Finding the Devil in New Orleans

[tw]

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.

[Hobbs]

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.

[Happy Monkey]

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.

[glatt]

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.

[Happy Monkey]

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

[Kitsune]

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?

[barefoot serpent]

Originally Posted by Kitsune

The northern area along the Mississippi WILL flood again and destroy Grand Forks again.
~50 years
California WILL have a disasterous Earthquake that will destroy San Francisco.
~100 -200 years
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.
~10,000 - 50,000 years
The entire Western portion of the United States WILL suffer destruction never before seen by the eyes of mankind when Yellowstone blows.
~50,000 - 100,000 years
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...

[Kitsune]

...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>.

[tw]

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.

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

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

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.

[tw]

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.

[dar512]

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.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by dar512

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

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

[LabRat]

Originally Posted by dar512

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.

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.

[wolf]

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?

[wolf]

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.