9/11 vs. Katrina

[The_Darkness]

Neither. He is consistent.

Good call.

 

[LadyJeanne]

Good call.

"The people of New Orleans have gotta understand that there's a lot of people working hard, and they're making good progress...I believe that the great city of NO will rise again and be a greater city of NO...I understand that we have a lot of hard work to do...If you wanna help, contribute cash to the Salvation ARmy and the REd Cross - they're on the front lines of providing help to the people who need help. May God bless the people in this part of the world, and may God bless the people of the United States."

Words just spoken by our president as he gets ready to leave NO.


EDIT TO ADD: I lived in the city of Chicago when the River broke and flooded downtown. Power went out. People were evacuated from the buildings, out of the Loop, and out to their homes in the rest of the city and suburbs. Nothing like Katrina, but it was a major disaster for the city.

Mayor Daley was the first one to come out and, in his ineloquent way, sputter his outrage that enough wasn't being done fast enough. And he kept on bluntly sputtering, and the people of Chicago really understood that he was pissed off and he was gonna stay on top of everything that was being done until it was fixed. That's why people might hate Richie Daley, but keep re-electing him. It's not that his daddy was Mayor too. It's that Richie's natural reaction to anything that threatens his city is that of a ferocious mama when her cub is threatened.

George Bush would do better if he stood out and led the charge saying we need to do more, faster. He should be outraged that the people of NO, his people, aren't getting more help, faster. He should be outraged that the agencies he made responsible for emergency situations aren't coordinated or more effective. People need to see that their leader 'gets it' that some asses need to be kicked and it's his job to do it.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

What I was wondering was whether anyone would look at the Gulf Coast and look at Iraq and wonder if maybe we've got our priorities wrong. Are we really $400 Billion safer for invading Iraq? Is the biggest danger facing the USA from terrorists?

The foreign press is shocked by America's inability and seeming unwillingness to save its own citizens. Even countries like Sri Lanka and Bangladesh were horrified and openly critical. Bangladesh asked, "Who's the Third-World Country Now?" in a headline. Tiny Sri Lanka's sending us $25,000 in aid. Honduras has offered to send us soldiers.

Are we willing to be seen this way by the rest of the world? Will we really just shrug it off as an act of God--just one of those things--and go back to business as usual?

What will this do to Bush's plans to privatize FEMA? That was his strategy when he took office, to let private contractors and faith-based initiatives take the lead in providing aid in disasters. Will it have any effect on his stance on privatization of social security? Resistance to national health care?

 

[Xelebes]

I also think the economic damage was more devastating than 9/11, most certainly. And when disruptions in the economics of this scale is plays a role here, it can lead to other policy shifts. However, this won't prompt wars like 9/11 did. So I don't know about this one. This coming from a foreigner.

 

[Alex756]

As for answwering what is left of NO....

a hell of alot it looks like.

I admit I watch fox, I know what alot of people think of fox, but I want to cite my sources.

Shepard smith made it back to the hotel in the french quarter he rode out the storm in yesterday. Know what? That french quarter is high on my list of good places for armagedon. Buildings got a little wet on the bottom floors. No visible major damage. they'll need roofers and some replacement hurricane shutters and yeah some windows are gone on some buildings. Looters? they got their mardi gras barriers out, those buildings are pretty darn secure. Parts of he french quarter looks like like a bad thunder storm.

Jackson park, the grass is green, the benches are still there. There are som e tree limbs and such that need cleaned up.

The old historic part of the city, it made it through pretty good.

Like has been postulated, maybe rebuilding the safer parts is what needs to be done. the extream lowlying areas, maybe too much settlement has occured and a smaller, higher neworleans, using the historic area's as it's heart is what needs to rise again.

-Alex

 

[cantdog]

Why Bush is defensive

www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=100
1051313
Did New Orleans Catastrophe Have to Happen? 'Times-Picayune' Had
Repeatedly Raised Federal Spending Issues
By Will Bunch
Published: August 30, 2005 9:00 PM ET

PHILADELPHIA Even though Hurricane Katrina has moved well north of the
city, the waters may still keep rising in New Orleans late on Tuesday.
That's because Lake Pontchartrain continues to pour through a
two-block-long break in the main levee, near the city's 17th Street Canal.
With much of the Crescent City some 10 feet below sea level, the rising
tide may not stop until it's level with the massive lake.

New Orleans had long known it was highly vulnerable to flooding and a
direct hit from a hurricane. In fact, the federal government has been
working with state and local officials in the region since the late 1960s
on major hurricane and flood relief efforts. When flooding from a massive
rainstorm in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast
Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA.

Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying
out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping
stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in
crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic
Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans
continued to subside. Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward
SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the
spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security --
coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the
strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005
specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane-
and flood-control dollars.

Newhouse News Service, in an article posted late Tuesday night at The
Times-Picayune web site, reported: "No one can say they didn't see it
coming....Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious
questions are being asked about the lack of preparation."

In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush
proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed
for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New
Orleans CityBusiness.

On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson
Parish, Louisiana; told the Times-Picayune: "It appears that the money has
been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the
war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is
happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we
can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

Also that June, with the 2004 hurricane season starting, the Corps'
project manager Al Naomi went before a local agency, the East Jefferson
Levee Authority, and essentially begged for $2 million for urgent work
that Washington was now unable to pay for. From the June 18, 2004
Times-Picayune: "The system is in great shape, but the levees are sinking.
Everything is sinking, and if we don't get the money fast enough to raise
them, then we can't stay ahead of the settlement," he said. "The problem
that we have isn't that the levee is low, but that the federal funds have
dried up so that we can't raise them."

The panel authorized that money, and on July 1, 2004, it had to pony up
another $250,000 when it learned that stretches of the levee in Metairie
had sunk by four feet. The agency had to pay for the work with higher
property taxes. The levee board noted in October 2004 that the feds were
also now not paying for a hoped-for $15 million project to better shore up
the banks of Lake Pontchartrain.

The 2004 hurricane season was the worst in decades. In spite of that, the
federal government came back this spring with the steepest reduction in
hurricane and flood-control funding for New Orleans in history. Because of
the proposed cuts, the Corps office there imposed a hiring freeze.
Officials said that money targeted for the SELA project -- $10.4 million,
down from $36.5 million -- was not enough to start any new jobs.

There was, at the same time, a growing recognition that more research was
needed to see what New Orleans must do to protect itself from a Category 4
or 5 hurricane. But once again, the money was not there. As the
Times-Picayune reported last Sept. 22: "That second study would take
about four years to complete and would cost about $4 million, said Army
Corps of Engineers project manager Al Naomi. About $300,000 in federal
money was proposed for the 2005 fiscal-year budget, and the state had
agreed to match that amount. But the cost of the Iraq war forced the Bush
administration to order the New Orleans district office not to begin any
new studies, and the 2005 budget no longer includes the needed money, he
said. "

The Senate was seeking to restore some of the SELA funding cuts for 2006.
But now it's too late.

One project that a contractor had been racing to finish this summer: a
bridge and levee job right at the 17th Street Canal, site of the main
breach on Monday.

The Newhouse News Service article published Tuesday night observed, "The
Louisiana congressional delegation urged Congress earlier this year to
dedicate a stream of federal money to Louisiana's coast, only to be
opposed by the White House....In its budget, the Bush administration
proposed a significant reduction in funding for southeast Louisiana's
chief hurricane protection project. Bush proposed $10.4 million, a sixth
of what local officials say they need." Local officials are now saying,
the article reported, that had Washington heeded their warnings about the
dire need for hurricane protection, including building up levees and
repairing barrier islands, "the damage might not have been nearly as bad
as it turned out to be."

 

[cantdog]

Our president will say we saved X number of people. He will tell us how well the emergency response teams worked in an unprecedented disaster. He will thank the brave men and women who risked their lives and worked around the clock to save the people of New Orleans. He will thank the good people of America for their generosity and assistance to those affected. He will ask God to bless us all.

If pressed on specifics, he will tell us this is hard work. Very hard. And he will tell us something along the lines of what Condi Rice just said in her press conference: There were people living in low-lying areas and they just couldn't get out.

And they are perfectly right about all that. I used to do this sort of thing for a living. The limits placed on realistic disaster plans are mostly money limits. No one can possibly afford to maintain the sort of stockpiles and equipment to deal with really big disasters quickly and in an orderly, planned fashion. Except the military.

The military services' equipment is there to waste. To expend, to throw away. Saving very carefully your militaryt equipment is foolish because of several reasons. It becomes obsolete. If you don't train with it, no one will be any good with the weapons systems or discover the little tweaks that might be needed to make them really useful. So they are profligate, shooting off missiles costing millions all the time.

They have some branches of the military services, such as crash-rescue fire departments within bases, and practically the whole Coast Guard, whose job it is to plan for and deal with disasters such as civilians face. But most of the disasters the rest of the service plans for have to do with armed attacks by other people's armed forces.

The parts of the military which have significant overlap with civilian ideas of disaster are just as profligate. They use up lots of stuff training. They are quite good at what they do. And they have lots of equipment, fairly modern, to work with. The military responses, the coast guard responses, to this thing have been remarkably efficient and co-ordinated.

But a city hasn't a fraction of the budget of an army. The equipment is husbanded, training goes on with as little material expenditure as possible, equipment replacement plans are shortchanged, fire departments underfunded. A really puny little disaster, like a school bus full of kids going over a ravine, with even as few as 24 victims, will stretch to the upper limit the actual capacity of disaster plans and disaster facilities, in a small town or a rural county. Hospital beds are starkly limited and most places haven't enough to go around in the face of daily pressure and everyday levels of demand.

But it costs real money to be better prepared. It makes almost no one any money to pay and train a large department, and you can cut them back without anyone even noticing outside city government. Bigger cities do better, but bigger cities also have large areas of poverty, which don't contribute much, net, to the tax base. By 'net' I mean 'considering the services they use.' They can afford more preparedness, though, usually, in big cities. LA County and NYC are examples of really huge departments whose jobs include such preparedness.

This whole thing, Katrina, is so big that no one in their right mind would have kept on hand the massive amounts of equipment and trained people you'd need to deal with anything approaching it.

So, we turn in such cases to those who are not in their right mind, with regard to budget. We turn to the military, whose retardedly huge funding makes them alone capable of applying the resources needed with the speed and planning required.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

As for answwering what is left of NO....

a hell of alot it looks like.

I admit I watch fox, I know what alot of people think of fox, but I want to cite my sources.

You've got to love Fox.

I saw Bill O'Reilly fuming about the looting. According to him (this was on Wednesday), protection of property and restoration of order was "Priority One", trumping search and rescue efforts and getting food and water to the people who were dying.

The most conservative estimate I saw was that 80% of New Orleans was flooded with up to 10 feet of water. The French Quarter was the one are that escaped major destruction, since it was built on the highest ground. Everything else is pretty much under water.

Death toll is in the hundreds, or thousands. The Army Corp of Engineers estimate that, once they get the levees plugged, it'll take between 36 and 80 days to pump the water out. Meanwhile, this toxic, feces-loaded sludge will stagnate there, breeding typhus and cholera. No one will be allowed back into New Orleans for at least a month, according to the mayor. No one knows how many bodies are floating in this cesspool, but they know they're there. Rescue workers had to push them out of the way to get to those who were stranded.

Every news service but Fox was screaming at what a fucked-up job the government was doing. Fox thought things were just peachy.

 

[sophia jane]

Every news service but Fox was screaming at what a fucked-up job the government was doing. Fox thought things were just peachy.

The one time I've turned on Fox to get news (all my other usuals were on commercial break) I got to hear O'Reilly placing the entire blame for the problems on the governor because she didn't ask for a disaster area declaration two days before the hurricane hit. According to them, since it's obviously a slow process to get the supplies and people in, the process should have been started by the governor days before the hurricane hit. And what a surprise, the person they placed sole blame on- a Democrat.

I'm not saying that the governor doesn't share a hunk of blame. I think there's plenty to go around. Which is why I think it's odd to place all of the blame on her.
I haven't turned Fox on since. I'll stick to the other stations, thanks.

 

[cantdog]

People's expectations were a little unrealistic. The Biloxi thing alone is enough to swamp the capacity of local and state resources. A larger response, a federal response, was immediately perceived to be required. The loss of the river crossings is a major impediment. The military and the Dunkirk-like congeries of private humanitarian help were first in. FEMA had been intentionally underfunded, since there were plans to privatize, so they look bad. Not the fault of the people who work in FEMA, but of the political climate at the top and their political appointees.

But even a massive FEMA would have needed a lot of military and private help for anything this huge. The coordination of all this is given to FEMA to do, unfortunately.

People are doing miracles all the time and much is being done, much has been done. The sheer scale of it makes normal expectations unrealistic, though.

 

[Weird Harold]

...I got to hear O'Reilly placing the entire blame for the problems on the governor because she didn't ask for a disaster area declaration two days before the hurricane hit. According to them, since it's obviously a slow process to get the supplies and people in, the process should have been started by the governor days before the hurricane hit.

I wonder why O'Reilly conveniently forgot that Pres Bush DID declare Mississippi and Lousiana federal disaster areas before the storm hit -- maybe not two days before, but as soon as the weather forcasters could determine that Katrina was going not going to veer east and hit North Florida and Georgia or veer west and hit theTexas Gulf Coast.

It was 24 to 36 hours before landfall and I was surprised that there was a proactive disaster declaration at all.

I don't know if the Governor ever requested a disaster declaration or not or if it was Mississippi's governor who requested it, but the fact that GWB did NOT wait to return to the Whitehouse to make a proactive disaster declaration is conveniently forgotten by the bush-bashers.

I haven't researched past disaster declarations, but this is the first time I can remember that the area hit by a hurricane was declared a disaster area before the storm made landfall -- or even before the exent of the damage could be asessed. IIRC, it was about 72 hours after landfall before the areas in Florida destroyed by Andrew were declared federal disaster areas and then only on a county by county basis.

 

[cantdog]

Texas

 

[Alex756]

I haven't researched past disaster declarations, but this is the first time I can remember that the area hit by a hurricane was declared a disaster area before the storm made landfall -- or even before the exent of the damage could be asessed. IIRC, it was about 72 hours after landfall before the areas in Florida destroyed by Adam were declared federal disaster areas and then only on a county by county basis.

I do not know the other one (singular) but only once before has a declaration beem made ahead of the storm, the first day of coverage I remeber alot of people saying THAT was why they decidedd to leave.

FEMA was able due to that to bring supplies in early. A LOT of areas had a quick response. Something of this scope has never been handeled before.

-Alex

 

[Weird Harold]

FEMA was able due to that to bring supplies in early. A LOT of areas had a quick response. Something of this scope has never been handeled before.

Another thing that a most people are ignoring is that there was a lot of pre-positioned disaster relief destroyed by the storm -- there is (or was) an picture in Linuxgeeks hurricane season thread from late in the day Katrina made landfall of a Red Cross Emergency response vehicle in New Orleans up to its dashboard in flood waters; I doubt that particular vehicle is responding to much of this disaster.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I have to say that throughout the crisis, the Governor of Louisaina--Gov Blanco, is it?--looked like a deer caught in the headlights. I've never seen someone look so out of their depths.

I don't know anything about her, but I find it hard to believe she'll be re-elected.

 

[sophia jane]

Texas

What about it?

 

[Guest]

I have to say that throughout the crisis, the Governor of Louisaina--Gov Blanco, is it?--looked like a deer caught in the headlights. I've never seen someone look so out of their depths.

I don't know anything about her, but I find it hard to believe she'll be re-elected.

I don't know anything about her, either, but I really didn't get that impression.

Her reaction seemed to be sadness, as opposed to the mayor's obvious anger.

To me she looked weary, exhausted, and anguished.

 

[Alex756]

You've got to love Fox.

I saw Bill O'Reilly fuming about the looting. According to him (this was on Wednesday), protection of property and restoration of order was "Priority One", trumping search and rescue efforts and getting food and water to the people who were dying.

The most conservative estimate I saw was that 80% of New Orleans was flooded with up to 10 feet of water. The French Quarter was the one are that escaped major destruction, since it was built on the highest ground. Everything else is pretty much under water.

Death toll is in the hundreds, or thousands. The Army Corp of Engineers estimate that, once they get the levees plugged, it'll take between 36 and 80 days to pump the water out. Meanwhile, this toxic, feces-loaded sludge will stagnate there, breeding typhus and cholera. No one will be allowed back into New Orleans for at least a month, according to the mayor. No one knows how many bodies are floating in this cesspool, but they know they're there. Rescue workers had to push them out of the way to get to those who were stranded.

Every news service but Fox was screaming at what a fucked-up job the government was doing. Fox thought things were just peachy.

Were you watching the same Fox I was watching?

As for stopping looting, Fox news crews and rescue choppers and boaters willing to go in an GET people were stopped because people were shooting at them. In my book that means you need to STOP the shooting #1 Charity hospital was ambushed by people taking sniper shots at Doctors loading critically ill patients into helicoptors. That needs to stop.

You can NOT bring in the red cross and such until they will not be shot at.

I saw plenty of critism of ALL levels of goverment on Fox, plenty of blame and they are spreading it too.

-Alex

 

[CharleyH]

I was on the way to the dentist on 9/11/01 when I heard about the first plane flying into the Twin Towers on the radio. Naive as I was, I didn't think it was that big a deal. I remembered that in the late '40's or early '50's an air force bomber had flown into the Empire State Building in the fog, with minimal loss of life and not much damage. I figured this was something similar, a tragic accident. I had no idea I was listening to the defining event of the new century.

I didn't make the same mistake when the Katrina tragedy began. Once I heard that New Orleans was under water, I was glued to my TV in shock.

My question is, which tragedy will have a bigger effect on the future of US planning and politics? WIll this signal a change in the country's priorities? Will this change the way people think about "Big Government"?

I have very little idea regarding US policy and how it actually changes beyond growing up with saturday morning cartoons ad jingles regarding how a bill becomes a bill, even if I studied US history and politics. I have been glued to the TV in both instances.

During 9/11, I had just arrived at work, and turned on my TV (ya, watching TV was the nature of my job - lol) and I recall my immediate thought that this could hardly be an accident, and of course, to my horror, I watched as the second plane dove into the 2nd tower. It is "still" surreal in my memory. Of course, this has had a huge impact on policies and changes in the US, and even around the globe, most certainly it has affected the same in my countries policies.

Obviously, they are both disasters, and quite frankly, and to be critical, I am shocked that a city as major as New Orleans would not have had (especially since 9/11) a better "plan". I know that 9/11 has affected policies already, but I do believe that Katarina SHOULD have more effect on future planning for disaster, less a greater one turn the US into a Mad Max world. First of all, I think that in future evacuation efforts, they could have had better planning for the poor. Certainly, it is not the rich or middle class housed up in the dome, and left behind?

I do have my theories about certain behaviours, but won't say them because it would be like a cow in a slaughterhouse. However, I think the US news, especially, should do a better job of unbiased reporting.

 

[LadyJeanne]

Obviously, they are both disasters, and quite frankly, and to be critical, I am shocked that a city as major as New Orleans would not have had (especially since 9/11) a better "plan". I know that 9/11 has affected policies already, but I do believe that Katarina SHOULD have more effect on future planning for disaster, less a greater one turn the US into a Mad Max world. First of all, I think that in future evacuation efforts, they could have had better planning for the poor. Certainly, it is not the rich or middle class housed up in the dome, and left behind?

I do have my theories about certain behaviours, but won't say them because it would be like a cow in a slaughterhouse. However, I think the US news, especially, should do a better job of unbiased reporting.

Those of us watching in the US also expected that we would have had a better 'plan', especially after 9/11. In addition to the emotional and financial repercussions of Katrina, a lasting effect of this crisis will be the nation's realization that we are not actually better prepared for an emergency than we were four years ago. I don't know what that will lead to, but the good news is this is not likely to lead to another $$$ billion war on some other nation.

 

[CharleyH]

Those of us watching in the US also expected that we would have had a better 'plan', especially after 9/11. In addition to the emotional and financial repercussions of Katrina, a lasting effect of this crisis will be the nation's realization that we are not actually better prepared for an emergency than we were four years ago. I don't know what that will lead to, but the good news is this is not likely to lead to another $$$ billion war on some other nation.

I think you missed my point about the poor.

 

[rgraham666]

Those of us watching in the US also expected that we would have had a better 'plan', especially after 9/11. In addition to the emotional and financial repercussions of Katrina, a lasting effect of this crisis will be the nation's realization that we are not actually better prepared for an emergency than we were four years ago. I don't know what that will lead to, but the good news is this is not likely to lead to another $$$ billion war on some other nation.

Don't bet on it LadyJ.

These are the people who used 9/11 as an excuse to drill in Alaska.

 

[LadyJeanne]

I think you missed my point about the poor.

I didn't, and I haven't been missing that point for the last 5 days. I don't know what this will lead to. Certainly Jesse Jackson and other African-American leaders have been making this point. But I don't know what that will lead to. "The poor" always get the short end of the stick. That's an even bigger issue than this disaster. But we don't see it until something like this happens. We see it now. But I don't know what effect that will have on our policies. I have a feeling, not much.

 

[thebullet]

As one who has for some time been concerned with global warming, I have to wonder if Katrina isn't the tip of the iceburg. Apparantley the unusually warm water in the Gulf of Mexico contributed to Katrina's strength.

Are we gong to experience progressively more violent weather over the coming years? If so, we had better learn our lessons from the Katrina disaster. We may have to deal with many such crises in the future.

 

[CharleyH]

I didn't, and I haven't been missing that point for the last 5 days. I don't know what this will lead to. Certainly Jesse Jackson and other African-American leaders have been making this point. But I don't know what that will lead to. "The poor" always get the short end of the stick. That's an even bigger issue than this disaster. But we don't see it until something like this happens. We see it now. But I don't know what effect that will have on our policies. I have a feeling, not much.

Why does black mean poor? Or why do you start with the argument or supposition, that the black are poor? BAD YOU!