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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: combjelly who wrote (252709)	9/26/2005 9:52:25 AM
From: i-node	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1571682

You keep saying that, like flooding never happens as a result of a hurricane and/or the flooding in New Orleans was totally unanticipated. Neither of those statements is true. If it can be anticipated, then it can be planned for. Flooding on the scale of NOLA, or even a fraction of that, has never happened as a result of ANY hurricane in history. Did everyone know it could happen? Yes. Even the 1927 flood displaced only 1/3 to 1/2 the number people, and that was over four or five states. There is very little that could have been done differently by the federal government to change this outcome. Yes, I'll agree the red tape issues are absurd and should be corrected. And I'm sure they will be. As will be the difficulty in establishing lines of command. But we've never had an event on this scale, and it is silly to think that the response to it would be perfect or excellent. It just isn't realistic. Planning? The planning failure was that the locals had no plan for evacuating a city that, by your own admission, they "knew" would be underwater within hours; a task that the federal government has no role in, whatsoever (check out the evacuation of Houston, which was competently managed by local officials). When an entire city of a million or more is flooded by 8-12 feet of water in the course of a few hours, all you can do is what was done -- use helicopters to pick people off roofs as quickly as possible. It would be nice if the local officials had stocked their own shelters with food and water, but that didn't happen.

To: combjelly who wrote (252709)	9/26/2005 9:59:45 AM
From: Road Walker	Respond to of 1571682

It's funny, I've been thinking about the parallel between the Bush admins abysmal response to Katrina, and an old weather event in Chicago. Michael Bilandic lost an election simply because he didn't respond to a snow storm.... The Politics Of Snow Removal Ask Dave a weather question Dave Thurlow, Host Hi, I'm Dave Thurlow from the Mount Washington Observatory and this is The Weather Notebook. On January 2nd in Chicago, IL, up to two feet of snow fell on the city. The airport was closed for days, along with business and schools. While most people were at home enjoying the winter wonderland, road crews were working around the clock to help keep the streets clear. But in Chicago, 1979, it was a different story and the incumbent mayor, Michael Bilandic, lost his job thanks in large part to the weather. To help explain why, here's Dr. Andrew McFarlane, the head of the Political Science Department at the University of Illinois at Chicago: Dr. McFarlane: "The weather did play a major role in the overturn from Mayor Michael Bilandic to Jane Byrne///because Mayor Bilandic was seen on TV as saying that the side streets were being plowed while TV was showing in a split screen they were not being plowed, making him look stupid." Since the roads weren't cleared, residents had to rely on trains to get them around. As if Mayor Bilandic didn't have enough problems, some snowed in city train stations were bypassed by trains, leading to unforeseen racial problems, and a shift in Chicago politics. Dr. McFarlane: "There were problems of that the public transit was picking up white people from the suburbs at the ends of the line and running trains non-stop downtown, leaving African-Americans standing and waiting at the platforms. And the African-Americans overwhelmingly voted for Jane Burns. The overturn occurred in the Democratic primary in February 1979, which followed one of the worst winters in Chicago history." Like they say, 'all politics is local'...just like the weather. Our show's Senior Editor is Jay Allison. Funding for The Weather Notebook comes from Subaru and the National Science Foundation.