<p>No to sound like the unfairly criticized Barb Bush, but lots of good can come from this. Just like getting a stop sign in your neighborhood, it usually takes a bad accident to get the attention of everyone.</p>
<p>1tcm, I don’t want to paint everyone “left behind” in NOLA with the same brush, but I wonder if a lot of the desperately destructive lawlessness didn’t grow out of drug addicted people driven almost out of their mind by withdrawal? At some point their symptoms will incapacitate them, but before that point, some of them were the people attacking the hospitals and ambulances.</p>
<p>Marite, I have read that assessment by Dr. Zeliger, and that is way out of my area of expertise. I think the Garden District and downtown and the French Quarter will be dry soon, some of those areas barely ever got flooded - are they safe, who knows? They’ve had 5 reports of V. vulnificus, that is a particularly nasty water bug here that is deadly to people with liver disease particularly, healthy people can get bad wound infections from it, but usually survive, people with liver disease can literally die in front of your eyes. They’ve also had E. coli, but that is to be expected, the sewage system isn’t working, you can get really sick from that too if you are old or an infant, most adults would survive, even though they might want to die ;). But the real danger is hepatitis and tetanus and wound infections, and the toxic waste.</p>
<p>I don’t know much about toxic waste, South LA is not exactly pristine waters, lots of chemical plants, oil and run-off, although it is much cleaner than it used to be. It makes sense to me that fish will die from O2 lack in the Lake, and the heavy metal level will go up, but how much and how long will that last? I certainly don’t know - it is a BIG lake. The organic waste, from what little I do know, will cause some immediate damage that the lake can recover from, the gasoline and heavy metals depend on how much, i think that is all speculation, but not good. There already is a big dead zone in the Gulf, which I think comes from years of ag run-off from the Mississippi, this won’t help that I’m sure. I guess I may be a Pollyanna, but I bet the truth lies somewhere between “Oh it will be fine, no problem” and “NOLA will be a toxic waste dump that should just be covered forever”.</p>
<p>“1tcm, I don’t want to paint everyone “left behind” in NOLA with the same brush, but I wonder if a lot of the desperately destructive lawlessness didn’t grow out of drug addicted people driven almost out of their mind by withdrawal?”</p>
<p>Actually, we have no idea which people are which, but I can tell you from my professional work that New Orleans has a relatively high percentage of folks on methadone. However, before one goes too far with that, it should be noted that those addicted to heroin/synthetic opiates or on methadone have miniscule violent crime rates, and are virtually incapable of doing much while in withdrawal. (In fact, at our sobering centers, we have to keep them away from the alcoholics, who do indeed turn violent.) </p>
<p>Our state has volunteered to take both, but after planning for the past four days, FEMA has decided for now not to send anyone our way.</p>
<p>Now folks on meth, that’s another matter entirely!</p>
<p>Mini, meth labs are a cottage industry, literally, and another big one is Oxycontin. I think the Oxycontin folks would do anything to get a hit early on, but as you and I said, their withdrawal symptoms become incapacitating fairly quickly. Also, not every one trying to get the drugs was addicted, some people had just had a precipitate loss of their livelihood (selling).</p>
<p>The generosity of communities all over the country has been overwhelming. This is going to be one of the toughest parts of the job for FEMA, ARC, etc., something that has never been done before. It is wrong to be exclusively paternalistic to these folks, and decide for them, but on the other hand they need to be moved out of the Astrodome, for instance, as soon as they can. Many of them need to go somewhere where they can get jobs and training and a future, but a lot of them will not want to leave the area they love and call home, others are ready to go AWAY. How to separate them? People need a little time to mourn, and then opportunities to get a better life - keep those Washington arms open a little longer, you will eventually get some takers.</p>
<p>cangel:</p>
<p>I was taken aback that the Feds have decided not to move 2,500 evacuees to Cape Cod. It’s understandable, of course, that many are reluctant to be so far away from their homes and go to a place that will get cold quite soon. But this means the strain on TX will not ease up rapidly. I agree that evacuees need to have a sense of purpose.</p>
<p>Actually, where we were moving folks was to a place with a large African-American community that has been mobilizing for days to receive them. It wasn’t reluctance that stopped the airlift to here (they had plenty of volunteers). It was paperwork in the Department of Homeland Security/FEMA that hadn’t provided the proper authorization to use McChord Airforce Base. (I hear rumblings from down the hall from me that we are looking into Boeing Field - stay tuned.)</p>
<p>Good thread, Cangel, and I certainly agree with everything you have said. I am very concerned about the areas outside of NO–they get hardly any media coverage and some of them have been completely eliminated. I know I am planning my second donation to go to Alabama or Mississippi particularly.</p>
<p>1tcm has a great point:
Sometimes I wonder, does anyone else out there remember the volunteer Civil Defense units that were truly ubiquitous when I was growing up? In my city, these people were in charge, and since our disaster was specifically nuclear attack, I mean REALLY in charge. They were hooked up with the National Guard, they knew every doctor and nurse, they had plans for every possibility and they were regular visitors to every elementary school class two or three times a year.</p>
<p>I think civil defense and crisis preparation and practice has gone the way of nutrition and hygiene in the public schools, and it is truly a shame. People don’t even take fire drills seriously anymore–it makes you wonder.</p>
<p>I agree with you, wyogal. Growing up during the Cuban Missile Crisis days, I remember my parents keeping the cellar stocked with old cider jugs filled with water, canned food, batteries, hurricane lanterns, kerosene, radios, shotgun, and ammo. Although my father had started this practice after Hurricane Donna made a big impression on him in 1960. Many people laughed at Tom Ridge a few years ago, when he suggested that people stock up on duct tape and the items listed below.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.ready.gov/water_food.html[/url]”>http://www.ready.gov/water_food.html</a></p>
<p>It was neither red tape nor incompetence. They don’t want to go to the Northwest. Your info stinks</p>
<p><a href=“http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002478807_webkatrinagov07.html[/url]”>http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002478807_webkatrinagov07.html</a></p>
<p>I’m sure that I’m going to get trashed for saying this, but I don’t think its feasible to rebuild New Orleans.</p>
<p>I read in the wall street journal this past weekend that Katrina was not considered unusual (at least from an accounting point of view). That’s because both the hurricane and the flood occured in a hurricane zone, in a city that was below sea level. The journal said that floods in a city below sea level is not unusual … but a flood on top of a mountain would be.</p>
<p>I think that the water needs to be pumped out of the city. There needs to be a mandatory evacutation of those still left in the city, because their health, and their lives, are in danger. And we need to find those people who did not survive the storm the proper burial that they deserve.</p>
<p>But eveythingthing that I read indicates the we, mankind, are way over our heads in New Orleans. The city is below see level, so we build levees to protect it from rising flood waters. But I read that the levees are sinking into the ground, diminishing their capacity to protect the city. Moreover, the levees prevent silt from being deposited on the banks of the lakes and rivers, which is nature’s buffer against hurriances. </p>
<p>Likewise, the erosion of the marshlands on the gulf has reached alarming proportions. I read that the equivalent of 33 football fields of marshland is being lost every day due to erosion. Since hurricanes weaken when they hit land, the marshlands are another natural buffer that we are destroying.</p>
<p>I don’t know how much of an impact global warming has on hurricanes. I did read that there was a lull in hurricanes for about 40 years, but that their activity has picked up recently. Because the waters in around Florida and the gulf are so warm, the intensity of the hurricanes are become greater.</p>
<p>I just can’t see rebuilding a city that is below sea level, whose natural defenses against the elements are being eroded by the progress of man. If the city were rebuilt, I would love to visit it … but I would never consider investing my hard-earned money there. I would never make this city my home. To be honest, this events of this past week has cured me forever of my dream to retire to a beachfront property in Florida.</p>
<p>I’m sure that people can say that we build cities in other places where the threat of natural disaster is real. Los Angeles, San Fransisco, San Diego, come to mind. I don’t have an answer for these people, other than to pray that mother nature should treat us kindly.</p>
<p>I think that if we do rebuild New Orleans, it should be done on a smaller scale. All new construction should be done on land that is above sea level. Since there is limited land above sea level, there should be feasibility studies about filling in the land to bring it up to sea level before building. And we should heed the bugle call of the environement before building anything.</p>
<p>When the tsunami hit last Decemer, I remember reading that one of the reasons that the impact was so destructive was because we, the masters of the universe, destroyed the corals that ringed the land. The corals were the protective barrier that could have absorbed much of the impact of the tsunami. </p>
<p>I fear that we are going to have many more hard lessons to learn from “natural” disasters. I do hope that we learn the lessons sooner rather than later.</p>
<p>Also in the tsunami hit areas they had the sense not to allow rebuilding close to the water. Every problem is also an opportunity.</p>
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<p>You are not talking about the Louisiana I know, mini. There are plenty of friendly relations. I think it simply didn’t occur to people that they might need to take a less able body along, be they black, poor, disabled or elderly. The plan fro temporary shelter in the Superdome seemed reasonable.</p>
<p>Race played a part in the event, but not in the manner mini suggests.</p>
<p>As someone who made a last minute dash out of Hurricane Andrew and once drove out to Lake Ponchatrain to go swimming in the preceding hours of a lesser hurricane, I second cangel. We ought not rely on the federal government to save all of us. We need to save each other. Those of us with means (from airlines to individuals) have an obilgation to try to save those without means.</p>
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That’s exactly the problem – a day or two makes a world of difference in terms of saving lives when people are without food and water - or waiting on a rooftop for rescue. The fault with FEMA does not lie with the number of people killed by the hurricane or initial flooding – the fault lies with the fact that there was not an immediate and rapid response to aid people gathered in the well-publicized staging & evacuation areas of the Superdome & Civic Center ASAP. If the news media could get in, then so could reasonable contingents of aid workers and national guard or police. What difference would it have made at the civic center if there were 100 guardsmen to keep order, 50 medical personnel, and another 50 people in charge of distributing minimal supplies (water and food like MRE’s or protein bars?). There wouldn’t have been the chaos, the frustration, or the crime. Medical aid stations could have been set up, where the medical personnel could have quickly triaged to identify the most vulnerable (the elderly, the infants) and worked to evacuate them. Food and water could have been distributed from stations in orderly fashion – and a slow, orderly evacuation process could have been started at the outset. </p>
<p>That would have saved lives - and perhaps just as important - it would have reassured the people stranded there and prevented the scenes of despair and frustration we saw via the media. In other words- it might have taken just as long for many people to be evacuated, but if there had been a visible, organized process – someone clearly IN CHARGE - at the outset, then the people would have been better able to bear with delays. Despite the media coverage of looters & shooting, the overwhelming majority of people were frightened, law abiding citizens who would have followed instructions including lining up at designated stations, or accepting assigned numbers and waiting for instructions geared to their numbers. </p>
<p>Even if it took a day or so for those areas to be adequately staffed and supplied - if the people there, and the media, could have seen the efforts underway as more rescue personnel were moved into place, there would have been a very dramatic difference in the ways thing played out… </p>
<p>The flooding of New Orleans was a worst-case scenario - but not one that couldn’t be anticipated. The problem wasn’t with the failure to evacuate everyone - the problem was with the failure to have an effective and prompt process to address the needs of the people left behind, especially those who gathered in the designated areas.</p>
<p>It was neither red tape nor incompetence. They don’t want to go to the Northwest. Your info stinks</p>
<p><a href=“http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ht...trinagov07.html[/url]”>http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ht...trinagov07.html</a></p>
<p>Excuse me, but nowhere in the story does it say evacuees wouldn’t come. As of 5:00 p.m. this evening, we are making plans for arrivals at Boeing Field. (Actually, we have a couple of hundred already, I’m told, they just weren’t evacuated by the feds. The first plane, the one the feds cancelled, was full.)</p>
<p>But what the feds are doing, which I actually think is pretty smart (this is the military’s decision, not FEMA’s) is filling up one base opened for evacuation purposes at a time before opening another, which was the issue at McChord/Ft. Lewis, which is an Iraq staging area. So I give them credit for that, and, I think, the exercise that we have just been through will likely stand the state in good stead as evacuees arrive to non-military areas. </p>
<p>“You are not talking about the Louisiana I know, mini. There are plenty of friendly relations.”</p>
<p>Oh, no, I didn’t want to suggest that folks weren’t civil, or even “friendly” to each other, as much as they mixed. As I pointed out in a previous post, many (not all, but many) wouldn’t be living near each other, attending the same churches, or have kids in the same schools. The state of race relations in many places is NOT active hostility, but simple ignorance. (And there are many, many wonderful stories coming out of the entire southeast where people stepped over such lines easily, readily, charitably, and well - frankly, much more readily than I think would have happened in many northern cities.)</p>
<p>The urban design of New Orleans is such that the classes and races are mixed. The classes do live within blocks of one another, though they may go to different churches. It is unlike most American cities.</p>
<p>Does anyone know how many thousands are still refusing to leave NO? I heard estimates of up to 15,000.</p>
<p>An earlier interview with a Charleston, SC official, revealed that in an impending disaster, they go door to door and ask people to evacuate. Those who refuse, are asked for their next-of-kin’s contact information. Of course, the population of Charleston is 20% that of NO.</p>
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<p>We had something of that here, as well. Katrina was our 3rd big scare in a year. For Ivan, the governor ordered evacuation south of I-10 - now south of I-10 is a huge area, mostly rural with some subdivisions, a little city and several small communities/villages. The elevation varies from at or just below sea level up to 150 feet. If we flood to 150 feet, it’ll be great for me, I’m at 175 feet, and I will own beachfront property! My point is, and the feeling of many of the residents, was that total evacuation of this area was not necessary, and indeed, when it was discussed again for Dennis (which was a Cat 5 at one point) a lot of people became very worried that when the “Real One” came, it would get blown off (which I think happened to some extent in MS).
The county did a good thing though with Katrina, again there was a “mandatory” evacuation south of I-10, but it was coupled with use good sense, and “we are going to contact low-lying residents”. So sheriff’s deputies and other emergency/county personnel drove through the low-lying neighborhoods, knocking on doors, and asking people to leave - most people complied. SOme stayed and got flooded, but some of those I know lived in homes that had not flooded in living memory, even in Frederick, so they aren’t necessarily “endangering themselves” because they stayed.</p>
<p>I wasn’t in NOLA, so I don’t know what happened in terms of asking peole to leave, again, I do know that this storm did not have the long build-up we usually get. Now we have Ophelia, and it is behaving more “typically”, we may have tropical conditions around the middle/end of next week.</p>
<p>By the way, the folk wisdom here is that the “really bad storms” are the ones that do come up out of the Gulf with little warning, they are more powerful, Katrina, like Ivan was also huge.</p>
<p>I recall reading that Nagin claimed he’d waited to issue a mandatory evacuation order so as to get people living in low lying areas a chance to evacuate first. I can’t remember the exact reference. Nor do I know whether the geography of NOLA is comparable to your own area, Cangel.</p>
<p>“We ought not rely on the federal government to save all of us. We need to save each other.”</p>
<p>Exactly. But, in order to save each other we also have to be prepared to save/help ourselves first. What good would I be to try to help someone else if I can’t save myself first? If that were the case, I’d just be another victim looking for help. </p>
<p>The more I read, and don’t get me wrong, I think there was a whole lot of problems all the way around, but a lot of the problems we were seeing were caused by non preparation by the residents of NO. We in FL are bombarded from beginning to end of hurricane season about how to prepare. And even if evacuation isn’t possible, if someone takes the time to learn how to prepare survival is likely. I’m sorry if I’m harping about the same things, but even if I couldn’t afford to go buy bottled water I could surely bottle my own tap water in containers I already had. The first rule to surviving is 3 days worth of water per person! </p>
<p>The human body can survive for:
3 minutes without air
3 days without water
3 weeks without food</p>
<p>Had the first few rules of survival been followed we wouldn’t be talking about dehydration for the people of NO., and as it is, we shouldn’t have been using the word starvation 24 hours after the disaster. Hunger yes…starvation no…big difference.</p>
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<p>I’m quoting this from another thread. It points to another problem associated with the end point of evacuation that is not organized by state institutions (local, state or national). What can kind of help can voluntary evacuees rely on once they reach a safe destination if they do not have relatives or acquaintances who can assist them in the long or medium term?. Here is an extreme scenario:</p>
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<p>What’s happened in other cases of evacuation that were not on as massive a scale as Katrina?</p>
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