Putting Things Into Perspective...

Putting things into Perspective:
Les Aaron

Contrasting The Response to the Tsunami to what happened in New Orleans.

When the Tsunami hit, there was no advance warning. No newspapers or TV to blare the news that a dangerous tidal wave was headed to the shores of Thailand.

Thailand, a third world country, characterized by great poverty, poor communications and undeveloped infrastructure was virtually stripped bare by an event for which there was no warning. The Tsunami was not anticipated nor planned for. There were no simulations or models or exercises to deal with such an unexpected event.. .As it happened, the tidal surge may have been twenty to twenty feet or higher that swept inland wiping out everything in its path. Thousands upon thousands disappeared; others were drowned and their remains scattered far and wide.

However, although a third world nation with few reserves, within hours relief was on its way. People helped people. Volunteers proved numerous. Water and food were dispensed within hours. Organization began almost immediately. And those who were injured received medical attention the same day. This was all without outside help. And no sophisticated communications system..

On the second day, the country showed its ability to deal with the disaster. Aid was administered equitably. An organization designed to handle the plight of the stricken was in place; posters and photos of the missing were posted; and the bodies of those drowned by the tsunami were being removed to prevent disease from spreading.

Contrast this to what happened in New Orleans.

According to the president of the neighboring Parrish, FEMA turned away three flatbed trucks offered by Wal-mart loaded with water from entering New Orleans. Local communications were uprooted by FEMA staff members and a supply of gasoline was not allowed to enter the city that needed it most.

In the interim, fifty countries around the world offered to send help. And FEMA and the government failed to respond to their offer, causing people around the world to shake their heads in amazement. And expressions like the Superpower with feet of clay started to emerge along with other remarks that tended to cast America’s ability to do anything right in question.

Sadly, as pointed out in the Toronto Star and other media around the world, State and local officials focused on maintaining order instead of getting to those most in need of help. Clearly, the priorities were not in the right place. There were insufficient emergency vehicles to evacuate the hospitals; no deliveries of food and water to the embattled survivors clinging to life.

The scrambling to blame others and circumstances was widespread in Washington today. While Michael Chertoff said that supplies had been prepositioned, It took five days for food and water to begin to get to the Super Dome which was the gathering place recommended by City and State officials in the event of such a staggering emergency. This was the result of simulations and models conducted by FEMA officials and other state and local officials in advance of the disaster.. More than twenty thousand people converged on this location within forty eight hours. Within days, The sanitary conditions became intolerable. And people who required medication and treatment were being ignored; in the meantime, police wandered the streets ignoring the pleas of the people focusing instead on the "looters"--many of whom had few options for locating food and water. .

It took six days before Michael Brown, the Head of FEMA, realized that fifteen thousand people were holed up at the Convention Center without food or drink. More than 2,000 people were still there as of yesterday!...When asked by Ted Koppel why things took so long, Michael looked like a deer in the headlights and start hemming and hawing until the cameras moved off him.

Michael Chertoff, the head of Homeland Defense, a job given Secretary level status, said that he as well as Bush were surprised that the levees did not hold.

Surprised that the levees didn’t hold. Excuse me, where were these people? Report after report including a full series of articles in the Times Picayune described precisely what would take place in the event a category Five hurricane hit New Orleans.

The man in charge of planning for emergency procedures for New Orleans had completely modeled the scenario and demanded repeatedly that the budget requested be approved to prevent such a disaster three years before.

Despite the urgency of his pleas, the request fell on deaf ears when George Bush redirected the funds to Homeland Security for protection against the probability of a “terrorist attack.” This is despite the fact that the former head of FEMA listed the challenges facing New Orleans as being the third highest priority in America. And their pleas were ignored.

Mary Landrieu the Democratic Senator from Louisiana had petitioned Congress to approve her bill for protection of the Levee system for more than three years; yet she had little success.

Engineers have explained in books and white papers that the entire city was at risk as long as the Federal Government had neglected the health of the wetlands and the neighboring islands that protected New Orleans from such an event. According to the studies, the health of the port area and the safety of the City depended to a great extent on the alluvial flows from the upper Mississippi to build the wetlands and provide barrier protection, keeping the wetlands nourished and healthy. The natural flow of these normal sedimentary deposits had been interrupted by the decision of the Corps of Engineers to extend the Levee system upriver, the normal source of the alluvial flows.

The cost of correcting this problem which had been generated in the first place by the Corps of Engineers was deemed to be in the 14 billion dollar range. The Bush government failed to act.

When a board of experts convened this morning on Meet the Press said that it makes no sense to rebuild New Orleans until the natural flow of alluvial deposits to the wetland perimeter and neighboring islands is restored, the moderator asked whether anyone thought the problem would be the money. No one thought it might be a problem since money was found to rebuild every citizen after a disaster but at the same time none of the guests spoke for government. . Another of the guests mentioned that it is not unlike the problems faced by Florida which received a seven billion dollar allocation to correct the problems of the Everglades to restore the natural flow of this body of water.

If money turns out to have been the problem all along, people will be within their rights to question why we have hundreds of billions of dollars for Iraq and cannot find fourteen billion dollars to restore one of America’s most cherished cities.

One guest correctly pointed the finger directly at the GWBush administration for its refusal to deal with global warming as contributing to future problems with major coastal cities that will suffer from rising water levels expected to rise 12 to 50 inches over the next fifty years. This would result in major cities like Miami and New York facing similar challenges to New Orleans. He added wisely, that until we find alternative fuels that do not add to global temperatures, the problems facing our largest coastal cities is real and cannot be ignored.

In the meantime, the questions and investigations have really not yet begun. And the worst of it is not over. Mary Landrieu pointed out that there will be gruesome surprises in store for the clean up crews when they find many more dead than they might have expected, people driven up to their attics by rising water levels, either asphyxiated or dead due to the lack of food and water with no place to go.

The original estimated cost to repair the levees was under 100 million dollars; today, not including the loss suffered by hundreds of thousands of people, the cost to rebuild New Orleans and the outlying areas affected by hurricane Katrina has topped 100 Billion dollars!

One might ask how we would fare facing an emergency that we did not anticipate? And why a third world nation with no preparation and poor communications was able to handle the needs of those stricken by one of the worst natural disasters in history while it took us nearly a week to respond to an event that everyone said was coming?

Les Aaron
The Armchair Curmudgeon
http://lesaaron.blogspot.com