Katrina Disaster

[Virtual_Burlesque]

I'm trying to think... (don't laugh).

What was the time window here, from knowing the shit is about to hit the fan, until the mother of all fans hit the shores of the city? How many people, and under what circumstances, needed to be evacuated? How many needed help from the goverment for this? How prepared was the infrastructure for the traffic load?

What I'm trying to get at is...what wouls a best possible evacuation scenario have looked like, given the circumstances? How have large scale rapid evacuation of a big city worked in previous situations? Has it ever been done well? I can't recall any situation where time was this short and the city this big.

It is not all that difficult to find. Try The Wikepedia’s Hurricane Katrina citation.

That's what did happened.

A proper evacuation should have taken everyone who was willing to leave, not just those who were wealthy enough to afford their own transportation, and not too burdened with small children or ancient or elderly family members for self-propelled mobility. They should have been taken out of any area that was dangerous due to winds, or liable to flooding, and been transported to some habitable evacuation site.

If they was safer, it would have left hospitalized patients in the hospitals, but with an immediate response poised to pull them out fast, if the hospital's facilities deteriorated or failed.

Then, after the storm, it should have sent specialists (police, firemen, engineers) back to inspect and repair those facilities which must be in operation for the city to be safe, while others searched for survivors who had refused to evacuate. (Not ones that the people doing the evacuation had left behind in unsafe buildings because they had disbursed all the transportation before insuring all evacuees had been moved)

FEMA identified this potential problem in 2001, planned for it during 2002, and under Homeland Security conducted on-site exercises for a catastrophic event last year.

This apparently is the response we would have got, had al Qaeda set off a nuclear device in New Orleans. (Compounded, of course, by the dangers of radiation and all the rest.)

What do you imagine they have set up for your city?

The Bushies like to ask, "What if the smoking gun is a mushroom cloud over an American city."

It seem likely that if it happens their response will be a wet firecracker.

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

Whatever else that they say, they can't say they didn't know.

http://nola.live.advance.net/washingaway/images/wash_new_header.gif

“Infrastructure isn’t something we build for ourselves, we build it for our children.”
~ Michael Parker, Former Head, Army Corps of Engineers
September 2, 2005​

 

[Lord DragonsWing]

Thanks Doc, it's good to see you again.

The thing about the evacuation is it was given approximately 24 hrs before Katrina hit. LSU and Tulane both did studies before the storm showing it would take a 72 hr evacuation notice to get everyone out of the city.
I agree it has taken the Feds way too long to get relief into the city of New Orleans and all along the Gulf Coast. Yet the mayor of N.O. is ranting and raving that his people are dying. He should of given the evacuation order two days earlier. Within that time period he could of mobilized the bus fleet and taken out anyone who wished to leave.
As like Bush, he played the politics. He didn't want to admit Katrina was going to hit N.O. He's lucky it didn't. If it had, there would be thousands more dead.
I feel the mayor is doing nothing but placing the blame on the state and federal goverments for his mistake. The feds have taken too long to get relief to the city. Hell, they're taking too long to get relief to any of us.
But it was his order when to evacuate and he waited too long. He can cuss out over the radio anytime he likes and place the blame on anyone but himself. Those of us down on the Gulf know the truth.
Bush was wrong and slow, Gov. Blanco of La was slow and wrong. Mayor Nagin was slow and wrong.
Now, this country has to deal with it. We've realized Homeland Security is useless. We've realized that our president, governors and mayors can't be depended on.
Our local station is up and operating. You can view videos of the storm at www.wkrg.com You'll need realplayer to watch, but it's a free download for anyone who doesn't have it. There is also a pic section showing the storm hitting Mobile and other areas along the gulf.

Enjoy,

 

[Weird Harold]

The thing about the evacuation is it was given approximately 24 hrs before Katrina hit. LSU and Tulane both did studies before the storm showing it would take a 72 hr evacuation notice to get everyone out of the city.

I agree it has taken the Feds way too long to get relief into the city of New Orleans and all along the Gulf Coast. Yet the mayor of N.O. is ranting and raving that his people are dying. He should of given the evacuation order two days earlier. Within that time period he could of mobilized the bus fleet and taken out anyone who wished to leave.

Even as late as he waited to make the evacuation mandatory, tens of thousands more people could have been evacuated than were evacuated.

Trains, Planes and Ships were leaving New Orleans like rats leaving a sinking ship and every empty seat and human sized empty space on each and every train, ship and plane -- and nearly every empty seat in privately owned vehicles should be a separate count of negligence in indictments against the Mayor of New Orleans and the Governor of Louisiana (and their respective legislative bodies) for malfeasance and negligence.

 

[LadyJeanne]

Even as late as he waited to make the evacuation mandatory, tens of thousands more people could have been evacuated than were evacuated.

Trains, Planes and Ships were leaving New Orleans like rats leaving a sinking ship and every empty seat and human sized empty space on each and every train, ship and plane -- and nearly every empty seat in privately owned vehicles should be a separate count of negligence in indictments against the Mayor of New Orleans and the Governor of Louisiana (and their respective legislative bodies) for malfeasance and negligence.

I'm starting to think they just didn't really expect anything of this magnitude to happen - just couldn't really imagine it.

Denial? Hope? Crossing their fingers? Praying? I don't know. No one wanted this to happen, and they knew something might happen, but they weren't prepared for this. They just weren't.

Laissez les bon temps roulez.

 

[Xelebes]

And now for some humour.





http://img271.imageshack.us/img271/2595/zangeif0rk.gif

 

[Weird Harold]

I'm starting to think they just didn't really expect anything of this magnitude to happen - just couldn't really imagine it.

Denial? Hope? Crossing their fingers? Praying? I don't know. No one wanted this to happen, and they knew something might happen, but they weren't prepared for this. They just weren't.

Laissez les bon temps roulez.

The Fire Chief of Gulfport MS took one of the Weather Channel's reporters on a tour of the devestation there. He said it all with, "when we planned for a worst case scenario, we didn't imagine anything like this."

Still, the Discovery Channel has periodically aired one of it's "doomsday documentaries" every year for the last few years during the hurricane season that could be substituted for most of the news stories inthe last week -- the government of New Orleans and Louisiana KNEW exactly what would happen because the "doomsday documentary" has a copyright date of 1995 -- nd it is far from the only documentary, article, or study that predicted exactly what has happened in New Orleans.

Gulfport and other cities might be excused for having more confidence in their infrastructure that withstood Camille and other severe storims over the years, but there is no reason why New Orleans wasn't better prepared to evacuate. They are saying that $250,000 in federal money wasn't available for another study and development of an evacuation plan, but I don't see what more needed to be studied or why extra money was needed for the people responsible for carrying out the evacuation to do their jobs and plan ahead.

I'm no rocket scientist, but about two days with a handheld calculator, some census maps from online and access to mapquest's maps of the region and I could come up with a detailed plan that would have moved about 250,000 more people out of New Orleans even with only a 24 hour mandatory evacuation notice.

 

[LadyJeanne]

The Fire Chief of Gulfport MS took one of the Weather Channel's reporters on a tour of the devestation there. He said it all with, "when we planned for a worst case scenario, we didn't imagine anything like this."

Still, the Discovery Channel has periodically aired one of it's "doomsday documentaries" every year for the last few years during the hurricane season that could be substituted for most of the news stories inthe last week -- the government of New Orleans and Louisiana KNEW exactly what would happen because the "doomsday documentary" has a copyright date of 1995 -- nd it is far from the only documentary, article, or study that predicted exactly what has happened in New Orleans.

Gulfport and other cities might be excused for having more confidence in their infrastructure that withstood Camille and other severe storims over the years, but there is no reason why New Orleans wasn't better prepared to evacuate. They are saying that $250,000 in federal money wasn't available for another study and development of an evacuation plan, but I don't see what more needed to be studied or why extra money was needed for the people responsible for carrying out the evacuation to do their jobs and plan ahead.

I'm no rocket scientist, but about two days with a handheld calculator, some census maps from online and access to mapquest's maps of the region and I could come up with a detailed plan that would have moved about 250,000 more people out of New Orleans even with only a 24 hour mandatory evacuation notice.

Yes, they knew. But they had to believe it, really believe it would happen, in order to prepare. That's where the denial, hope, crossing of fingers, and praying came in.

 

[Xelebes]

Come on, this was predicted as early as 1994:

http://img239.imageshack.us/img239/1566/11257122955768mr.jpg

 

[Weird Harold]

Yes, they knew. But they had to believe it, really believe it would happen, in order to prepare. That's where the denial, hope, crossing of fingers, and praying came in.

It's also where the negligence rises to criminal levels IMHO.

There is a time when pragmatic decisions -- like building the levee system to cope with a "300 year storm" because spending the money to make it bullet-proof just isn't cost effective -- can be based on hope and prayer and be justifiable even when the unthinkable or extremely unlikely happens.

But such pragmatic decisions about cost effectiveness make the relatively low cost option of "get out of town" a necessary planning priority to compensate for the risk accepted in the design of the levee system.

It doesn't take a quarter million dollars to develop an evacuation plan -- Xelebes just demonstrated that a relatively inexpensive computer game (sim city) is sufficient to model and test evacuation plans -- and it doesn't take a genious to figure out where the people are, where the transportation assets are, and figure out how to get the people to the transportation. All it takes is a little imagination and a commitment by the local government to ensure that no transport of any kind leaves the city without taking as many warm bodies as it can handle.

The latest news stories are praising the airlines and DHS for an airlift of 25,000 people or so to Lackland AFB (San Antonio) -- these are the same airlines that unloaded passengers and sent their empty airliners to safety just before the storm hit instead of diverting those passengers to wherever they took the airplanes and contributed to the problem of people stranded with no way to evacuate in the first place. They're being praised for "donating" airplanes and crews to the evacuation effort now -- why couldn't they have done the same thing BEFORE the storm?

 

[NoJo]

Where does RumpleForeskin live? Has he been heard from?

 

[impressive]

Where does RumpleForeskin live? Has he been heard from?

Texas, I believe ... and yes.

 

[Alex756]

Did anyone else see the HUNDREDS of -city- busses sitting in flood waters now, all neatly parked.

Last I knew, city buses were under control of the mayor.

Let me restate, city buses, prior to a hurricane, prior to a line guarded my national guard being formed to get onto the convoy of buses AFTER the huricane and untold deaths .... in other words, the buses the mayor did NOTHING with were under his control. The buses he got his 'special peeps' out on -- how dare he.

There is more than enough blame to be spread around -- when the time comes.

How about the 50% of the NO police force that just left.

-Alex

 

[sophia jane]

18,000 apartments across the state open to evacuees
Requirements waived, making families eligible to get voucher
By POLLY ROSS HUGHES
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau



AUSTIN - An estimated 18,000 vacant apartment units statewide opened for hurricane victims Friday when the federal government waived special income requirements, Gov. Rick Perry announced Friday.

Families eligible for Federal Emergency Management Agency financial aid can receive vouchers to move into the apartments.

The governor sought the Internal Revenue Service waiver as the state mobilized aid for those fleeing Hurricane Katrina.

"We will do all we can as a state and a people to help our neighbors to the east who have lost so much," Perry said.

The effort to move as many hurricane evacuees out of shelters and into more permanent housing coincided with more than 15,000 beds opening up in shelters stretching from Austin to Corpus Christi to El Paso, the governor's office said.

"We're just trying to cut through the red tape for them and get them permanent housing. Obviously the Astrodome is not a permanent home," said Perry spokesman Robert Black.

About 7,000 units are in the eastern, more populated parts of Texas.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott announced separately that Texas is joining a multistate crackdown on price gouging, including gasoline at the pump.

The state attorneys general "are alarmed at the escalating price of gasoline since late August, which is the basis for launching the multistate inquiry into price gouging," Abbott's office said.

Abbott's investigators checked on complaints lodged across the state while the attorney general's deputies began discussions with Texas oil refiners, marketers and convenience store associations.

Perry has also authorized 1,000 National Guard units to provide in-state security and support.

In direct assistance, the governor issued an executive order suspending state and local hotel-motel taxes for 60 days for Louisiana hurricane victims.

The Texas Education Agency said that by midmorning Friday, at least 6,100 students displaced by the storm had enrolled statewide in public schools.

The Health and Human Services Commission has extended its office hours for storm victims and estimates it had served more than 2,500 by late Thursday.

The state said it is working to ensure that Louisiana evacuees eligible for food stamps, Medicaid and other federal assistance will continue to receive services.

The Department of Family and Protective Services said it is helping to place Louisiana foster care children, including 49 evacuated from a New Orleans facilit

 

[sophia jane]

This amazes me, that there are actually shelters that don't have anyone to help.


The Beaumont Enterprise home : news : news : local
Shelters filling up, need help
By ROLANDO GARCIA
The Enterprise 09/02/2005


Some Southeast Texas shelters were turning away hurricane evacuees Thursday, while others stocked with cots and food stood largely empty.


As of Thursday afternoon, there were about 1,900 in the at least 21 shelters set up in the region -- other than Ford Park. But the shelters have a combined capacity of about 3,200.

Shelter organizers said they expect some of the thousands of evacuees estimated to be staying in local hotels to soon be looking for new digs.

But some shelters were still desperately looking for someone to help.

Procter Baptist Church in Port Arthur had 4,000 pounds of food, thousands of dollars in donations and four doctors on call to treat 100 people, but so far there are only 30 at the shelter.

"We have all these resources and nobody to give it to. Isn't that sad?" said Rick Erwin, Procter pastor.

He has called the Red Cross repeatedly asking for overflow evacuees at Ford Park to be sent his way but is told each time only that he will be put on the shelter list, Erwin said.

The United Methodist Temple in Port Arthur can hold 100 evacuees, but had none as of Thursday afternoon.

It, too, has contacted the Red Cross and is waiting for evacuees to arrive.

"I don't know if it's that people don't know how to get here," said Lisa Duplant, the church secretary.

The Salvation Army shelter in Beaumont was also empty Thursday afternoon, but that was by design.

Capt. Dan Ford said most of the 200 people who stayed there Wednesday night were moved to other shelters or private homes.

The Salvation Army shelter is better-equipped as a screening center for evacuees just arriving off the streets, Ford said. After a few nights, they are sent elsewhere for long-term lodging.

Among those who might be staying there tonight is a group which was riding on a New Orleans school bus before it ran out of gas Thursday afternoon just short of Beaumont. The Salvation Army was called.

"It's like they walked straight out of the water into the bus," Ford said.

The group left from the Algiers ferry landing in New Orleans Wednesday, headed for the Louisiana State University campus in Baton Rouge, La., with a police escort, group members said. There, they joined a line of buses and the police left them.

When it turned out LSU wasn't expecting them, a confrontation ensued. University police, armed with tear gas and Tasers, escorted them out and their bus driver left them, they said.

The group then decided to try to make it to Houston. With no money for gas, they ran dry in Beaumont where a friendly police officer directed them to the Salvation Army -- but not before he found out the bus had been reported stolen and almost arrested them.

Most of the shelters have no ties to prominent charities such as the Red Cross and Salvation Army and are leaning on church members and others in the community for donations.

These churches are flying by the seat of their pants, but what they lack in strategic planning they make up for in zeal.

Volunteers at Second Baptist Church in Bridge City are raiding motels and rest stops to lure evacuees; the church shelter will be at capacity tonight with 65, said James Gilbert, youth minister at Second Baptist.

There are no long-term plans, but the shelter will be there as long as it is needed, he said.

"We're just doing what our Lord would have us do," Gilbert said.

While many donors reflexively turn to major national charities, smaller shelter operations are struggling to get the word out that they, too, need help, said Mike Trahan, a volunteer at the American Legion shelter in Beaumont.

That shelter opened for business Thursday and can hold 125 people, but had none as of late afternoon.

 

[cantdog]

It's not yet time for anger and blame, with so many people dying. This is a horrific tragedy

I think it's well nigh past time for anger and blame, because people are dying. Getting angry and kicking FEMA's butt won't do any good once they're all dead. There's a lot of history here, as the Mayor well knows.

New Orleans was left to shift for itself. The tax cuts, homeland security funding and the war on Iraq were expressly cited as the reasons for cutting off flood protection projects which had once been ongoing. The Mayor and his predecessors had been trying for years to describe the risks and the state of the flood protections, which were sinking. Last year's hurricane season was widely perceived as the worst in decades, and the city renewed its pleas, but the president cut five sixths of the requested money. (The request was only intended to finish another year's work on projects long in train, not to begin the new ones which were also urgently needed. The president's cuts brough on a hiring freeze in the Corps projects. Any hope of beginning the new projects faded out.)

When this began to happen, the Mayor knew all too well why it was so bad. He's pissed off and he's going to tell the world who did this. The FEMA head is clueless because the administration doesn't believe in the necessity for a FEMA and wants to phase it out. They did not, therefore, appoint a man who really had his heart in growing a robust and effective FEMA; au contraire.

Yes, this is politics. And the cost of politics is borne by the poor. As fuckin usual. The important thing is the poor people at risk and dying now, and rather than kick asses alongside the Mayor, the president is making excuses for his inadequate rescue efforts. This is massive and we're doing the best we can, he says, and he makes promises-- steps to be taken, steps which any idiot would have seen needed to be taken days ago.

Maybe pointing fingers is wrong right now, but I think it will serve no one to take the heat off. To wait and discuss this long after the crisis is over, when it will be dismissable? That will only serve the ones whose heads ought to roll for this.

 

[mismused]

delete

 

[ABSTRUSE]

Bottomline is that once the waters recede and it's more evident of the amount of damaged incurred, many people will temorarily leave their jobs and families, roll up their sleeves and help rebuild.
The sick and hungry will be tended and the dead will be laid to rest. Eventually life will go on again, with new scars but it will happen.

 

[kendo1]

National Guard turn up in NO six days after the event.
Is this an American thang? WW1, WW2, NO.

 

[CharleyH]

It's a terrible tragedy and my heart goes out to those familes. I don't want to blame the victims, but I've got to think that anyone who takes their infant children to participate in a jam-packed shoulder-to-shoulder semi-hysterical religious procession where men are whipping themselves into a frenzy with chains--especially in Iraq these days, where any crowd is an open invitation to insurgent bombs--is not acting in their own best interests.

Ah, you see my point mostly. Victims is a hard word for me though.

 

[LadyJeanne]

This is the part I'm really afraid of -

Thousands feared dead

September 4, 2005

BY ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON -- Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said Sunday the death toll from Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath is in the thousands, the first time a federal official has acknowledged what many had feared.

Leavitt said he couldn't provide a precise number on the impact of the devastation, but when asked if it was in the thousands, he told CNN's "Late Edition," "I think it's evident it's in the thousands."

"It's clear to me that this has been sickeningly difficult and profoundly tragic circumstance," Leavitt said.

Earlier in the day, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff had declined to estimate the death toll, but conceded that an untold number of people could have perished in swamped homes and temporary shelters where many went for days without food or water.

"I think we need to prepare the country for what's coming," Chertoff said. "What's going to happen when we de-water and remove the water from New Orleans is we're going to uncover people who died, maybe hiding in houses, got caught by the flood, people whose remains are going to be found in the streets. ... It is going to be about as ugly of a scene as I think you can imagine."

Leavitt said he had received a report of an outbreak of dysentery in Biloxi, Miss., with disease among the concerns of federal officials in the hurricane's aftermath. Dysentery is a painful intestinal disease that can cause dehydration and can sometimes be fatal.

The lack of clean drinking water in parts of the Gulf Coast region and standing flood waters with decomposing bodies and human waste in the streets of New Orleans could cause a rash of infectious diseases, including West Nile virus and the often fatal E. coli bacteria.

"All of the infectious diseases that occur when people are in large congregations of people can spread," Leavitt said.

Amid widespread criticism about a slow and ineffectual response to the crisis, the Bush administration dispatched several top officials to the region: Chertoff, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

President Bush urged Americans to give cash, their time and blood to the relief effort.

"There's more that needs to be done," Bush said Sunday. "This country is coming together to help those who hurt." He planned to return to the region Monday...

Full story in Chicago Sun-Times

 

[popcorn2721]

I think the main reason that nothing was done, is the class separation down in LA. Remember how many poor folks there are down there? They are the ones who were left to fend for themselves and have had to figure out how to survive on their owns. We hear stories of violence and murder, even rape...but I think that could happen in any city when desperate people are put in a situation where they feel they have no other options. To those people life is going on, at a different pace I know but life is going on.

 

[oggbashan]

China does everything on a larger scale

China's floods

China has floods on the scale of New Orleans every few years. They doesn't get the world wide coverage that New Orleans has. The 'forgotten flood' of 1931 killed more people in a natural disaster than at any time in history.

Yet China still cannot manage to predict a flood accurately nor provide the necessary disaster relief quickly even with 3,000 plus years of experience.

We all need to be prepared for a disaster that might affect our community.

Og

 

[Blackie Malone]

Models predicted New Orleans disaster, experts say
By Alan Elsner




WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Virtually everything that has happened in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina struck was predicted by experts and in computer models, so emergency management specialists wonder why authorities were so unprepared.



"The scenario of a major hurricane hitting New Orleans was well anticipated, predicted and drilled around," said Clare Rubin, an emergency management consultant who also teaches at the Institute for Crisis, Disaster, and Risk Management at George Washington University.

Computer models developed at Louisiana State University and other institutions made detailed projections of what would happen if water flowed over the levees protecting the city or if they failed.

In July 2004, more than 40 federal, state, local and volunteer organizations practiced this very scenario in a five-day simulation code-named "Hurricane Pam," where they had to deal with an imaginary storm that destroyed over half a million buildings in New Orleans and forced the evacuation of a million residents.

At the end of the exercise Ron Castleman, regional director for the Federal Emergency Management Agency declared: "We made great progress this week in our preparedness efforts.

"Disaster response teams developed action plans in critical areas such as search and rescue, medical care, sheltering, temporary housing, school restoration and debris management. These plans are essential for quick response to a hurricane but will also help in other emergencies," he said.

In light of that, said disaster expert Bill Waugh of Georgia State University, "It's inexplicable how unprepared for the flooding they were." He said a slow decline over several years in funding for emergency management was partly to blame.

In comments on Thursday, President George W. Bush said, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."

But Louisiana State University engineer Joseph Suhayda and others have warned for years that defenses could fail. In 2002, the New Orleans Times Picayune published a five-part series on "The Big One" examining what might happen if they did.

SCENARIO LAID OUT

It predicted that 200,000 people or more would be unwilling or unable to heed evacuation orders and thousands would die, that people would be housed in the Superdome, that aid workers would find it difficult to gain access to the city as roads became impassable, as well as many other of the consequences that actually unfolded after Katrina hit this week.

Craig Marks who runs Blue Horizons Consulting, an emergency management training company in North Carolina, said the authorities had mishandled the evacuation, neglecting to help those without transportation to leave the city.

"They could have packed people on trains or buses and gotten them out before the hurricane struck. They had enough time and access to federal funds. And now, we find we do not have a proper emergency communications infrastructure so aid workers get out into the field and they can't talk to one another," he said.

Most of those trapped by the floods in the city of some 500,000 people are the poor who had little chance to leave.

Ernest Sternberg, a professor of urban and regional planning at the University of Buffalo, said law enforcement agencies were often more eager to invest in high tech "toys" than basic communications.

"It's well known that communications go down in disasters but people on the frontlines still don't invest in them. A lot of the investments that have been made in homeland security have been misspent," he said.

Several experts also believe the decision to make FEMA a part of the Department of Homeland Security, created after the September 11, 2001 attacks, was a major mistake. Rubin said FEMA functioned well in the 1990s as a small, independent agency.

"Under DHS, it was downgraded, buried in a couple of layers of bureaucracy, and terrorism prevention got all the attention and most of the funds," she said.

Former FEMA director James Lee Witt testified to Congress in March 2004: "I am extremely concerned that the ability of our nation to prepare for and respond to disasters has been sharply eroded.

"I hear from emergency managers, local and state leaders, and first responders nearly every day that the FEMA they knew and worked well with has now disappeared. In fact one state emergency manager told me, 'It is like a stake has been driven into the heart of emergency management,"' he said.

Underlying the situation has been the general reluctance of government at any level to invest in infrastructure or emergency management, said David McEntire, who teaches emergency management at the University of North Texas.

"No-one cares about disasters until they happen. That is a political fact of life," he said.

"Emergency management is woefully underfunded in this nation. That covers not only first responders but also warning, evacuation, damage assessment, volunteer management, donation management and recovery and mitigation issues," he said.

 

[oggbashan]

The UK used to have a Civil Defence organisation largely staffed by volunteers. It has been abolished.

We used to have a Territorial Army, fairly numerous, locally based, mainly staffed by volunteers. It has been turned into a very much smaller low-cost substitute for regular troops and some units are in Iraq. Just like the US's National Guard.

Although we have never had anything like New Orleans, I think we would be equally incompetent in our first responses because the command structures and organisation no longer exist. Locally, riverine flooding in recent years showed a lack of the basics including sandbags and an inadequate distribution system. Home owners were collecting empty bags and filling them from their gardens - if they could get through the floods to the bag store.

We have the supplies. We have the transport. We DON'T have the people. Those trained for disaster relief are very few and have no resources to call on beyond themselves.

Og