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Strategies & Market Trends : VOLTAIRE'S PORCH-MODERATED -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: abstract who wrote (62447)	9/3/2005 3:56:54 PM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 65232

WaPo On Katrina: It Starts Locally By Captain Ed on Current Affairs Captain's Quarters Not all media outlets have forgotten about the responsibility of local governments to take care of its citizens. Today's editorial in the Washington Post not only reminds its readers that local authorities provide the first line of defense for its most vulnerable citizens: But if blame is to be laid and lessons are to be drawn, one point stands out as irrefutable: Emergency planners must focus much more on the fate of that part of the population that -- for reasons of poverty, infirmity, distrust of officialdom, lack of transportation or lack of information -- cannot be counted on to leave their homes after an evacuation order. Tragically, authorities in New Orleans were aware of this problem. Certainly the numbers were known. Shirley Laska, an environmental and disaster sociologist at the University of New Orleans, had only recently calculated that some 57,000 New Orleans Parish households, or approximately 125,000 people, did not have access to cars or other private transportation. In the months before the storm, the city's emergency planners did debate the challenges posed by these numbers, which are much higher than in other hurricane-prone parts of the country, such as Florida. Because a rapid organization of so many buses would have been impractical, the city's emergency managers considered the use of trains and cruise ships. The New Orleans charity Operation Brother's Keeper had tried to get church congregations to match up car-owners with the carless, and it had produced a DVD on the subject of hurricane evacuations that was to be distributed later this month. Unfortunately, none of these plans was advanced enough to have had much impact this week. Instead the city decided to use the Superdome as a "shelter of last resort." Following that decision, a major mistake was made: Not enough food, water or portable toilets were made available to accommodate the enormous number of people who turned up. No one in the federal, state or city governments appears to have been prepared for the possibility that thousands would be forced to stay there nearly a week. With some forethought, the National Guard troops who arrived yesterday could have been en route before, or even immediately after, the storm. Five days was too long to tell people to wait without supplies. The editorial misses two points that complete the loop. First, we can answer the question about the National Guard troops very easily. They get mobilized on orders from the governor of the state in which they serve. All that was needed was a mobilization order from Governor Blanco before the storm hit to get them in motion. Regarding the Superdome decision, that initially made sense -- until the levees broke, local authorities assumed that their stay would only take twenty-four hours or so. However, they wasted that time without moving transportation assets into position for a potential evacuation, hundreds of unused school buses that now sit under water. The heavy-duty analysts at FEMA should also have anticipated this and provided direction towards these solutions. (We don't know that they didn't.) However, homeland security agencies in all major cities should have prepared for massive evacuations in the four years since 9/11. New Orleans' efforts show that it left itself woefully unprepared for such a contingency, even though it had known of its levee vulnerability for decades and its inability to stand up to a Category-5 hurricane. captainsquartersblog.com washingtonpost.com

To: abstract who wrote (62447)	9/3/2005 5:14:07 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 65232

Riding on the City of New Orleans... Posted by Greyhawk Mudville Gazette New Orlean's "Hurricane Plan". cityofno.com Scan it for about 10 minutes and you'll see it's a damning document insofar as city management there is concerned. Judging from recent comments by a few of the folks named as responsible in that plan they didn't know it existed - there's no other explanation for the absurdity of some recent statements and "demands". <<< Ray Nagin, in a radio interview, said: "I need reinforcements. I need troops, man. I need 500 buses, man. Now get off your asses and fix this. Let's do something and let's fix the biggest goddam crisis in the history of this country." He castigated the government's failure to help those stranded in the city by Hurricane Katrina, echoing a mounting wave of criticism of the slow federal response to a long-predicted catastrophe. "This is a national disaster," he said. "Get every doggone Greyhound bus line in the country and get it here to New Orleans." >>> That wasn't in the plan. Actually, the buses were in the plan. They were here. junkyardblog.net This was in the plan too: Conduct of an actual evacuation will be the responsibility of the Mayor of New Orleans in coordination with the Director of the Office of Emergency Preparedness, and the OEP Shelter Coordinator. The SOP, in unison with other elements of the Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan, is designed for use in all hazard situations, including citywide evacuations in response to hurricane situations and addresses three elements of emergency response: warning, evacuation, and sheltering. This is in the plan too: <<< V. TASKS A. Mayor * Initiate the evacuation. * Retain overall control of all evacuation procedures via EOC operations. * Authorize return to evacuated areas. B. Office of Emergency Preparedness * Activate EOC and notify all support agencies to this plan. * Coordinate with State OEP on elements of evacuation. * Assist in directing the transportation of evacuees to staging areas. * Assist ESF-8, Health and Medical, in the evacuation of persons with special needs, nursing home, and hospital patients in accordance with established procedures. * Coordinate the release of all public information through ESF-14, Public Information. * Use EAS, television, cable and other public broadcast means as needed and in accordance with established procedure. * Request additional law enforcement/traffic control (State Police, La. National Guard) from State OEP. >>> Speaking of the Director of the Office of Emergency Preparedness, let's get a comment. <<< Terry Ebbert, head of the city's emergency operations, warned that the slow evacuation at the Superdome had become an ``incredibly explosive situation,'' and he bitterly complained that FEMA was not offering enough help. ``This is a national emergency. This is a national disgrace,'' he said. ``FEMA has been here three days, yet there is no command and control. We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we can't bail out the city of New Orleans.'' >>> ***** Glenn Reynolds "guest blogs" at the Knoxville Sentinel: It's a military truism that no plan ever survives contact with the enemy, and in disasters, no plan survives contact with the disaster, either. That's true, and forgivable. But what's less so is the complete denial of any responsibility by local officials - who, perhaps in real fear of their fate at the hands of their constituents, are in fact accusing others of failure. (Other's who aren't really mentioned in the plan...) More on that plan from Glenn, who's being very generous: <<< That, unfortunately, is how disaster planning usually works. One of my friends was in charge of disaster planning for his county -- as a college summer intern -- and I remember him saying that the goal was basically to have a document you could point to if asked, not to generate anything that would actually be used. >>> They may be true - inland. But in coastal communities the price for ignoring the plan is potentially high. Catastrophically so. I've been involved in that - I'm speaking from experience. As noted before, this year's National Hurricane Conference was held in New Orleans (it often is) and drew folks from all along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts (and around the world) who gather every year to discuss and plan ways of avoiding exactly what just happened there. Google it and you won't find much in the way of news coverage. But you will find some interesting photos here. Here's one: vastormphoto.com The caption below it reads: "Wrapping up, teachers and students were listening closely as Mark describes how much water could fill New Orleans if a major hurricane were to hit the city." Comments and trackbacks are not working, this is not by choice. We're are working on it. Hope to have it resolved soon mudvillegazette.com news.moneycentral.msn.com guardian.co.uk blogs.knoxnews.com mudvillegazette.com hurricanemeeting.com vastormphoto.com