BATS Day 2005

28 Aug 05


There’s always a certain measure of madness in going to Disneyland, but perhaps this was a closer measure of my insanity. Could be.. 12 hours in the Southern California sun, wearing copious amounts of black clothes, thigh high boots and shepherding screaming psychotic children (mine) in the grand-daddy of modern amusement parks. Oh and should I also mention that this is Disneyland’s 50th Anniversary?... Probably… Either way, BATS Day was fun!



( Chalked Full of Gothy Goodness! )

New Orleans Satellite imagery

I'm surprised that the government is releasing these pictures, but it shows the extent of the flooding and damage in New Orleans alone. There's a before and after set of (very large scale) photographs of the city. Warning, the pictures may be slow to load.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=13096

I wrote it before and I sadly believe it more, I believe that we are watching the death of a city. To gain a measure of appreciation for how bad things are and why recovery efforts in the New Orleans area seems so sporatic, understand the following (per MSNBC, FEMA, and personal sources):

Power and water systems have failed or suffered significant damage from Lafayette, LA north to I-20 then east towards Greenville, Alabama then south to the Pensacola, Fl area.

Edit Added
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-090105katrina1-g,0,515334.graphic?coll=la-home-headlines

Most major highways into and out of the region (w/in 50 miles of the coast) are severely damaged. Only I-10 west of New Orleans is the only passable roadway out of the city. According the federal, various state and news services, most surface or country access roads, are not usable and blocked by downed trees or debris.

According the the US Census, approximately 4 million people live in this region (compiled using just raw population stats).

New Orleans was unable to evacuate a substantial number of tourists or travelers stranded at hotels and airports.

Armchair disaster recovery

After replying to a comment on my last post, I gave pause to think about the storm and it's toll even more. Could we have avoided this disaster, or done things different. Growing up years ago, we had Civil Defense drills and disaster relief plans that covered us for floods and storms. Even here in California, I've learned that disaster response plans on the local level take into account that the Federal authorities are supposed to help coordinate matters.

Are there things that could have been done better? Absolutely!!! The entire area should have been declared a disaster area immediately and placed under martial law in order to centralize efforts. FEMA and the military (active and National Guard) should have had a central command center set up and coordinating rescue, evacuation and relief the day after the Hurricane rumbled through. Had they designated three teams to coordinate and direct these efforts in the region, they might have made more of a difference.

I wish they could even get through to the areas in question to help. Roads and rail lines are cut in various places well north of the area. The power grid is a mess. Military equipment and personnel should cut through damaged area to build evac routes, tent cities and medical support centers. They could also have helped to established order the moment looting began.

BTW, looting for food in my book is acceptable. Once a market or food store is damaged by weather or flooding, the goods inside are considered suspect anyway and disposed of (per insurance claim guidance and health & safety codes). Living requires food and water. Looting for gain deserves a bullet between the eyes or rope around the neck. Cold as that may sound, shoot the first couple of jokers pushing carts full of stolen jewelry, guns and valuables not needed for survival and the looting stops. The looting is the mayhem you see. I hate to think of what's been happening out of sight (insert rape, murder and other violent crimes here).

Unfortunately we couldn't have stopped the hurricane. The National Weather Service and LSU hydrologists have been predicting this would (not could) happen eventually. The nightmare scenarios were either a hurricane breaching the levees with a direct hit (the levees were rated to only a Cat 3 hurricane - Katerina was Cat 4); or a hurricane would cause substantial flooding on the Mississippi upstream, thus breaching the river walls.

Sadly, this slow motion disaster had some preventable causes. The Bush Administration diverted some $120 million from flood control projects (including levee repairs) to Homeland Security and the War effort. Add to this, the cities of New Orleans and Gulfport had somewhat questionable records on maintaining their emergency infrastructure (this according to NOLA and CNN).

40 Years of harnessing the Mississippi River following Hurricane Betsy (1964) through extensive flood control projects, reduced flooding threats, but essentially began choking the wetlands around the New Orleans area. According to NPR.org, NOLA.com and one of the TV stations in New Orleans, the wetlands have been disappearing at a rate of 40 square miles per year. These wetlands would sap the strength from the storm normally and absorb large amounts of run off water (flooding).

The last point to be made is that close to 400,000 people in the New Orleans area alone took heed the warnings and left before the hurricane struck. The news services said that approximately 50,000 folks along the coast didn't listen and paid a price. Whether that was the ultimate price or not remains to be seen. I understand some folks who couldn’t leave due to being too infirm or being first responders to disaster, but when a mandatory evac order is given, when you ignore it you are on your own.