Finding the Devil in New Orleans
 

The devil is in the details. To appreciate how I listen to those news reports about Katrina damage would demonstrate the concept. For example, long after the serious threat to the dikes, then, somehow, dikes failed in two locations? This suggests serious failures in construction or in maintenance and monitoring.

Pumps were not provided electricity sources that could survive flooding? Ok, so they counted on the backup generators to take over. Problem is backup generators also did not work in many cases. That is human failure twice over.

The town had warning for days. Plenty of time to prepare the city, preposition supplies, check out those backup generators, move essential equipment to higher ground, and convoy people out of town. This problem includes Alabama and Mississippi. As the governor of LA noted, there was no food available to feed the refugees.

Even though they expected New Orleans to be totally under water, still, current response appears to have not planned for that failure. Not only in government. As a Washington Post reported noted, lines of cars fully loaded with luggage after the dikes broke were sitting in flood waters in New Orleans - one day after the hurricane hit. Even WWL station employess were scrambling a day after the hurricane to save essential equipment. What were those people thinking? At what point do you first ask a victim, "Did you leave when warned to? Why not?" or "Did you really take any of those warnings you were broadcasting seriously?"

Unfortunately too many want to be politically correct rather than ask the hard and necessary questions such as 'why did the dikes break so easily', why are so many pumps not working, why was there no contingency plan for fixing broke levees quickly (ie sinking sand laden barges across the break, why were so many still in New Orleans and on the MS/AL coast line, and why is government now scrambling two days later to dispatch rescue equipment? If Katrina was as big as she should have been, then within hours, military aircraft were already landing at damaged airports to get them open. Instead, FEMA cars are delivering satellite phone to airports days later?

The devil is in answers to these questions - and not found in any silly news reports showing people crying. Let them cry while asking questions that must be asked up front such as, "Why did you not leave with so many days of warning?" Suddenly many who are crying don't deserve so much sympathy. Or we discover that government officials never learned of thousands who had no way out of town. Again, a failure to perform advance planning ten years ago.

Look for the devil. He's never found in nonsense about 'good and evil'. He is found in the details.

Dude....what are you talking about???? The devil is in the details?
Funding and bad planning. Officials push things to the back burner that don't seem important at the moment "there's no flood, therefore we can wait to fix the pumps." They put it off until it's too late. Then when disater does strike, all you get is flailing of arms and panic. Followed by a lot of finger pointing and blame-game antics. Happens all the time. We are warned of imminant disaster but we choose to scoff at it and ignore it until it's too late. Just ask the law enforcment officials and airline officials just prior to 9/11.

As for people staying behind:

How many times have we seen this trend in natural disasters (fires, hurricanes, etc.). The warnings go out, the people are given the option, they choose to stay. The problem is human nature. The problem is some people are unwilling to leave behind what belongs to them. When they are told to leave, the first thing they do is assess the situation. "Is it that bad that I need to leave my stuff behind and risk never seeing again, or can I ride it out and protect what is mine?" They talk themselves into staying claming in their minds that it officials are overreacting and it won't be as bad. They don't want to leave their comfort zone, their homes. Next thing they know, they are being rescued from a rooftop while sucking up valuable rescue resources or their body is found charred beyond recognition becuase they thought they could outrun a fireball like in the movies. They (we) always think it couldn't be as bad as what is being reported. Sometimes they're right, most the times they're wrong.

The bottom line is that I have never been in a catastropic disater and faced the descision of leaving everything I own behind. I have no idea what that is like. I would like to think I am one of those people who would assess the problem but would err on the side of caution. I would pack what I could grab the family and spend 30 hours in a car sitting in traffic to save my family.

There are also lots of people who wanted to leave but couldn't. Plenty of people have no car, and public transit stopped. People were stranded at Greyhound stations.

Yes. You can clearly blame the leaders. They didn't have a plan. But there is an even bigger issue here.

You could go to sleep each night in a bed underneath a 500 pound anvil, tied to an old hemp rope, suspended from the ceiling. You hire someone to watch the anvil and inspect the rope, and you assume that it's safe. You sleep there each night, and wake up in the morning without a smashed skull. After 30 years of doing this, you just take it on faith that the old hemp rope will hold, and the anvil won't fall. Then one night it falls, and your kids blame the guy who was supposed to be inspecting the rope? Why were you sleeping under a dangling anvil?

New Orleans was below the level of the ocean. It was surround by water on almost all sides. It was going to flood. It was just a question of time.

The real question is why do we as a society allow people to build houses in such a stupid place? Sure, New Orleans used to be higher and it sank, but once it was below sea level, it was time to stop investing in that particular real estate.

I understand that it's home to a lot of people, and that they will want to go home and rebuild. I honestly can't blame them. But why should we enable them to do that by sending them our money?

New Orleans WILL flood again. It WILL. Why on earth would we help anyone build on that land again? The same goes for all beachfront property in hurricane country. There is risk everywhere, but some places are so obviously risky, they should not be insured by anyone. Including the government.

Why should Venice get all of the sunken-city tourist dollars? I say rebuild New Orleans on stilts.

New Orleans WILL flood again. It WILL. Why on earth would we help anyone build on that land again? The same goes for all beachfront property in hurricane country.

The northern area along the Mississippi WILL flood again and destroy Grand Forks again. California WILL have a disasterous Earthquake that will destroy San Francisco. The entire East coast of the country from New York to Key West WILL be consumed by a tsunami when La Palma's dome collapses into the ocean. The entire Western portion of the United States WILL suffer destruction never before seen by the eyes of mankind when Yellowstone blows.

All of these things WILL happen, undoubtedly. Are you willing to not insure all of these places?

New Orleans hit by hurricane
~5-10 years
I think they've already done the math on the actuarial tables.
And you left out the bigass asteroid that does in the whole deal...

...gamma ray burst...sun going super nova...milkyway colliding with nearby galaxy...

I've been in agreement that New Orleans should not be rebuilt. <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/01/000121071306.htm">They've known this would be a problem for quite sometime</a>.

More information. The industrial canal is how New Orleans pumps discharge to the Lake. But simulations demonstrated that a storm surge would be particularly high in this canal. Normally, a barge could be sunk across the canal opening. But pumps need that canal to pump out the city.

Normally barges could move down the canal to seal or rebuild the levee. But the city built a low bridge over the canal so that barges and other construction equipment cannot access the broken levee.

Even worse, the levees are often constructed of sand - a rather poor material for levees. Once water overflowed the levee, sand quickly washes away.

The military must fly helicopters carrying sand to close a hole at least 500 feet long and who knows how deep. All this while tides wash out what has been dumped in. Ever watch the futility of helicopters trying to quash a fire in Chernobyl? Eventually the hole will be closed - at a cost of expensive and high maintenance choppers desperately needed elsewhere. Chopper that sometimes require eight hours of maintenance for one hour of flight. Just can't think of a more expensive way to seal a levee.

Clearly the Venice solution - making Canal Street truly a canal - makes sense. But they have sympathy. Federal money will rebuild New Orleans.

Meanwhile far more serious damage is located in MS and AL where so little is being reported.

Review the numbers. Katrina was a category 5 storm, predicted to hit days in advance, and to strike a city not constructed to withstand anything above category 3. So why was the city not fully evacuated? For example, the prision was still full when Katrina struck. This could only happen if even city and state officials were in denial. No matter what you had heard, actions are the details that matter. Actions by local and state officials were, instead, for a category 3 storm. A category 5 storm will strike in or near your major city? 10,000 National Guardsman would have been called up and ready to move within hours after the storm. That being only one of so many actions necessary for a category 5 storm that everyone knew was coming.

Currently many victims have seen no food or water for 3 days now. Response has been that slow. Even worse, because so many people stayed, now others will die simply because too many people require rescue.

I am struck by the number of cars piled up in towns where all cars should have left. New Orleans parking lots also have so many cars. Again, damning details. Clearly the regional response to a category 5 storm was denial - when time, information and transport made it easy for so many to leave.

Meanwhile, watch reports for engineering information. New Orleans was only designed for a category 3 storm. Worse, its levees were constructed in a manner that was a disaster just waiting to happen. Not just that levees were too low. Even worse, these levees were not engineered. There were no second levee or levees that partitioned a city - no backup sysetm. Kludge may be a better definitioin of how levees were constructed. Kludge may also describe its pumping system. Kludge apparently was the city's plans for dealing with a disaster that everyone knew would happen sooner or later. Emotional denial is how so many in LA, MS, and AL may have responded to the numbers - category 5.

Katrina lost its category 5 status before stricking. New Orleans also did not suffer a direct strike. And yet the city is suffering from too many people to rescue; too many possible dead. Had the 'powers that be' responded to a Category 5 storm, then New Orleans would only be a flood - just another disaster. That denial is now why people have died AND why rescue is overwhelmed. A city that took category 5 seriously would have even emptied the prision. Numbers - a city only designed to withstand a category 3 storm - are that damning. The city's response suggests why so many remained and why the National Guard was not moving within hours after the storm ended.

At least FEMA this time responded per its mandate. Yet one must temper sympathy for New Orleans. Their worst problems are directly traceable to denial. Flooding is secondary to a problem created by man - they did not leave. Katrina was a category 5 storm that threatened a city only designed for category 3. Clearly logic was lost on Bourbon Street - beginning years ago. Those details such as a full prision and parking lots with so many cars suggest the real devil.

You know, tw, you make this stuff sound like a great revelation, but it's not.

The truth is that all people are like this to one level or another. It's just that organizations tend to represent the lowest common denominator so this is what comes out.

When it comes right down to it everyone is a Cleopatra -- Queen of Denial.

I think that's the tragedy. The Cleopatras won.

This is just another example of doing it the easy way vs. the right way. It just happens to be on a HUGE scale. Coulda woulda shoulda. Maybe now people will learn that it's worth doing it the right way from the beginning...but I doubt it. People knock the midwest, but I'll stay as long as I can.

Okay, so like where is the Weekly World News Cover with the Devil's Face in the approaching storm? Isn't that what this thread is about? ;)

The city was evacuated of the people that were willing to go ... about 80% got out, I seem to recall. No matter how mandatory an evacuation is, there are always people who think that doesn't mean them.

Disaster plans are based on expectations ... you speculate about the loss of the entire city, but plan for about a quarter to half of that extent. That's just how it's done. Every storm is not a Cat 5, and not every Cat 3 will leave this kind of extreme devestation in it's wake.

A child can be in denial. A parent cannot. A crewman can be in denial. The ship's Captain cannot. A citizen can be in denial. The elected leadership cannot. And yet the symptoms in New Orleans strongly suggest leadership that was in denial. Denial is not acceptable behavior anytime anywhere one is in charge.

Denial murdered seven Challenger astronauts. Shame is that same denial then killed seven Columbia astronauts. Do you find denial acceptable human behavior for your pilot while inside a passenger jet at 35,000 feet?

Much has also been made on the news about most of the people who didn't leave not having a means to do so...no car, no money, noplace else to go. At the time the evacuation was ordered, I don't recall hearing anything about buses, trains or other transport being arranged for the evacuees, nor was there anyplace set up for them to go in advance (I could be wrong about these points, but I never did hear anything that suggested preparations any more farsighted than "get the hell out of town now").

The city was evacuated of the people that were willing and able to go.

That's what I thought too when I first clicked on the thread.

TW,
One thing I have a bit of an issue with is the complaint that the city has not been engineered to withstand the sort of storm that has hit it now and that it's the fault of the local goverment for not making sure the city could deal with this. This is an easy flaw to target and rail against, but in all honesty what could really be expected?
I've been a consultant for years and I've gone into hundreds of environments where I've been stunned that they still run with how badly they've been engineered and patched together. At first I blamed the management for not authorizing the efforts needed to fix everything. I've since learned that it is so easy to come in after the fact and say how things SHOULD have been done to deal with the current situation. This view doesn't take into account the growth and demands every step along the way. People make the best decisions they can with the information AND funding they have. As they grow to meet larger demands they add things piecemeal which adds to the hodgepodge nature of the environment.
Consider that New Orleans has been around for over 100 years and over that period the population has exploded. The city used to be above water. By the time things got out of hand and the city in jeapordy, it was too expensive and politically impossible to change things. As private citizens we get PISSED at the gov when they tell us we have to sacrifice our personal situation for the greater good. Would you sacrifice your home because the gov said they needed to make a better drainage system? Would you let them double your taxes and put up with 10-15 years of major construction (a la Boston) so that you were better prepared for a 100 or 1000 year storm? If you say yes, I believe you are in the minority. Officials that suggested charging the taxes needed to do what needed to be done wouldn't get elected. We, as american citizens, vote for officials that make our INDIVIDUAL lives better not those that protect the society as a whole at our expense.
As to the people who didn't leave when they should have and COULD have, I hate to say it but they made a choice and had to suffer the consequences. As to those that should have left but COULD NOT, it makes me very very sad and I pray for those that are still alive that they get the help they need.

Just my two cents.

No. I didn't say it was right or good. But it will happen. People are human and even those in positions of responsibility will sometimes cross their fingers and hope for the best.

Here's the other thing. Those in the government are responsible to the people they represent. Do you really think that the people of NO would have been willing to raise their taxes in order to pay for better protection from the storm and the sea? Shoot. You can't even get people to pay for local school bonds to keep their schools in repair. "People get the government they deserve."

And then get paid when it's time to sue the City of New Orleans, et al for the levees breaking.

The only people that COULD NOT are prisoners, people in the hospital, and law enforcement/fire crew, and nurses/doctors, etc who are fully expected to stay.

I don't care if you don't have a car, you can grab a trashbag of clothes and start walking. Where? Anywhere higher than here. North is good. You might not have gotten far, but you wouldn't be at the Superdome.

In addition: this whole thing at the superdome is dumb. You have (picking a number out my ass) 25,000 people at the superdome, waiting for rescue by helicopter. A group of (lets say) 100 people are shooting at the helicopter. Why didn't the 24,900 other people beat the living shit out of them for suspending the evacuation? I'd have a hard time letting some dumbshit shoot at my ride outta here. FUCK THAT!

I think martial law should have been declared yesterday, and I think TW is spot on with his diagnosis of the problem. I think rebuilding New Orleans on the present site is fucking stupid, especially in light of the article's contents, posted in the first few posts.

My company has offices in New Orleans and Pensacola, and affiliates in Baton Rouge. We're all getting together and helping the people who HAD to stay, but those who were non essential were made to evacuate by the company.

I have little sympathy for any who chose to stay, whether they had vehicles or not. A mandatory evacuation order was in place. Why will you pay these people who were stupid enough to stay? When are we going to get tired of paying higher insurance premiums for dumbasses like this???

Oh, you built a $500,000 home on Okracoke Island? The San Andreas? New Orleans? Then you're an idiot to start with, but want insurance? Um....how about... NO! Pay for any damages your dumb damn self, don't expect me and millions of others to pay for YOUR ignorant choices.

*grr*



Edit: "When the Levee Breaks" by Led Zepplin. I hear it's not allowed to be played on the radio. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Both quotes invent straw men; reply to things neither posted nor relevant to this thread. At no place or at no time did anyone suggest making New Orleans a category 5 city. In fact the US Army Corp of Engineer in charge of those levees said they only built those levees, intentionally, to withstand a category 3 storm. The levees are what they were intended to be. How then does chronos and dar512 change this into "installing Category 5 protection for New Orleans"?

New Orleans, whether due to 'hodge podge' engineering or due to superior design, was only rated for a Category 3 storm. A point that will be repeated because so many posters did not grasp it. Katrina was a Cat 5 storm. It was known to be a Cat 5 storm days previously, it was a very large storm (about 400 miles diameter), it was approaching slowly and as predicted, and it was coming right at New Orleans. So where did anyone say anything about fixing the levees? A cat 5 storm striking a cat 3 city does not even require an IQ of 80 to comprehend. The levees would fail. No one should have been in that town. And yet the number of cars now underwater demonstrates how many people still did not leave. People died because the family decision maker did not get everyone in the car and get "the hell out of Dodge". The person whose job is not to be in denial, instead, did not do his job. Did not make what was an obvious decision.

Furthermore, city and state officials response, knowing full well that it was a cat 5 storm, was to even not evacuate the prison.

Meanwhile, in an interview with a person who did a disaster study for this situation, it was well known that many people would not have transportation to get out of Dodge. So where were the lines of buses days previously to remove those people? Americans whose job it was to not be in denial were, apparently, in so much denial as to even leave all prisoners - many hundreds - maybe thousands - in the prison!

You tell me where this is representative of being responsible. No one suggested even for one minute that the levees should be fixed. That is a classic example of reading for what one wants to see. Let me make it woefully clearer. This city was only protected for a category 3 storm. Katrina was a category 5. Why will it take a week to rescue everyone? Why will people die from dehydration on their own roofs? Why are people who should be evacuated from hospitals, instead, may die. Too many people stayed when even government officials, by their actions, did not take Katrina seriously. Now there are not enough rescue people and machines to save all those lives.

I have pity on the poor Director of FEMA. Even his boss can't grasp a basic fact. George Jr today said that no one expected the levees to fail. Bullshit, dic licking, mother raper, ass hole. Do we let the President of the United State be that cunt licking dumb? Yes. How does the director of FEMA do his job when even his own boss is that pathetically naive. Everyone ... everyone ... everyone knew a category 5 storm was going to breach the levees. Everyone with minimal intelligence.

There is no way around that fact. Katrina was a Category 5 storm threatening a city was only intended to survive a Cat 3 storm. Why did city officials act in denial? Therein lies proof, again, of the well proven concept: 85% of all problems are directly traceable to top management. Even George Jr is in denial days after the disaster.

Who voted for these people?

I saw a video clip on the CNN.com website - an interview with a woman who was pissed off:"....We had to walk, literally walk, out of town!" Um, hello?! Sometimes you have to walk, nay, RUN, if you want to save your fucking life! In another interview a different woman described how her boy friend stole a bakery truck. Ok, well, I guess desperate times call for desperate measures, but, it seems, when that truck broke down, her boyfriend's friend beat up another guy driving a semi and they stole THAT one, too!

Hear, hear. But then maybe those sensible people were busy stopping the folks sticking up a van full of medical supplies. Oh, wait, no, they weren't.

I used to do flood determinations based on ACOE maps for the NFIP. I was blown away by the folks that would build their homes in areas that were clearly designated as not safe to build homes in as a result of tidal flooding. But you know what? The homes would get washed away and FEMA would come in and let them rebuild. Insurance would pay for the new place and Bob's yer uncle, see you again in 20 years.

Is it bad that I'm feeling very little for the victims of this horrible disaster? I mean, I gave every bit of money I could afford to give to the victims of the tsunami last year, I felt horrible for them and, damn, I just don't seem to have any more grief left. Especially for folks shooting at rescue and military helicopters, folks holding up at gun-point medical supply vehicles, folks looting their neighbors...

Ted Koppel on Nightline is currently grilling Michael Brown with questions that make me look politically correct. Michael Brown is not answering - instead making excuses. For example, no one is being fed in the SuperDome. Michael Brown had to be confronted with that fact multiple times before he would admit it. It is worse than that bad. FEMA knew that 100,000 people in New Orleans had no means of getting out of town .... and FEMA did nothing.

BTW, Koppel also noted George Jr's statement that no one could have forseen the levees would break. Just anther example of gross administrative mismanagement.

Look at Koppel's eyes. There is an anger in his calm grilling that I have not seen in years. The long list of details in Koppel's grilling exposes another point. Five days after the fact and FEMA is only talking about what they are planning to do - not what is currently underway or ongoing. FEMA still has no plans.

Try bouncing back and forth between MSNBC and FoxNews.

On MSNBC, people are dead and dying, starving, screaming, abandoned at the Civic Center...

On Fox, people are clean, comfortable, fed, happy and entertained in refugee centers.

Both the Left and the Right have their mouthpieces working, getting out the message they want us to see.

From the National Weather Service Forecast I quoted on the other thread before this all came down:

MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...PERHAPS LONGER. AT LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE...

THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL.
PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE IS EXPECTED. ALL WOOD
FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED. CONCRETE
BLOCK LOW RISE APARTMENTS WILL SUSTAIN MAJOR DAMAGE...INCLUDING SOME WALL AND ROOF FAILURE...

POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS...AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS...



Right, Left, or Center; Fox or MSNBC, what does that tell you about the quality of our leadership?

I think that our government was at least 36 hours late in their response, and I still think New Orleans is being grotesquely mismanaged. I think a lot of that is leadership failures, both Bush and local/state authorities.

Bush doesn't live in the same world as normal people. He doesn't understand it, because he's never had to participate in it. Therefore, none of this has the same impact on him as it does on us regular folks, who can imagine ourselves in the same predicament as these poor bastards.

The wife and I are going to spend Labor Day weekend assembling a disaster kit. There may be firearms involved.

I just heard this morning that the massive Navy hospital ship, "Comfort", will finally leave Baltimore Sunday morning.

...Sunday morning? What the hell? A catagory five storm is preparing to slam into a major Gulf coast city and they're leaving more than a week later?

Five days gives the really, really sick and injured plenty of time to die, thus lessening the load. You have to think like a bureaucrat, Kitsune, before you can fathom what is going on.

Here's an interview with the mayor of New Orleans.

Note to tw. Learn to read English. 'Here's the other thing' means I'm changing the topic slightly.
Besides which -
This sure looks like you advocated spending more money on the levees to me.

It's FEMAs job to forcast things like this, that's their job, the reason why they exist. However, I don't think that anyone predicted this could be as bad as it is. I think everyone is overwelmed right now. No one knows where to go or who to help first. There are so many fronts to attack, rescue, law enforcement, evacuation, recovery. Someone once told me that in planning for emergency responses for things such as this, that organizations such as the city, county, and/or FEMA puts into place what's called a resonable or acceptable amount of loss. What I think this means is they know they can't save everyone or handle every situation so they concentrate the resources they have into certain areas to be better effective as opposed to spreading the resource thin and not being effective anywhere. I haven't been able to confirm this becuase I heard this second hand a while ago.

FEMA is a federal agency that cannot act until told to. Up until that point, it was the city, the parishes, and, if actived by the Governor, LEMA that were in charge.

They maximize survivability, not ensure it.

The obvious and accurate answer to that question, "why did the dikes break so easily". Because water was higher than the dikes were designed for - as predicted. I did not answer the question because (and I was mistaken) the answer was woefully obvious. Furthermore where the dike broke, resources to finish the reconstruction were reportedly held back for two years. The dike sat unfinished for two years. Something about needing money elsewhere (Iraq).

Further information. Once water gets over that type of dike, earthen material in some places washes away quickly. Just another part to the answer of, "why did the dikes break so easily".

I find it appalling you would immediately assume the GM mentality of 'throw more money at it'. Solution starts by asking product oriented questions. What can it do? What was it designed for? Was it properly constructed? In this case, dikes broke because the water was too high - as was predicted for any storm above Category 3. As what everyone except our illustrious leader seems to have known.

BTW, do you think New Orleans residents pay for those dikes? Of course not. We do. Dike construction and enhancements cause no tax increases in New Orleans. New dikes mean a larger federal debt - sell more bonds. Money. Something that an MBA throws like a grenade to solve problems. Money should have never appeared in your answer to "why did the dikes break so easily".

FEMA had just run an exercise (maybe one year earlier) exactly about a major hurricane swamping New Orleans. That is why FEMA knew up to 100,000 people in New Orleans would have no means to leave the city. FEMA's own studies say that the flooding in New Orleans should have been much worse - faster, more destructive, deadlier. FEMA even claimed to be ready for a disaster that was predicted days in advance.

FEMA claimed they had everything propositioned. They had been authorized days before the hurricane to provide all necessary support. It turns out FEMA has insufficient food to feed the victims. Insufficient warehouse space to accept and distribute the aid. No transportation to help 100,000 leave. FEMA has even abandon victims in the Convention Center. FEMA is not even feeding people in the Superdome. Just another fact that Michael Brown, Director of FEMA preferred to avoid.

Koppel was quite blunt. Koppel said you even bring in flatbed trucks to carry the people out if you must. Micheal Brown refused to respond.

When 10,000 people in the Superdome became 20,000, then FEMA was surprised? FEMAs own studies said up to 100,000 would not be able to leave New Orleans. But then facts don't seem to have relevance to FEMAs response - that they claimed was ready well in advance.

The events in New Orleans are no where near as bad as what FEMAs own studies expected. And yet still FEMA is apparently completely overwhelmed. Knowing they were overwhelmed, FEMA did nothing to request massive assistance from the military and other government agencies until, well .... do you remember the American response to the Tsunami? How many days did it take this administration to finally decide to start aid flowing? In disasters, aid must be moving in hours. Especially when Katrina's attack was forecast so many days in advance - as a category 5 storm. That means leaders must make decisions this minute - not six days later. That means leaders must not be in denial.

Koppel's interview of Michael Brown was telling. FEMA was still in the planning stage five days after the hurricane. People start dying on day three. You could see Ted Koppel seething as he calmly kept asking embarrassing questions. He had to ask some repeatedly because Michael Brown, Director of FEMA, was avoiding most answers.

Any leader who did not predict things would be this bad must have his ass up his ass - be that inverted. A category 5 hurricane striking a bowl only built for category 3 storms? It's a no brainer. Anyone who makes excuses for such leaders must also be in denial.

At what point does a Cellar dweller admit that "85% of all problems are directly traceable to top management"? The devil is in the details in New Orleans - such as a president who says no one expected the levees to be breached. No problem. George Jr is going there personally to fix things - just like he did Iraq?

To think these same people worried about where Clinton's penis had been.

It is the way that people like Clinton have been using their penises that brought the wrath of God down upon the Sodomites in New Orleans in the first place, doncha know? :headshake

I heard an interview on NPR yesterday wherein Carl Castle was interviewing the head of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff. Although I didn't hear the Brown interview, it sounds like it was pretty similar to the one I heard.

Castle was asking the plain, obvious questions such as "Why is it taking so long to get help there?", and Chertoff *really* was obviously put off, and couldn't come up with even a party-line, pat answer for most of them.

I think these guys were all too busy playing the oil futures market to pay attention to their jobs.

I'm actually a little surprised that people like Pat Robertson haven't come out publicly blaming this hurricane on the bead-tossers of Mardi Gras. I can imagine him saying New Orleans is getting what it deserves.

The Conservative Christian South is his power base. If a big Hurricane had hit Atlantic City, you can bet he'd have said all that and more by now.

Plus, FEMA was directing some donations to Robertson's "Operation Blessing".

Why bother? Days later, the Federal government and FEMA (who was in operational control days previously) still sent no help. Just as in Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged", the most competent people simply walk off the job when the government and management (George Jr) are totally incompetent. Show me otherwise. Show me.

Review the facts. On Monday, George Jr promised - before TV cameras - that 400 trucks were enroute with food and water. ABC News repeatedly reported how people were not being fed in the Superdome and Convention Center for days. On Thursday in one of the few news reports that truly grilled the irresponsible, Ted Koppel asks Michael Brown, Director of FEMA, why that food still was not delivered. Brown said FEMA only discovered the problem on Thursday - three days later. Whereby Koppel asked him if FEMA ever listened to news reports. Brown also did not answer that question. ABC News and numerous others were reporting for days that tens of thousands of people were not being fed or watered. FEMA did not know! More daming details. Go ahead you radical Bush supporters. Show me. Show me where any of this is in error.

Imagine how angry those Ted Koppel eyes were as he calmly interviewed a man who let so many Americans die. His name is Michael Brown. He works for George Jr. In a more responsible society and if they worked for corporations, then these two men would be indicted for criminal neglect.

So when did food finally arrive? Today - Friday. IOW it took another day after FEMA 'learned of the problem' for food to be delivered? Show me where that demonstrates competence at the highest levels of government? Show me. What was President Cheney doing all this time?

Now you tell me. People who got no water, no rescue, had no way out, and were sometimes sitting next to dead bodies; some began firing weapons. This even got attention of the Cellar where posters asked why? Why? How many more days were these people suppose to wait wihtout food and water as the mental midget president demanded? At what point do they decide they were lied to? Ironic. 400 trucks that were enroute with food must have been coming from Maine and Washington. It took four days!! So food finally arrived just as the President arrived for his press photographs. Sarcastic coincidence? The president is talking about rebuilding Trent Lott's porch while people were still dying.

Let's not forget those tarmacs at Louis Armstrong International airport (in adjacent Kenner LA) chock full of C5A and C17 transport planes with food, water, and medical supplies. Oh. The planes were never dispatched.

Show me. Show me where any of this is incorrect. If I told you this story two weeks ago, you would say it is only fiction. The incompetence is that egregious.

BTW where did Laura Bush go for her press photographs? Lafayette LA - a town I watched on Weatherbug as not one tree fell down. But then the Bushes hope you don't know that little fact. Its all about the spin - screw the people. Cheney knows they are not Republicans. Just too many coincidences.

BTW ABC News at this minute shows thousands of people beneath Interstate 10 underpass without food and water. Periodically, three or five choppers would arrive at once and depart. Delivery of food and water? No. These were the people rescued. Some had sat there for days without food and water. These were the resuced ones. Can you imagine what the thousands of still unrescued people are going through?

People still unfed, without sanitation, without food. Air Force one came and left - withoug delivering food and water. But the president got his press photographs.

BTW, Jesse Jackson suggested this was racism. Can you cite facts that prove otherwise?

But let's not forget the hundreds of C5A, C17, C-141, and C-130 aircraft crowding the tarmacs in Louis Armstrong International delivering supplies. Oh. According to a LA Congressman, the military says they never received a request. Nobody in the administration asked for help - to stop people from dying? Maybe Cheney forgot to tell George Jr what to do?

But show me. Show me where any of this is incorrect.

Well, tw, I'm with you on this one. The entire thing just makes me sick at heart. All of it - from the refusal to spend money keeping the levee's repaired and pumping stations in good order to Bush whining that "WE never thought the levee's would fail," in the face of that catastrophic National Weather Service Forecast, to the incompetent and non-existant rescue efforts.

There you have it, folks - life in the US under Junior's Republican government. Welcome to the third world! Frankly, I think what this country needs is a nice asassination or, at the very least, an impeachment.

This'll teach those fuckers to donate to the Republican candidates next time, huh?

I saw a brief thing on CNN where the president of Venezuela or some such was offering to send food himself (since obviously we couldn't get it there), and money, and people to help.

You know, the same guy that PAT ROBERTSON wanted to ASSASINATE 3 months ago? Came out and said we should assassinate him??

(I'm spelling this out to emphasize my point)

WHAT THE FUCK???

Please please please, everyone on the planet, do NOT judge or make opinions about all Christians based on this whack job, ok? He does NOT speak for LOTS and LOTS of Christians. I promise.

Robertson doesn't speak for any real Christians.
My boss is in the Air Force Reserve. He's been called up to go to New Orleans.....next Tuesday afternoon. :eyebrow:

Just want to make sure tw didn't miss my two engineering-folks links in the other NO thread

Engineering News-Record article on Thursday

2003 Civil Engineering Magazine article

In a letter on fark.com, a New Orleans farker (who weathered the storm OK) posted a long message. He noted that they learned on the day of the hurricane that some neighborhoods were flooding... not due to levee breaks, but because the pumps in those neighborhoods were NOT RUNNING.

The pump operators evacuated.

The pumps could not be operated unmanned, because they would overheat.

Just another data point in tw's search for "design for failure".

Same thing, nola.com article via fark:
According to the farker who posted this, Nagin's actual decision came 24 hours later.

As the category 4 hurricane bears down on the city, the Mayor's alarm is still focused on bureaucracy. The actual evac order came with less than 50 hours to get out.

J'accuse.

xoxoxoBruce also provided this link to a Scientific American article of October 2001:
Drowning New Orleans

The SciAm article added one additional fact. A storm surge is reduced about one foot for every mile of marshland. Wide marshland between a city and the ocean is essential to the preservation of human life during such storms. The article makes it clear how much of that marshland around New Orleans has been lost and how fast it is disappearing. None of these articles provides sufficient information to make judgments on what is and is not a good solution. But they do provide executive summaries of many possible solutions. Solutions do exist. They are expensive or we could let nature do more of the work.

For New Orleans to survive, the protection must be layers including more than one line of levees. Is it worth it? Free market economics more than government welfare should be the determining factor.

A problem with New Orleans is that it will only keep sinking. It’s the nature of that geology. Makes no sense to keep rebuilding in land that is already 10 and 14 feet below sea level and will only keep sinking. Literally everything in those sections must be razed and rebuilt. Rebuilding there only guarantees loss of life. Land where the buildings would stay mostly above the next flood are the sections of New Orleans to be preserved - if logic thought is the determining factor. Most of that land is on the Mississippi River side including the French Quarter, Superdome, etc. Most of New Orleans and Jefferson parish on the Lake Pontchartrain side should be surrendered to marshland. Or now that the land is so deep, maybe it could only be lake.

All of which only asks questions months from now. The real question is why so many died at the hands of the US government; well after the storm had passed. Four days for the 400 trucks of food and water to arrive? That is nothing more than criminal neglect.

They rebuild every single goddamn year up along the Delaware where it always floods in Bucks County. They finish construction just in time to be wiped out in the next year's floods. I have every reason to expect that the New Orleans experience will be quite similar.

Why do I have an image of Homer Simpson's toy bird tapping his keyboard?

This is classic when MBAs run operations. This is what happens when top management does not come from where the work gets done AND when his boss is a classic MBA:
I am not posting these details for American cellar dwellers. If they don't understand how bad this president really is by now, then they clearly would praise the devil. Only a fool or the naive, at this point, would be the 50% of Americans who feel this president did a good job. These posts are mostly for the benefit of those outside the US who really don't receive these details. That Nightline interview is repeatedly cited for those who did not see Ted Koppel grill Michael Brown, Director of FEMA, and a political hack of George Jr, mental midget president.

After three days of no water, then people start dying. FEMA provided no food and water to tens of thousands in the Superdome and Convention Center for four days. No wonder this same president also did not bother to go after bin Laden. And yet about 50% of Americans still think the mental midget is doing a good job. Those outside of America really need to understand what is going on in this country. Worry about the extremism that has so distorted perception. One promotes spin that is so effective. The second talks about the product - bottom line - the purpose of a responsible government response that did not happen.

The George Jr administration knows aid is not most important. Be best at spin. Same spin that lies about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. Same spin that should even have citizen of China worried for their security. Same spin that justified an illegal Pearl Harbor attack on a sovereign nation - and 70% of Americans said it was good.

Not true.

If the pumps were not running, it has nothing to do with them being unmanned or "overheating", according to my friend currently staying with me who lives in NO and works on the pumps. It is most likely a power issue, more than anything.

Kitsune's post is also what I had been hearing from other sources. But I did not respond. I did not have sufficient supporting information to post a reply.

One rumor is that the electrical supply was not installed to survive a storm. Since the Corp of Engineers was so cost controlled, their 'cost controlled' design was forced to fall back on a backup system - local generators. However I also heard funds had not been provided to maintain those generators. Some did not function.

These are rumors which is why I did not post them. What I have posted here is rumors to demonstrate what should not be posted as fact until better information is obtained.

Meanwhile, it does not matter. There were not enough pumps anyway. In a previous storm of only 5 inches rain, the pumps could not keep up. No way would pumps handle rain from a category 4 hurricane and some small levee breaches.

One rumor is that the electrical supply was not installed to survive a storm.

My friend confirms this, saying many of the pumps that aren't running do not have backup power. He notes that most of them have underground power or generators that run on natural gas, but those that do have generators don't have enough generator power to run all the pumps at any given station. While watching CNN coverage, he was able to point out many of the pumps in the overhead footage and show that many of them are still running -- CNN even pointed out generator smoke and outflow from some of them pumping stations.

There were not enough pumps anyway.

More importantly, it doesn't matter when a levee breaks and the water that is pumped out comes right back in.

I'm alive and well. No power or phone, most of roofing gone. Think when the service was ripped from house, 110 went to ground and toasted phones and all things that were pluged in. See "ya" soon? BB

Oh, Busterb! You're alive YEA!!!!!!!! I'm so sorry about your roof! How are you getting online? Is there any way we can help you out??

YEA! I'm so glad you're OK! :jig:

Yay buster!! Hope things get put back together for you right quick!

That's a big relief. :thumb: