Who is to bame for Katrina.

[Red Harvest]

Refuted.

How exactly is that "refuted?" Those buses still would only carry a small percentage of those left behind, which is what I said in the first place. Yes, they could have helped, but they weren't early enough.

[Gawain of Orkeny]

There were over 400 buses and they were less than 2 miles from the superdome. They could have carried 25000 people in one trip. In other words they could have emptied the place.

[Lemur]

Where did this 400 number come from? Doesn't jibe with anything I've read anywhere. Source, please.

[Redleg]

Where did this 400 number come from? Doesn't jibe with anything I've read anywhere. Source, please.

Here is one I found - however I question its validity since if one carefully reads some of the conclusions its trying to make politicial points verus informing us of the facts

http://www.blogsforbush.com/downloads/kat_other_side.pdf#search='400%20buses%20in%20New%20Orleans%20not%20used'

You will have to cut and past the link it seems. It is a PDF link and for some reason I can not get it to link correctly.

But it seems from reading the source there it says 200 buses were available when the plan called for 400. The short of it seems to be though (in my opinion) that the evacuation plan for New Orleans was not followed by the city - most likely because they really never rehearsed it. And that would be the fault of the Mayor and the City of New Orleans government.

[Gawain of Orkeny]

Where did this 400 number come from? Doesn't jibe with anything I've read anywhere. Source, please.

Well I cant find my original source but I did manage to dig up this.

A Picture of Incompetence
Submitted by Bat One on Sat, 09/03/2005 - 23:38.
( categories: Analysis/Commentary )
There are some rather interesting pictures posted over at Junkyard Blog (http://junkyardblog.net/archives/wee...8.html#004752). NOAA aerials of New Orleans. Recent ones. Of buses. Nearly 400 of them. And those buses are just sitting there. All 400 of them. Just like they have been since before the hurricane struck.

The buses are assorted municipal and school buses. And if you assume 60 persons per bus, that’s nearly 25,000 people that should have been evacuated from the City of New Orleans… and weren’t. And that assumes only one trip each.

LINK

My original was much better.


And how about the city buses. Instead of getting people out they were used to bring them to shelters.

And how about this?

After that, take a look at at the photos of over 250 school buses that were left parked in a New Orleans lot and not deployed to evacuate more people before the hurricane hit, despite the "mandatory evacuation" orders.

Oh yeah, and if you scroll up in the prior link, you'll see a satellite photo of an additional 146 New Orleans Rapid Transit Authority buses that were also parked, unused, about one mile from the Superdome. From just those two lots, nearly 400 buses that could have been used to evacuate thousands and thousands of persons with no other means of escape remained: idle.

Finally, take a moment to examine the State of Louisiana disaster plan, page 13, paragraph 5, dated January 2000, where it is stated: "The primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles. School and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles and vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide transportation for individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in evacuating."

LINK

[econ21]

I'm not sure why everyone is focussing so much on the failure of the evacuation prior to the hurricane, which I agree was the primary responsibility of the city administration. Yes, it was woefully inadequate - failing to evacuate some hospitals and many nursing homes beggars belief. But to me, the incomplete evacuation is understandable - many plans and administrations may fail when faced with the risk of such a terrible catastrophe. People assume, maybe just subconsciously, that the worst will not happen and can be caught unawares.

What strikes me more about Katrina are two other failures that are harder to understand and point to a wider circle of blame, as the original article in this thread indicated.

First, the failure to protect NO against flooding. As I understand it, the levees etc of NO were designed to withstand a class 3 hurricane, not a class 4 or class 5 one. However, it seems that experts anticipated that hurricanes beyond class 3 were genuine risks. Since the funding for flood defence was probably going to be a mix of local and federal, I suspect the blame for this is spread.

Second, the slow and under-resourced rescue and recovery operation in the first week. Again, since all levels of government were supposed to play some role in this, I would spread the blame around them all. However, here, I'd be tempted to exempt the city from some of blame as it had lost much of its resources. Personally, I'd see a disaster of this magnitude as something that required a federal response, with FEMA or some other such body in the lead role, rather than just supporting local or state efforts. However, FEMA appears to have been working on the opposite assumption and it is understandable that this philosophy would not be ditched while everyone struggled to manage the crisis.

However, the blame game is largely besides the point. As the original article says, the blame seems widely spread and often it appears that the key failures were ones of plans, procedures and coordination, rather than individual people. The key is to identify what reforms would best avoid a repetition of something similar in the future. Trying to lay the fault at the feet of specific individuals will probably hinder the open minded inquiry and consensus needed to identify and implement those reforms.

[Franconicus]

Hear hear! This is exactly what is worrying me about The Netherlands and our reaction to a possible major disaster, be it natural or terrorist or accidental in origin. We have all sorts of local networks to guard dykes, to douse fires, to sandbag villages and towns, to take care of victims, to transport necessary materials. But what if those very networks are destroyed in the way they were detroyed in NO by Katrina? Where is the national safety net, where are the competent professionals? It seems that supreme control will be in the hands of a newly-formed national emergency board of 12 civil servants, who will supposedly be headed by the Minister of the Interior during an emergency. Most of these 12 represent different ministries and services.

That equals twelve FEMA's, if you ask me...

Adrian,
I really think that the EU will react much better than the US did. I know that Germany for example has almost everything you need, technical specialists and equipment, mobile hospitals and camps, military ... . And we have enough experience with floods.

[Adrian II]

Adrian,
I really think that the EU will react much better than the US did. I know that Germany for example has almost everything you need, technical specialists and equipment, mobile hospitals and camps, military ... . And we have enough experience with floods.

I know that if the Dutch would ever need buses, one phone call to the Rhineland would be enough to have 2000 German buses on the spot within 24 hours. No doubt about it. But that is disaster control. On security matters EU-wide cooperation is far from ideal.

[Red Harvest]

Ok, let's break this down again on the local level.

1. Why didn't New Orleans start mandatory evacuation sooner? Good question. I felt they should have at the time, yet if you look at typical response you will see some reasons why New Orleans was slow to the punch.

• The earlier track had New Orleans on the western periphery. Cities East of them had more warning that they were in the path. Yes, this changed, but it created uncertainty that slowed the necessary response.
• New Orleans had a levee system which created a false sense of security. Many other cities that reacted sooner did not--they had fewer options. Again, this slowed the reaction to a serious and immediate threat.
• Local officials were worried about the consequences of taking what would have been extraordinary action in a city this size. Again, this slowed the response.

This is not unusual for hurricane response. Action should be taken as soon as possible, 12 or 24 hours of "think time" is not acceptable, yet it is common. While people want to castigate the locals, look at how the Feds and States reacted. They are still largely paralyzed two weeks later. When you make the comparison local response was 10 times faster.

2. Those buses and the evacuation plan. The inadequacy of the evacuation plan was a known issue. The Feds in their Pam scenario (which was not adequately funded and was not completed) had expected even fewer to be evacuated than actually were. The evacuation plan was probably undone by time as well as by lack of preparation. A proper evacuation would have required state assistance. 400 buses would only handle 1/4th the number needed. This leaves us with a large population left in the city, still waiting on Federal/state evacuation that was not coming. You not only have to have the buses, and drivers (many who would already have self evacuated), but you also would have to have a plan for coordinating them, picking people up, and a destination. This is not a simple task, and it would have had to have been completed in about 12 hours with the time left on hand. Yes, not having drivers was an issue. They have apparently charged the kid who took one of the buses and got to the Astrodome before the rest in the aftermath. This is why you have to have this planned ahead of time. To make this sort of evacuation work, you need a rehearsed plan and more time to implement it.

3. The backup plan, shelter in place. Like it or not, this more or less succeeded in getting people out of immediate harm's way and as assembly points for evacuation. Pre-evacuation would have been preferable. Where did shelter-in-place fail? No support from outside: State and Feds.

For anyone thinking those buses were adequate...evacuation numbers were suggesting something over 70,000 were removed after the flooding. Even if all those buses had been filled, that still comes up short. Fed/State evacuation was still a NECESSITY. People were not going to the collection points after the storm (dome and convention center, etc.) because they could see there was no evacuation occurring. What I remember the reporters saying is that when supplies and evacuation actually got underway the following weekend, folks were coming out of the woodwork and continuing to fill the transport.

About "mandatory evacuation." Nobody in this country even agrees what that means. We lack the national will to even accept it or try to enforce it. This puts local and law enforcement officials in a serious bind. For those of you thinking mandatory evacuation and adequate transport would alleviate the need for rescue of thousands or tens of thousands in any scenario like this, I submit that you are dreaming. People don't get out when they should know better.

[Geoffrey S]

One person who's going to get the majority of the blame:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4239364.stm
Not to say he should escape all blame, but the responsibility for mismanagement goes further than Brown, both stateside and nationally. And with all these accusations flying around I've yet to see any definite attempts at improving the disaster response problems which are clearly evident.

AdrianII: you've caused me to look at the disaster control system in Holland more in-depth; it sure is more worrying than many think. And it's a most excellent subject for an upcoming essay at school.

[Taffy_is_a_Taff]

Bush because he has the secret African-American (and Cajun and good old boy) detecting super-weather-destructor-machine.

[Redleg]

About "mandatory evacuation." Nobody in this country even agrees what that means. We lack the national will to even accept it or try to enforce it. This puts local and law enforcement officials in a serious bind. For those of you thinking mandatory evacuation and adequate transport would alleviate the need for rescue of thousands or tens of thousands in any scenario like this, I submit that you are dreaming. People don't get out when they should know better.

Hince we must add one additional level in the blame for the diaster which is the evacuation and emergency assistance to New Orleans. Not in any order other then top to bottom. I am not blaming the poor who could not evacuate when the order came - but the ones who decided to remain when they had the opporunity to evacuate or leave under the assistance of the authority.

Federal
State
City
Individual

It actually gets uglier and uglier the more I sit down and think about it. A major failure in responsiblity and accountablity for many people and levels of government.

Makes me want to become dictator for the day and institute Redleg's investigation and hanging of all the criminal neglience that I have seen reported so far involving New Orleans.

[Adrian II]

One person who's going to get the majority of the blame:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4239364.stm
Not to say he should escape all blame, but the responsibility for mismanagement goes further than Brown, both stateside and nationally.

Here is what Knight-Ridder reported last Friday:

The Bush administration has filled FEMA's top jobs with political patronage appointees with no emergency-management experience, cut disaster-preparedness budgets and marginalized the agency by merging it with the new anti-terrorism bureaucracy, according to those experts, which include four former senior FEMA officials. The number of career disaster-management professionals in senior FEMA jobs has been cut by more than 50 percent since 2000, federal personnel records show.
...
In 2000, 40 percent of the top FEMA jobs were held by career workers who rose through the ranks of the agency, including chief of staff. By 2004, that figure was down to less than 19 percent, and the deputy director/chief of staff job is held by a former TV anchor turned political operative.

A TV anchor? I mean, a JOURNALIST!!??

(..) you've caused me to look at the disaster control system in Holland more in-depth; it sure is more worrying than many think. And it's a most excellent subject for an upcoming essay at school.

I am looking into it right now. Seems that over here it is not a problem of incompetent political appointees, but of incompetent civil servants (seniority, paper qualifications) and absent emergency command structures. Communication by phone, yeah right. One power-outage and we're sitting ducks...

[Redleg]

I am looking into it right now. Seems that over here it is not a problem of incompetent political appointees, but of incompetent civil servants (seniority, paper qualifications) and absent emergency command structures. Communication by phone, yeah right. One power-outage and we're sitting ducks...

That should be fairily quick to actually fix if the government is willing to do the necessary steps right now. It seems a rehearsal would be necessary to really force your government to wake up and see that the potential of diaster of the magitude of New Orleans is possible there. (Minus some of the violence I would hope.)

[Adrian II]

That should be fairily quick to actually fix if the government is willing to do the necessary steps right now. It seems a rehearsal would be necessary to really force your government to wake up and see that the potential of diaster of the magitude of New Orleans is possible there.

Because we are such a consensus oriented society, every last civil service team want their piece of the aciton. You think you have seen turf wars? Come to The Hague, my friend, I will show you 100-year-old bureaucratic turf wars that can make a grown Yankee cry. It works in peace time. Not in times of crisis. Sure, we have had rehearsals, but with advance warnings to most of the services involved, no power outages, no essential personnel missing because they have to do their daily jogging rounds/save their marriage/finish that chicken coop in the backyard...

[Redleg]

Because we are such a consensus oriented society, every last civil service team want their piece of the aciton. You think you have seen turf wars? Come to The Hague, my friend, I will show you 100-year-old bureaucratic turf wars that can make a grown Yankee cry. It works in peace time. Not in times of crisis. Sure, we have had rehearsals, but with advance warnings to most of the services involved, no power outages, no essential personnel missing because they have to do their daily jogging rounds/save their marriage/finish that chicken coop in the backyard...

Uh-ho you have a crisis in the making then. Well maybe New Orleans will wake the bureaucrats in your nation wake up. They can learn some major lessons from us on this - to the betterment (not sure if that is really a word) of your nation's response.

[Geoffrey S]

Blaming bureaucracy is the cliche of demagogues around here, but there is an element of truth to such rhetoric. Far as I can tell among civil servants there's no real chain of command, an awful lot of committee forming, and a general tendency to collectively stick their heads in the sand and pretend it's all going to be fine. At the moment we can survive this kind of attitude, but as soon as anything starts going wrong (either economically or in the case of a physical disaster) politicians will be more busy blaming each other than doing anything constructive; not really sure how the public would react, but the general apathy and disrespect towards the current generation of politicians doesn't look too promising.

[Redleg]

Deleted because I misunderstood someone's comments - my apology.

[Adrian II]

Redleg, I think with 'around here' he meant The Netherlands, not the .org. And regarding The Netherlands, he is right.

[Redleg]

Redleg, I think with 'around here' he meant The Netherlands, not the .org. And regarding The Netherlands, he is right.

Ah then I misunderstood what around here means.

Won't be the first time I misunderstand what someone states. If I am completely wrong with what he meant - then I will retract most of the statement.

[Geoffrey S]

Yeah, I meant in the Netherlands. Sorry, should have been a little clearer, no offense intended.

[Devastatin Dave]

Whitey.