaos ensued. People died. Mayor Nagin can bitch all he wants about the slow federal response. But I see no evidence that he did anything in the critical 48 hours prior to the landfall of Katrina to prepare the Superdome for the events that followed. Such negligence was inexcusable.
Likewise, Governor Kathleen Blanco was not aggressive enough. If she saw that the preparations by the city of New Orleans were insufficient, she should have put her foot down immediately. It's all well and good that she was saddened and horrified by the damage, but I saw little evidence that her state government was very effective. Further, the lawlessness that spread quickly the following day was evidence that before the hurricane hit, that marshal law should have been declared. It wasn't.
In the critical 48 hours prior to the hurricane, the Louisiana National Guard should have been mobilized. Knowing that New Orleans would likely be under water, why was a convoy of food, water, medicine, cots, boats, generators and other critical materiels not staged and ready to go? Why was it that neither the New Orleans police nor the National Guard were not equipped with satellite phones or walkie talkies? In hindsight, it is easy to see how little the city and state did to prepare for what many people for so long said would be inevitable.
The people of the City of New Orleans don't get a free pass either. To the credit of both the Mayor and Governor, both were unambiguous in their urging that people flee the path of the hurricane. It is estimated at 20 percent of the city's population ignored the order. While I think authorities should have gone door-to-door to urge this, people in the Big Easy took it easy, at the cost of their lives and safety. Having been to New Orleans a number times, and having been all over the city (in good parts of town and bad), I know from experience that people of all demographic levels have cars. In photo after photo, I have seen countless numbers of cars under water.
Like I said, Americans react. We don't plan.
The sad part is that the cost and effort to rescue those who disobeyed the Mayor's orders to evacuate is dramatically higher and more difficult. Even now, with the streets flooded with fetid, polluted water, volunteers who are traveling by boat to rescue the thousands still trapped on rooftops have encountered countless cases where people still don't want to leave their homes, asking only for supplies. Is it human nature to be so stupid?
Had the people of New Orleans reacted logically in response to the evacuation order instead of trying to ride out the hurricane, countless lives could have been saved. Had the city commandeered municipal buses and school buses to get the elderly and those without cars out of town, imagine how many lives could have been saved.
If only we planned.
The Bush administration should be chastized for not having Army and National Guard staging troops, equipment and materials in the hours before the hurricane. It did not help of course that all three airports were flooded. But the US Army and the Air Force Military Airlift Command are experienced in getting materials and manpower to difficult areas. There are many military bases near New Orleans, but at a safe distance from the carnage. That rapid response was not ready to go in the initial 72 hours following the hurricane is simply inexcusable.
Then there is Congress. Yes, the Bush administration should take it in the shorts for cutting funds to improve protection of the levee system. But Congress played its role too. Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska saw to it that funds were cut for levee improvements in the Federal Highway appropriation bill. The $250 million requested got slashed. But Stevens saw to it that $258 million was earmarked in an appropriation rider that allowed for the construction of a bridge to an uninhabited island in the Aleutian islands. Of course, the airwaves are filled with members of Congress blathering on about how much they care about the people suffering in the hurricane from the comfort of air conditioned offices. But they share in the blame. How does pork feel now?
I could not help but to save some wrath for the media and pundits. Every time I see Horrendo Revolver on Fox I want to puke. Leave it to self-important TV newsidiots like Geraldo to not report the news, but to try to be the news. The people he interviews are merely props to make him the star. And too, the media have reported almost exclusively on New Orleans. But the hurricane's swath was much greater than that. Countless cities and towns in other parts of Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi were also badly damaged. And the media is missing countless stories of personal tragedies of lives broken of the families who managed to escape. People will have neither homes nor jobs to return to, something the media have failed to report adequately.
Then there are the pundits. (Even though I'm just another schmuck, I guess I am one too, given that I'm blogging.) If I read one more pundit diatribe on how George Bush is the cause of the hurricane and how all this is his fault, I will go postal. Of course the Bush administration screwed up. But to blame him for the hurricane itself, an ACT OF GOD, for God sakes, is ridiculous. If another liberal enviro-whack job blathers on about how global warming is all W's fault, it only makes them more silly. Yes, I believe that the US should have signed the Kyoto Accord. And yes, we should take global warming seriously. But global warming is everybody's fault, not just George's. And yes, I've also read liberal diatribes about the New Orleans levee system and the barrier islands not being protected, and of course, guess who was blamed. But the destruction of the barrier islands at the hands of man has taken place over decades, not one presidential administration. As for the levee system, it was designed to handle a Category 3 hurricane at best. It was designed decades ago. Countless administrations, both Democratic and Republican alike, have had a chance to improve it. They did not.
I am worried about the coming weeks and months. In a time of disaster, the initial week is a week of numbness. Humans often react inadequately to a calamity. And the lost time in the first few days is often what determines whether people live or die. The longer term will impact many more not directly touched by the hurricane itself.
I mentioned earlier that the Port of New Orleans is the largest port in the nation. It lies at the foot of the Mississippi River, and is a junction of barge, freight train and truck traffic to this critical port. I read that 25 percent of our oil and gas flows through New Orleans, as well as a substantial volume of our agricultural products, manufacturered goods, chemicals and other major exports. With the Port out of action, farmers across the midwest will have no place to ship their harvest. The price paid to them will drop as grain elevators across the country have no place to store the fall harvest. Oil prices, already rising at a stunning clip, will doubtlessly go higher. Quite simply, every day that the rail lines, barge traffic and highways are brought to a halt by high water and a Port of New Orleans out of action, millions, if not billions of dollars will be lost every day. Suddenly, our grocery shelves will be thinner, and the prices we pay much higher. The impact on the economy in the coming months could be noticeable.
The long term impact of Katrina will be felt for years to come. With New Orleans under water perhaps for months, much of the city will be condemmed and bulldozed. Thousands of people have been dispersed, and many will never return. New Orleans will likely rise again, but not as we know or knew it. Many businesses will never return. For that matter, many businesses have been destroyed. Insurers will shoulder what will be the greatest single disaster loss in the industry's history, far worse than Hurricane Andrew. It will mean that each of us pay higher insurance premiums on our homes, as insurers who covered the damaged area will call on reinsurance to cover them. And each of us pay the tab for reinsurance. Despite that, many insurance carriers may experience losses that could render them insolvent. And too, banks covering mortgages on thousands of homes and commercial properties could be made insolvent by this disaster.
What matters now is that we act. What matters is that we learn from this tragic disaster. We're not even through the hurricane season yet. There is much for all of us to do to to right the wrongs and to deal with a disaster that will take years, if not decades, to repair. This is something we cannot handle with the tepid measured response we have shown so far. We have to respond like the US did in the wake of Pearl Harbor, or how the British did following the World War II blitz. An entire region, not just New Orleans, has been destroyed. Recriminations and finger pointing aside (something we seem to do better than anything else, especially more than planning for disasters and preparing for them), how we respond will be how history measures us. If we return to business as usual, we will be in denial. This will be the greatest test of many years. I can only hope that we respond in a way that makes us proud. And the cost on the US government to pay out disaster relief will be staggering. The economy will surely feel the impact of Katrina. And it won't be pretty.
What matters now is that we act. What matters is that we learn from this tragic disaster. We're not even through the hurricane season yet. There is much for all of us to do to to right the wrongs and to deal with a disaster that will take years, if not decades, to repair. This is something we cannot handle with the tepid measured response we have shown so far. We have to respond like the US did in the wake of Pearl Harbor, or how the British did following the World War II blitz. An entire region, not just New Orleans, has been destroyed. Recriminations and finger pointing aside (something we seem to do better than anything else, especially more than planning for disasters and preparing for them), how we respond will be how history measures us. If we return to business as usual, we will be in denial. This will be the greatest test of many years. I can only hope that we respond in a way that makes us proud.
posted by Brian at
2:22 PM
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