Holy Hurricane, Batman!

[LiamC]

Umm, that's what building inspectors are for. I firmly believe in the old adage trust but verify.

Hurricane Merc? :lol: That's only two letters away but I think the next one will be the real bitch, especially if they name it after my sister. :mrgrn:

That's my pont. I've seen buildings that passed the code that weren't up to spec. Dodgy trades people are very inventive. So where does that leave the people who have tried to do the right thing but have still been caught out by a combination of circumstances? I don't think it is or can be a black and white situation.

I have a cousin Katrina--red head, fiery personality. :eekers:

 

[jtr1962]

I know if I was spending good money to have a house built I would periodically drop by unannounced, maybe with a few "inspectors" in tow, just to make sure I was getting what I was paying for. Also, when you have any work done, you get someone reliable with lots of references. These people who always go with the lowest bidder deserve what they get.

If you ordered a reinforced concrete house it's pretty easy to verify that it isn't wood. This isn't rocket science here. Most reputable builders want to do a decent job so you recommend them. What good is making a few bucks extra on a shoddy job, then spending it to flee the state after each job? With all kinds of media available to report substandard work, it's a lot harder to screw people and get away with it on a continual basis than it used to be. Usually the screw-ups aren't people who build complete homes, but jack (jerk?) of all trades handymen. A friend of my mother's had ceramic tile put in her kitchen and it sounded like a complete disaster (tiles cracked, others falling out). That's a big reason I do most fixit things myself. Ceramic tiling is actually kind of fun if done once in a while.

 

[sechs]

If hurricanes keep causing x billions of dollars of damage, why haven't the insurance companies done something about it? They should be pushing premiums through the roof for these half-assed houses.

 

[Bozo]

Insurance companies have done something: my home owners insurance has doubled in the last 4 years. (I live in the Northeast.)
My agent has admitted that the rate hikes were because of the hurricane losses.

Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[Handruin]

I live in the north east, and my home owner's is fairly cheap... It has stayed the same for 2 years so far.

 

[jtr1962]

At first it looked like New Orleans dodged a bullet but now I heard that the levees are leaking, slowly filling the city with water. They also said it might as long as two months before the water is drained. This isn't pristine lake water we're talking about, but fetid, filthy water resembling sewage. Needless to say, anyone whose house is flooded might as well write off everything they own as a total loss.

 

[ddrueding]

I think anyone whos home resides below sea level shouldn't get disaster relief and should instead get the word idiot posted on their forehead.

You really have to wonder about peoples intelligence sometimes.

 

[Tea]

I think anyone whos home resides below sea level shouldn't get disaster relief and should instead get the word idiot posted on their forehead.

Are you including Splash?

 

[jtr1962]

I think anyone whos home resides below sea level shouldn't get disaster relief and should instead get the word idiot posted on their forehead.

You really have to wonder about peoples intelligence sometimes.

Amen to that, Splash excepted of course.

 

[Santilli]

I think anyone whos home resides below sea level shouldn't get disaster relief and should instead get the word idiot posted on their forehead.

You really have to wonder about peoples intelligence sometimes.

Amen to that, Splash excepted of course.

Remember, Splash has a MUCH bigger brain to weight ratio then we do, and, if he had hands....

We ARE NOT the most intelligent animals on the planet. Orcas, too, are superior in brain to body size ratio. Thank God they are, or, we would have a lot of dead dolphin and whale trainers...

S

 

[Santilli]

Oh, and I forgot to mention, whales can communicate over thousands of miles, with ultra low frequency sounds, we can barely hear. We have to us cell phones. :roll:

INFERIOR SPIECES.

Quick Cousteau story.

A pod of killer whales are having lunch on a whale killed by my favorite folks, the Japanese whalers. (Yes Patricia, if I had a submarine, the ENTIRE jap whaling fleet would be at the bottom of the ocean). That said, the brilliant Japanese tried to save their precious kill from being eaten by the pod by harpooning, and killing, one of the killer whales. Keep in mind, the only difference between the killer boats, and the towing boats in the fleet, are the killing boats have a harpoon gun on the front. Other then that, they are IDENTICAL.

After the killing of their friend, the killer whales formed a plan. ANY whale killed by the whalers, was attacked, and torn to pieces. They did NOT eat the whales, just tore them to shreds, so they either sank, or, when you have 20, 4000 pound or more whales biting your whale, they quickly become financially useless. Any whale being towed to the mother refining ship was destroyed by the pod. ANY attempt, by a killing boat, to kill a killer whale, was evaded. Any tow ship was treated with impunity.

This incident leads to the following conclusions by Cousteau. Killer whales have a complex language, capable of being conveyed over areas of miles, by sound, that can convey complex ideas.
I.e. the concept of a killing boat, with a harpoon gun, and, a towing boat, identical, without a harpoon.
Killer whales are capable of communication, planning, and executing that plan of attack, with rapidity equal, or faster then ours. 3 minutes to form a plan to destroy the kills of the wonderful Japanese whalers.

In other words, Jaws maybe far fetched, the movie Orca, IS NOT.

Another quick story. Cousteau was in the gulf of Baja, and they were watching a mother killer whale give birth. She did. She sonared a 15 foot blue shark swimming up the blood trail, over 4 miles away. Cousteau watched the mother killer whale sound, and a couple minutes later, she rocketed up, breaching completely, with the 15 foot blue shark in her mouth. CHOMP!! Now we have a bisected blue shark.
She swam back, and played with her baby.

So, I don't find this very strange:


http://www.extremescience.com/videos/whale_shark_15.mov


Still, there are not many spieces that get their Vitamin A from chomping on Great White Sharks. :mrgrn: :wink:

gs

 

[sechs]

I think anyone whos home resides below sea level shouldn't get disaster relief and should instead get the word idiot posted on their forehead.

It's not being below sea level that's the problem. How much of the Netherlands is below sea level?

 

[Mercutio]

I found these quotes on Boingboing.net.

Linkage: Link

The poorest 20% (you can argue with the number -- 10%? 18%? no one knows) of the city was left behind to drown. This was the plan. Forget the sanctimonious bullshit about the bullheaded people who wouldn't leave. The evacuation plan was strictly laissez-faire. It depended on privately owned vehicles, and on having ready cash to fund an evacuation. The planners knew full well that the poor, who in new orleans are overwhelmingly black, wouldn't be able to get out. The resources -- meaning, the political will -- weren't there to get them out.

White per capita income in Orleans parish, 2000 census: $31,971. Black per capita: $11,332. Median *household* income in B.W. Cooper (Calliope) Housing Projects, 2000: $13,263.

These words have been attributed to an Email sent by a New Orleans rescue worker.

There are dead animals floating in the water, pets left behind. Surely people thought they would be back to collect the pets. Not so. The rescuers smell like gas when they come back in; there's gas in all of the water that consumes the area. Fires are burning all over the place. Our teams are tired and they are thirsty and they are hungry. And they have a place to sleep and water to drink and food to eat. I can only imagine how the people without these "luxuries" are feeling right now.

Each night will be a race against time. When night falls, people can't get picked up from roofs, the rescuers can't chop into people's roofs to check the attics for anyone alive or for anyone dead (sadly, there are dead). At night we can't see power lines we can't see obstacles, we can't see any of the things that will bring down a helicopter or pose a danger to boats rescuers.

One of the teams came in today after having been out for hours at a time. One particular rescuer went straight to a corner and collapsed into tears. I went directly to him and just held his hand. What else could I do? I said nothing. He said it all. They lowered him 26 times and he pulled 26 people to safety. He wants to be back out there but there are mandatory rest periods. His tears are tears of frustration.

Entire teams are working on nothing but evacuating the hospitals. All four of the major hospitals are beginning to flood. Critical patients have to get out or surely they will be lost. Generators cannot run forever; that's just the way it is. There are limited facilities to take those that are rescued and those that need to be evacuated. Anything that leaves by air leaves by helicopter. There are no runways for planes that aren't under water. Only one drivable way in and out.

Water everywhere and more keeps coming. Until they can do something about the three levees that are broken, more water will come and more water will kill. The water poses major health threats. Anyone with even a small open cut is prone to infection. Anyone who touches this water and touches his eyes, nose or mouth without find a way to "clean" himself first will be sick with stomach problems before long. It's bad and it's getting worse. It's not going to be anything better than devastating for days or weeks at best.

I wish I could tell you that I'll check in again soon. I can't. I don't know when my next message will get out. We'll be leaving where we are within just an hour or so.

 

[time]

How much of the Netherlands is below sea level?

A quarter. It used to be about half, but they've reclaimed much of that.

Dutch companies include Philips (invented audio cassettes and CDs), Shell Oil, Heineken (world's 4th largest beer producer), Unilever and in part KPMG. No question they should have "idiot" stamped on their foreheads.

 

[sechs]

This is *still* the South. Were we expecting them to charter buses to take the blacks out of town?

You do have to wonder... Okkay, you're too poor to get out of town. It didn't dawn on you that you might want an axe in your attic. Why didn't you go to a shelter?

 

[Tannin]

Unilever? The Lever brothers were English. Perhaps the "Uni" half of the combine was Dutch. This company, by the way, was responsible for, and profited vastly from, mass slaughter and slavery on a truly grand scale back in the time of the Belgian Congo. Absolutely horrible, what they did.

 

[CougTek]

Sweden also has it's fair share of bad weather...

http://sterilecreed.com/weather/

That was hilarious.

 

[Handruin]

:mrgrn: That was pretty funny.

 

[ddrueding]

I think anyone whos home resides below sea level shouldn't get disaster relief and should instead get the word idiot posted on their forehead.

It's not being below sea level that's the problem. How much of the Netherlands is below sea level?

Just because people have done it doesn't make it a good idea. Why do you think people who live in submarines are nervous? It's a stupid idea, everyone should have a class in potential energy and why you've given gravity permission to pwn your house.

 

[iGary]

I think anyone whos home resides below sea level shouldn't get disaster relief and should instead get the word idiot posted on their forehead.

I've always thought that if it came down to what's finally happened in New Orleans (and I've long thought it was just a matter of time), that the place should simply be abandoned and left as a lake.

If you've never been to New Orleans, it's basically built on a sinking sandbar. When the Canadiens (a.k.a. -- "Cajuns") built New Orleans in the 1700s, it was higher than it is now. The whole city has been subsiding since then, and ever faster in the past 50 years.

The whole Mississippi delta is subsiding because the earth's crust is weak throughout the region. The river exists because of the depression in the earth's crust. It's completely s-t-u-p-i-d to build a city anywhere on the delta.

There are a number of towns south of New Orleans that are just above sea level. Grand Isle and Sulphur come to mind. It's quite a strange area out on the delta -- like some forgotten alien nation. For the most part, there's only one road in and out (a crappy 2-lane highway) for a long ways. The whole area is flat and muddy. Lots of ponds, lakes, and marshes all just above sea level. You can only get to a few of those towns via boat because of the subsidence problem (mentioned earlier) has cut off road access over the years. I suspect all those places were 100% wiped out.

Are you including Splash?

Figuratively or literally? Figuratively, yes, below sea level when not leaping forth from the waves.

Otherwise, I can assure you that Splash's human doppelgänger resides well above sea level. He is not stupid.

 

[iGary]

It's not being below sea level that's the problem. How much of the Netherlands is below sea level?

The Netherlands is reclaiming land that was "recently" above sea level. Up until about 10 000 years ago, England was joined to the continent via the present-day Netherlands. England was separated at the conclusion of the Ice Age.

There are a lot of land places on earth that are below sea level. The whole area around the Salton Sea in southern California is below sea level, so are parts of Death Valley. Parts of Egypt out in the desert and parts of Ethiopia are below sea level. The whole Dead Sea area in Israel is far below sea level. Some large areas in central Asia are below sea level.

 

[sechs]

Being below sea level whilst no where near the sea tends avoid the problems of the sea flooding in....

 

[Mercutio]

More fun stuff. This from Britain's Guardian, but I found it on BoingBoing...

The Louisiana coastline may have been so badly damaged by the hurricane because manmade engineering of the delta has led to erosion of natural defences, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers.

The engineering of the last 100 years that has reworked the Mississippi delta with thousands of miles of levees and flood barriers to protect communities and aid navigation, has also disturbed natural barriers which traditionally prevented storm surges and protected against hurricanes, says the society.

"Human activity, directly or indirectly, has caused 1,500 square miles of natural coastal barriers to be eroded in the past 50 years. Human activity has clearly been a significant factor in coastal Louisiana land losses, along with subsidence, saltwater intrusion, storm events, barrier island degradation, and relative sea level changes," the society said in a paper last year.

It warned that "New Orleans and surrounding areas would now experience the full force of hurricanes, including storm surges that top levee systems and cause severe flooding as well as high winds".

The damage done this time may be also linked to White House cuts in funding for hurricane defence to pay for homeland security terrorist defences.

 

[Pradeep]

From what I heard today, the money that was to be used to strengthen the leveee that breached in New Orleans was instead diverted to Iraq.

 

[mubs]

They're talking about reconstruction & rebuilding. Why can't they just let go? Most everything there is ruined anyhow. If it's that vulnerable, with a massive lake on one side and the ocean on the other, rebuilding is a disaster waiting to happen.

 

[Mercutio]

I read from the book of Armaments, verses nine through Twenty-Two:

When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that's what you're going to get, Lad, the strongest castle in all of England.

 

[Mercutio]

Web log of a Network Admin working to restore Internet Service in New Orleans

Pretty interesting reading.

 

[mubs]

"I want the world to know that federal and state help did not show up here right away," said Fire Chief Tommy Stone. "Let me tell you, if they can't come help us now, God help us if there is ever a terrorist attack."

Exactly what I was thinking. For all the money and effort sunk into "Homeland Insecurity", the response has been utterly and totally apalling. There was enough warning of the hurricane. The levee problems were known. What would happen if the bearded-turbaned-one-that-must-not-be-named is crafting a sequel to what happened 4 years ago? Will our emergency response be any better? Worse, it looks like. There's a thick fat bureacracy now. Repeatedly, it has been said that nobody was in charge those first few critical days after the flooding.

 

[Mercutio]

I can't believe anyone thought "Homeland Security" was anything but a political bullshit power-grab.

No, really. Remember "Duct Tape" or the alert level going up every fucking time the Democrats were making news during the last election?

Notice how many times the terror level has gone up since the last election? One? And only for trains and busses, right?

Hmmm...

 

[i]

CNN article, posted Sunday Sept 4th, 5:36PM EDT, titled "Katrina medical help held up by red tape"

Among the doctors stymied from helping out are 100 surgeons and paramedics in a state-of-the-art mobile hospital, developed with millions of tax dollars for just such emergencies, marooned in rural Mississippi.
...
The North Carolina mobile hospital stranded in Mississippi was developed through the Office of Homeland Security after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. With capacity for 113 beds, it is designed to handle disasters and mass casualties.
...
It travels in a convoy that includes two 53-foot trailers, which as of Sunday afternoon was parked on a gravel lot 70 miles north of New Orleans because Louisiana officials for several days would not let them deploy to the flooded city, Rich said.

Why is no one being held responsible for the leadership disaster that this continues to be?

 

[Tannin]

You have Leadership over there in the USA? Sorry, it didn't occur to me. Perhaps foolishly, I had assumed that Leadership was extinct in the wild on your side of the pond, and that it had been replaced in the political ecosystem by a combination of invasive weed species, i.e., Scaremongering, Warmongering, and the Photo Opportunity.

Seriously now, I am appalled at the hopeless mess US "leaders" have made of this perfectly ordinary natural event, but not at all surprised: US "leadership" has been, frankly, downright terrible for quite some time now, and getting dramatically worse by the year.

I'm not sure if this will make sense to you or not, but I am shocked at just how badly GWB and Co have managed the disaster, but not actually surprised by it.

PS: please don't react to this as a holier than thou post: if (as the evidence makes quite clear) the species Leadership is extinct in the wild in the USA, then over here in Oz it is on the critically endangered list.

It's hard to weep for a country that has done so much harm to other countries over the years - it's like feeling sorry for the school bully - but I do. The hurricane could happen to anyone - hell, events of this type do happen reasonably frequently around the world - but the glacial response to it by the country with the largest disposable resources and (it is claimed) the best-trained and equipped military on the planet just beggars belief.

As for the lawlessness and sheer mindless hatred coming out of N.O ... words fail me. What does a nation have to do to sink so low?

 

[jtr1962]

I wrote this on CandlePowerForums when someone asked the question "How do you call up the National Guard when the power is out, phone service is gone and most roads are blocked in LA, AL, and MS?" It seems very relevant to Tannin's rant about the lack of leadership in the US (which is true on so many levels).

The fact that you're far from the only one asking this question is actually the answer to many of our problems today. In a nutshell, it seems the trend has been that more and more people (and governments) simply react to things instead of planning in advance. Not just disasters, but even everyday things. Why do we do this? Because we've come to rely too much on technology, and now use it to compensate for poor (or no planning). For example, I often see people walking down grocery store aisles on cell phones asking about what should they should buy. I'm quite sure the person on the other end is often interrupted by such a call at a less than opportune time, and thus has to make spur of the moment decisions. Compare this to the "old-fashioned" way of making a shopping list, checking which items you need might be on sale or discounted with coupons, consolidating many small trips into one big one, etc. Not only do you usually save money doing it the so-called "old school" way, but you save time and resources. Of course the downside is that you have to plan and think about something before you actually do it. People seem to be more and more averse to dealing with things before they absolutely, positively have to (opps, we're out of milk so I'll run to the store and call my wife at work to see what else we need). Or to even planning their finances (hence living on borrowed money).

At best, operating this way wastes time and money. At worst, it can result in disasters which could have been prevented. You should never operate in such a way that you're dependent upon technology to work in life or death situations. The cell phone won't operate, the power will be out, and the car won't start at precisely the moments you need them the most. Indeed, much of our technology is difficult to keep operating even without natural disasters. When you think there is even a remote chance that technology will fail, make plans to do without it. Calling in the troops in advance of something like this would have been the prudent course. Bringing in supplies ahead of time to repair damage to the levees would have made sense. Most importantly, getting everyone out of New Orleans in advance should have been done, even if some were removed at gunpoint. Far easier to deal with the logistics of moving and feeding people before the storm wiped out civilization than after. Doing so also would have let the disaster relief workers go immediately to assessing the damage rather than rescuing stragglers.

I really hope this country learns a lesson from this. On so many levels, what went wrong here is a microcosm of what is wrong with our country. We need to plan not only for things which occur before the next election but also for what we'll need in five, ten, twenty, even a hundred years. Life isn't like a 30 minute sitcom where problems are solved by the end of the show, or just "work themselves out". Without advance planning, we are all 24 hours away from disaster.

 

[Pradeep]

"Cops kill 5 after workers take gunfire
September 5, 2005

BY ROBERT TANNER

NEW ORLEANS -- As authorities struggled to keep order, police killed at least five people after gunmen opened fire on a group of contractors traveling across a bridge on their way to make repairs, authorities said.

Fourteen contractors on their way to help plug the breech in the 17th Street Canal were traveling across the Danziger Bridge under police escort when they came under fire, said John Hall, a spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers.

Police shot at eight people carrying guns, killing five or six, Deputy Police Chief W.J. Riley said. None of the contractors was injured, authorities said."

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-hurr05.html

Good riddance to human garbage.

 

[i]

Why do we do this? Because we've come to rely too much on technology, and now use it to compensate for poor (or no planning).

I disagree wholeheartedly.

A vague, handwaving reliance on technology in situations like this is a symptom, not the root cause.

It's not even about money. That's just another symptom (although one that is nearly synonymous with the true cause).

It's about effort.

My estimation of an average politician's mindset, prior to Katrina: A major storm in the New Orleans area is unlikely to occur during my lifetime. Or more relevantly, is unlikely during my term, and probably for a long while afterwards. Therefore, it's not worth trying to gather support for improvements to the levees. And more importantly than that, all my consituents are also thinking a storm in this area is unlikely, and so they will never support the costs of ensuring that this city is safe against such an unlikely natural disaster.

Humans have shied away from dealing with even moderately uncertain, long-term threats since we first started walking upright. It's in our nature. I think it's a leftover from our primitive beginnings. The bulk of any animal population will choose the path of least resistance, unless they're driven by some specific instinct, or intelligence. Sometimes that easy path looks much more favorable than the harder one, until you realize it's just taken you over a cliff.

 

[sechs]

I wrote this on CandlePowerForums when someone asked the question "How do you call up the National Guard when the power is out, phone service is gone and most roads are blocked in LA, AL, and MS?"

No one asking, who do you call up when the national guard is already on active duty half-way around the world?

 

[ddrueding]

My estimation of an average politician's mindset, prior to Katrina: A major storm in the New Orleans area is unlikely to occur during my lifetime. Or more relevantly, is unlikely during my term, and probably for a long while afterwards. Therefore, it's not worth trying to gather support for improvements to the levees. And more importantly than that, all my consituents are also thinking a storm in this area is unlikely, and so they will never support the costs of ensuring that this city is safe against such an unlikely natural disaster.

Humans have shied away from dealing with even moderately uncertain, long-term threats since we first started walking upright. It's in our nature. I think it's a leftover from our primitive beginnings. The bulk of any animal population will choose the path of least resistance, unless they're driven by some specific instinct, or intelligence. Sometimes that easy path looks much more favorable than the harder one, until you realize it's just taken you over a cliff.

I agree with your argument, but I disagree that it is a problem. This was an unlikly event, the planning for would have required huge amounts of resources. If we invested all the money required to protect everyone from all the unlikely events that may befall them, then we are shooting ourselves in the foot. We would windup sinking a large percentage of our GDP into stuff that isn't advancing our country technologically or improving it's world standing.

Storms/earthquakes/blizzards/heatwaves happen and people die. Your decisions long and short-term have a dramatic effect on whether you live or not. The people that rely on the government to save them after putting themselves in harms way and then complain that they aren't getting it fast enough really piss me off. Yes, the govornment is screwing up the logistics of the rescue effort, but all the states affected put this BS govornment in place so STFU!

 

[i]

I agree with you that many events have to be dealt with afterwards, rather than prepared for in advance, but I disagree that this is one of those "cut and dry" cases (forgive the pun).

1. Much of the city is below sea-level.
2. It's in a hurricane-prone area.
3. It's protected by aging levees that almost all had acknowledged would be insufficient against a cat 4+ hurricane.

They should have at least had some basic plan in place for a situation like this. They didn't even have a plan. Not even a plan. Can I say that again? Not even a plan.

Even just knowing in advance who would be in charge of what, and where people should be sent would have made a difference here. But that didn't happen because of a complete lack of leadership before, during, and immediately after the hurricane.

 

[Tannin]

It's called contingency planning. Everybody does it. Everybody with half a brain, anyway.

You don't plan for Hurricane Katrina or a bomb blast at the superbowl or a massive bushfire - you plan for unexpected disaster. It's routine. That's what governments get paid for. Here in Victoria, for example, there is a disaster response organisation that's been operating for ... oh I don't know, many, many years. It has a tiny budget and a handful of full-time staff. (Like maybe half a dozen.) Costs bugger all.

But when disaster does strike, it is ready to spring into action on zero notice. The most appropriate of the various pre-prepared plans is dusted off the shelf, and the various agencies already know what role they have to play. The police, State Emergency Service (the volunteers who normally do things like help when a tree falls on your house or run a search if you get lost in the mountains), fire services, and so on stop (so far as possible) doing what they normally do and get busy on the disaster program. Action - real, on-the-ground action - starts to happen within minutes.

Right now the chief of the disaster response organisation is in "real life" one of the deputy chiefs of police in Victoria. He's taken a few weeks out for training at some time in the past few years, and doubtless attends meetings and refreshers from time to time through the year. If disaster strikes, he's in charge. No confusion, no bullshit over who has the power to decide this or decide that, no day-long meeting wondering which authority is responsible for any particular area or action, this is all either pre-determined or else decided on the spot by the disaster response team. Everybody knows this in advance, so the entire response is (more-or-less) coordinated and everybody works together.

Key people around the state have satellite phones so that communication breakdown is avoided; there are designated points where there are stockpiles of emergency food, fuel, water, and (very important!) facilities to charge up phone batteries.

All of this costs bugger-all. We are talking a tiny drop in the vast bucket of government spending each year. And it works remarkably well. It was tested out in a big-scale real-life disaster by the enormous fires that swept across the state a couple of years ago (second largest fires ever in Australia, and here in Australia we have fires that make US forest fires look like a Sunday BBQ). The result: an enormous amount of property damage, massive destruction of forests and farms and some towns, but zero deaths. Yes: zero deaths. Mind you, we were very, very lucky. A lot of people did a lot of things right (planning helped but luck and old-fashioned virtues like courage, hard work and common sense helped too) but the point is that it is possible to plan for disaster, and to do it suiccesfully, and planning does not cost a great deal of money. In fact, it saves money: the cost of the disaster response in fuel, overtime, helicopter hours, equipment and so on is high, but you will spend that anyway, whether you are organised or a hopeless muddle.

I am not claiming that Victoria's disaster response planning is especially good by world standards. So far as I know, it is no better than the planning anywhere else around the globe (and I bet it's not as good as some places - Germany and much of Europe for example). I am just astonished that the mighty United States with all that money and equipment and brainpower didn't have an equivalent plan, of if it did have a plan, it didn't manage to put it into operation.

 

[Tannin]

They didn't even have a plan. Not even a plan. Can I say that again? Not even a plan.

Even just knowing in advance who would be in charge of what, and where people should be sent would have made a difference here. But that didn't happen because of a complete lack of leadership before, during, and immediately after the hurricane.

Exactly.

(We cross-posted.)

 

[Buck]

A contingency plan would include federal and local officials, including the Mayor/City Council of New Orleans. What sort of plan did they have in place?