Showing posts with label Katrina. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Katrina. Show all posts
06 November 2005
Let Them Eat Cake.
Yes, we all knew that Michael Brown failed in his job as FEMA director durig Hurricane Katrina. But, Styguis does an excellent job of pointing out just how little Brown cared during that disaster. A military officer who had a similar attitude would have been brought before a court martial and sent to Levenworth.
24 October 2005
New Orleans Katrina Victims Old and Non-White
Per CNN:
About 60 percent of the nearly 500 victims identified so far were age 61 or older, the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals reported.
"The elderly were much more likely to be in hospitals and nursing homes as well as possibly homebound and not able to access transportation in order to evacuate from the storm," said agency spokesman Bob Johannessen.
More than 215 bodies out of 1,048 recovered statewide were found in or around hospitals and nursing homes, according the state. . . .
Forty-two percent of the identified victims were black, 37 percent white and 3 percent Hispanic, the report said. The remaining 18 percent weren't identified by race or ethnicity.
19 October 2005
Disasters, Killer Animals and Diseases.
We fear disasters: hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, floods, landslides, forest fires and the like. These disasters can and do kill significant numbers of people every year. Hurricanes usually kill tens or hundreds, the worst in the United States ever killed about 10,000, and Bangladesh has seen more than 100,000 die from similar storms on multiple occassions. Tornados rarely kill more than a few hundred people. Earthquakes have killed more than tens of thousands of people only a handful of time in recorded history. Floods turn out to be the most deadly kind of disaster, but tend to kill thousands or tens of thousands the worst disasters.
We also fear animals that can kill us: sharks, poisonous snakes, poisonous spiders, bears, packs of wolves, lions, tigers, lynx, pirannahs, and the like. All of these animals combined kill tens or hundreds of people a year in the entire United States and aren't a major killer internationally either.
Diseases, which we have less of an acute fear of, are far more deadly than either disasters or killer animals. Relatively minor diseases (in the U.S.) like tuberculosis (TB) or meningitis or kidney infections each kill more Americans year in and year out than killer animals do. And, while this year hurricanes will kill more than 1,000 people (which is more than the diseases listed above), more years and on average, disasters kill far fewer people each year.
The worst disaster in the entire known history of humanity (and likely, of all time) was the flood of the Huang He River in China (also known as the Yellow River) in 1931 which killed 3.7 million people.
By way of comparison, the Spanish Flu in 1918 killed 25-50 million people. The bubonic plague killed about a quarter of the people in the Mediterranian in 542 CE, killed 25 million people in what is now France in 588 CE, killed 200 million people in the mid-14th century in Eurasia (a third of the population compared to a mortality rate of about 1% for people in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina), and killed about 12 million people in India and China in 1855. AIDS killed 3 million people in 2004 alone. Tuberculosis kills 2 million people every year, and malaria kills 1 million people every year.
European diseases did more to destroy the Native American population of North America than any other factor. For example:
While some Native American rights activists cite these epidemics as European caused genocide, they were an almost inevitable consequence of European-Native American contact in an era when medical science was not very advanced. "All that was required
to produce an epidemic was one mildly sick European who happened
to come into contact with one healthy American Indian." The best guess that exists today for why the Native American population was devistated by European diseases, rather than the other way around is:
(This doesn't mean that Europeans dealt honorably with Native Americans, but it does dampen the claims of genocide. Blaming Europeans for stealing Native American land and forcibly relocating Native Americans, morally culpable acts all, is much better supported by the historical record, than the claim that the Europeans tried to bring about the mass death that was caused by diseases spread upon their arrival in North America).
Bird flu has killed 52 people as of this May, but could easily kill millions, the Spanish Flu of 1918 was a form of bird flu. Or, the disease could be any of hundreds of others out there waiting for the mutation thate suddenly makes a deadly disease far more contageous.
Modern science has given us the tools to understand what is going on much better than our predeceassors, but has also made the world a much smaller place, allowing diseases like West Nile virus to spread worldwide very quickly through people and goods travelling by air from country to country. Diseases that might once have been confined to small rural villages like those in Niger, can now be spread by an aid worker, government official, soldier, job seeker or farmer bringing goods to market to a major city and from their to someone who may travel to anyplace else in the world -- perhaps Paris, perhaps Atlanta, perhaps Lagos.
We know from experience that the species can survive even a massive outbreak that kills 30-40% of the population, but we'd prefer not to go through that experience again.
We also fear animals that can kill us: sharks, poisonous snakes, poisonous spiders, bears, packs of wolves, lions, tigers, lynx, pirannahs, and the like. All of these animals combined kill tens or hundreds of people a year in the entire United States and aren't a major killer internationally either.
Diseases, which we have less of an acute fear of, are far more deadly than either disasters or killer animals. Relatively minor diseases (in the U.S.) like tuberculosis (TB) or meningitis or kidney infections each kill more Americans year in and year out than killer animals do. And, while this year hurricanes will kill more than 1,000 people (which is more than the diseases listed above), more years and on average, disasters kill far fewer people each year.
The worst disaster in the entire known history of humanity (and likely, of all time) was the flood of the Huang He River in China (also known as the Yellow River) in 1931 which killed 3.7 million people.
By way of comparison, the Spanish Flu in 1918 killed 25-50 million people. The bubonic plague killed about a quarter of the people in the Mediterranian in 542 CE, killed 25 million people in what is now France in 588 CE, killed 200 million people in the mid-14th century in Eurasia (a third of the population compared to a mortality rate of about 1% for people in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina), and killed about 12 million people in India and China in 1855. AIDS killed 3 million people in 2004 alone. Tuberculosis kills 2 million people every year, and malaria kills 1 million people every year.
European diseases did more to destroy the Native American population of North America than any other factor. For example:
In 1698, St. Cosme, a Jesuit missionary traveling down the Mississippi River, recorded the devastating effects of smallpox among the Qawpaw: "We were deeply afflicted by finding this nation of the Arkansas, formerly so numerous, entirely destroyed by disease. Not a month has elapsed since they had rid themselves of smallpox, which has carried off most of them. In the villages are now nothing but graves ... and we estimated that not a hundred men were left. All of the children had died, and a great many women."
In the Lower Mississippi Valley (between Memphis, Tennessee, and Natchez, Mississippi) there were at least 50 towns between 1450 and 1550. By 1600, that number had dropped to ten--a decline of 80 percent in only 50 years.
Between 1698 and 1725, native populations living within the borders of French Louisiana experienced at least 13 epidemics, roughly one epidemic every two years. All epidemics resulted in some magnitude of native population loss, and the number of named groups in the colony dropped from 170 to 15, a 91 percent decline.
While some Native American rights activists cite these epidemics as European caused genocide, they were an almost inevitable consequence of European-Native American contact in an era when medical science was not very advanced. "All that was required
to produce an epidemic was one mildly sick European who happened
to come into contact with one healthy American Indian." The best guess that exists today for why the Native American population was devistated by European diseases, rather than the other way around is:
[T]he relative lack of domesticated herd animals in America. Herd animals are our richest source of disease microorganisms; we share in common with pigs and other barnyard animals diseases such as influenza. The fact that Native Americans had few domestic animals—dogs, llamas, guineas pigs and couple species of fowl—meant that they had relatively few immunities compared to those Europeans gained from their extensive interactions with dogs, barnyard fowl, horses, donkeys, pigs, cattle, goats, and sheep.
(This doesn't mean that Europeans dealt honorably with Native Americans, but it does dampen the claims of genocide. Blaming Europeans for stealing Native American land and forcibly relocating Native Americans, morally culpable acts all, is much better supported by the historical record, than the claim that the Europeans tried to bring about the mass death that was caused by diseases spread upon their arrival in North America).
Bird flu has killed 52 people as of this May, but could easily kill millions, the Spanish Flu of 1918 was a form of bird flu. Or, the disease could be any of hundreds of others out there waiting for the mutation thate suddenly makes a deadly disease far more contageous.
Modern science has given us the tools to understand what is going on much better than our predeceassors, but has also made the world a much smaller place, allowing diseases like West Nile virus to spread worldwide very quickly through people and goods travelling by air from country to country. Diseases that might once have been confined to small rural villages like those in Niger, can now be spread by an aid worker, government official, soldier, job seeker or farmer bringing goods to market to a major city and from their to someone who may travel to anyplace else in the world -- perhaps Paris, perhaps Atlanta, perhaps Lagos.
We know from experience that the species can survive even a massive outbreak that kills 30-40% of the population, but we'd prefer not to go through that experience again.
17 October 2005
NOLA Prisoners.
Chief Justice Pascal F. Calogero Jr. said in an interview Saturday that, based on legal motions the court heard last week, he believed at least 41 prisoners evacuated from Orleans Parish Prison were overdue for release. Many are at the maximum-security Elayn Hunt Correctional Center near Baton Rouge. . . .
Defense lawyer Phyllis E. Mann of Alexandria, La., . . . who has coordinated efforts of the defense bar to compile a full list of 8,500 evacuated prisoners' new locations, said she knew of no evacuated inmate who had seen his or her own lawyer of record.
Mann filed an action Friday afternoon seeking the release of 48 evacuated inmates held on misdemeanor charges.
About 700 evacuated inmates have been released, some because of earlier suits and others as a result of actions by the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections. But thousands remain in custody without the immediate prospect of a formal hearing or a trial. . . .
Johnson said criminal trials probably would not resume in New Orleans until January or February, partly because potential jurors and judges themselves had fled the city. The homes of nine of Orleans Parish's 13 criminal court judges have been destroyed, including his own, Johnson said.
Defense lawyer Teissier argues in his brief that evacuated prisoners have no prospect of "testing evidence, conducting pretrial hearings on discovery issues" or filing motions. Consequently, many "are expected to be left with a ghastly choice — plead guilty in exchange for time served or remain in jail in perpetuity pending the re-creation of a judicial system."
Source.
The reality is that it may be impossible to guarantee a speedy or fair trial to many defendants who were jailed in New Orleans or facing charges at the time Hurricane Katrina hit. Our Constitution makes the resolution of such a dilema clear. Those jailed must be released, even if some guilty people go free. There may be a few cases that can be salvaged, but the Olreans Parish DA needs to promptly give up on the largely misdemeanor cases, where time served already exceeds the likely sentences the defendants' face and everyone who has already served their entire sentence. If even one in ten felony cases can be salvaged, given the dispersal of witnesses to the four winds when the city was evacuated, and the destruction of much of the prosecution's physical evidence when the city was flooded, it will be lucky. Admitting this now, rather than months from now, at trial, is the right thing to do.
07 October 2005
Welcome to Colorado!
According to the Rocky Mountain News:
Colorado Luis has some insights on how the press has viewed this event. He also notes that people can go beyond stereotypes, noting that he is a Chicano skier, and that their roots in the Big Easy will not render them incapable of life in the Mile High City.
Denver is a vibrant city and there are few other places in the nation I can name that would be a better place to make a fresh start. I wish each and every new resident of Colorado the best.
Some 1,900 Hurricane Katrina evacuees have come to metro Denver over the past month; a total of more than 3,000 have located in Colorado since the hurricane hit.
Colorado Luis has some insights on how the press has viewed this event. He also notes that people can go beyond stereotypes, noting that he is a Chicano skier, and that their roots in the Big Easy will not render them incapable of life in the Mile High City.
Denver is a vibrant city and there are few other places in the nation I can name that would be a better place to make a fresh start. I wish each and every new resident of Colorado the best.
04 October 2005
Katrina Death Toll.
Hurricane Katrina killed 1185 people in Louisiana and Mississippi. The active search for the dead in complete, although some additional bodies may be located as the region is repopulated. It appears that most of the dead were in New Orleans. Hurricane Rita killed about 100 people in Texas.
Some of the other events in American history with comparable death tolls are listed in this previous post. They are:
The actual death toll was less than the Galveston Hurricane or 9-11, but comparable to the other events. Moreover, unlike the Titanic or 9-11, the combination of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have displaced millions of Americans. Property damage is harder to compare, because the value of the dollar has changed over time and numbers take longer to compile, but this certainly rivals the disasters mentioned above and the Great Chicago Fire in that regard.
Some of the other events in American history with comparable death tolls are listed in this previous post. They are:
[T]he Galveston Hurricane in 1900, or the San Francisco Earthquake in 1906, or the Titanic shipwreck in 1912, or the Lake Okeechobee flood in Florida in 1928 or the Johnstown flood in Pennsylvania in 1889, or 9-11-01, but those are the only events in U.S. history that are comparable.
The actual death toll was less than the Galveston Hurricane or 9-11, but comparable to the other events. Moreover, unlike the Titanic or 9-11, the combination of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have displaced millions of Americans. Property damage is harder to compare, because the value of the dollar has changed over time and numbers take longer to compile, but this certainly rivals the disasters mentioned above and the Great Chicago Fire in that regard.
23 September 2005
Katrina/Rita Death Toll and Status Report.
The Katrina Death Toll was at 1078 when efforts to recover the dead were suspended today. New Orleans has now flooded again from the effects of Hurricane Rita. The levee is breached in three places.
Hurricane Rita is bearing down on the Gulf Coast and will hit late tonight around Port Arthur, Texas. The evacation is chaotic and not functioning well, with residents who have not already fled Houston advised to return to their homes to weather the storm. At least 24 people have died in the course of the evacuation in advance of Hurricane Rita. The greatest concerns related to Hurricane Rita are the prospects of people left unsheltered on the roads trying to evacuate when Rita hits, and massive distruption of the oil and gas industry which one radio commentator this morning suggested could bring gas prices to a record $4 a gallon. Property damage from Rita is expected to be massive, with the entire town of Port Arthur expected to be flooded.
Hurricane Rita is bearing down on the Gulf Coast and will hit late tonight around Port Arthur, Texas. The evacation is chaotic and not functioning well, with residents who have not already fled Houston advised to return to their homes to weather the storm. At least 24 people have died in the course of the evacuation in advance of Hurricane Rita. The greatest concerns related to Hurricane Rita are the prospects of people left unsheltered on the roads trying to evacuate when Rita hits, and massive distruption of the oil and gas industry which one radio commentator this morning suggested could bring gas prices to a record $4 a gallon. Property damage from Rita is expected to be massive, with the entire town of Port Arthur expected to be flooded.
21 September 2005
20 September 2005
Death Tolls
19 September 2005
Katrina Death Toll
The Katrina death toll is currently 816. Efforts to identify and recover the dead are not complete. New Orleans is about 40% underwater and outlying areas have not been fully searched.
15 September 2005
Katrina, Banks and Landlords.
Listening to the radio today, I heard an interview on NPR with the President of a local Southern Mississippi bank. This got me thinking about the systemic influences that Hurricane Katrina is going to have on the banking industry.
Everyone remembers the Christmas special "It's A Wonderful Life". In that movie, the protagonist explains that banks don't keep deposits sitting in some vault. Your deposit goes into a mortgage on someone else's home. The interest coming in on that mortgage pays the interest due on deposits and the expenses of running the bank. The only significant change that has occurred in the commercial banking industry since the time when that movie was set is that now most deposits are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).
Banks take reasonable measures to make sure that loans are paid. They make sure that borrowers are employed and have good credit. They take the property as collateral and make sure that there is an "equity cushion" to prevent the bank from bearing the risk of fluxuations in the value of the property. In a conventional residential loan, this cushion is typically at least 20% of the purchase price. In a conventional investment property loan, this cushion is often 50% of the purchase price. In low downpayment mortgages, mortgage insurance is often obtained. Finally, borrowers are required to insure their properties with homeowner's insurance and, if they are in a flood plain, with flood insurance.
Current estimates are that half of the homes in New Orleans did not have flood insurance, since the levees that guarded them took them out of the flood plain where it is typically required. Many of the uninsured buildings in New Orleans would have been subject to substantial mortgages. Except to the extent that ad hoc disaster relief funds make property owners whole, the banks who hold those mortgages are going to face massive losses that are likely to cause smaller banks to fail. Banks run a tight ship and simply don't have sufficient reserves to handle the loss of much of their principal in secured loans. Without the collateral, many of the debtors, who have lost homes and jobs, will be unable to pay in any fashion. If they go bankrupt under Chapter 7, they will have to turn over the land and ruined buildings to the banks holding the loans, and will have the remainder of their obligations discharged. Ironically, the only defaulting loans where the banks have some chance of being made whole may be the low down payment loans with mortage insurance.
Also somewhat oddly, to the extent that people without flood insurance are not made whole through disaster relief aid, one of the main sources of relief to the region may end up being the FDIC. If a bank fails, because its mortgage assets have become worthless, FDIC will step in and insure most of the bank's deposits as a multi-billion dollar cost, in many cases making payouts to local depositors that far exceed the failed banks' assets.
Another story on NPR mentioned that two-thirds of New Orleanians are renters and not homeowners (compared to a national homeownership rate of almost two-thirds). This is relevant to both banks and to tenants. In the case of buildings ruined by the flooding of New Orleans, which includes the vast majority of rental housing in the city, the likely approach taken in the landlord-tenant relationship will be to discharge landlord and tenant alike of any further obligation under those leases. Tenants will seek new homes from scratch. Landlords will try to decide what to do. Landlords without flood insurance or ad hoc federal aid may have to simply surrender the land to banks and make up as much of the difference from their personal funds as they can, as few landlords are completely insolvent. Also, since landlords often own more than one property, and since middle class residences in the older part of the city are probably most likely to have survived the storm (and hence will likely simply be rehabiliated) the pool of property owners and repossessing banks who decide how to rebuild New Orleans may be far smaller than one might expect. If each landlord owned just 10 units, and 10-12% of them surrender the properties to foreclosures, perhaps 10,000 landlords will dominant the reconstruction process, and that in turn would likely be dominated by a couple of thousand property owners who own the bulk of those properties.
For all the grand plans of civic leaders and community members, the future shape of the city is going to be largely decided on a case by case basis, by those property owners and repossessing banks, and it isn't at all obvious that they will be inclined to build as much low income housing as existed before the Hurricane. Revised zoning and building codes will guide their decisions, but the city can't force someone to rebuild (without condemning their property and paying for it, something New Orleans may have difficulty doing at the moment as the City currently has no cash on hand, and the State is working hard to fend off rumors that it too might have to itself go bankrupt). The biggest incentive to build new low and moderate income rental properties to replace those destroyed may come not from city zoning requirements, but from strings tied to federal aid for those who did not have flood insurance. Those conditions, of course, have not yet been set, although the President's speech this evening from New Orleans may set the tone of that debate.
Everyone remembers the Christmas special "It's A Wonderful Life". In that movie, the protagonist explains that banks don't keep deposits sitting in some vault. Your deposit goes into a mortgage on someone else's home. The interest coming in on that mortgage pays the interest due on deposits and the expenses of running the bank. The only significant change that has occurred in the commercial banking industry since the time when that movie was set is that now most deposits are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).
Banks take reasonable measures to make sure that loans are paid. They make sure that borrowers are employed and have good credit. They take the property as collateral and make sure that there is an "equity cushion" to prevent the bank from bearing the risk of fluxuations in the value of the property. In a conventional residential loan, this cushion is typically at least 20% of the purchase price. In a conventional investment property loan, this cushion is often 50% of the purchase price. In low downpayment mortgages, mortgage insurance is often obtained. Finally, borrowers are required to insure their properties with homeowner's insurance and, if they are in a flood plain, with flood insurance.
Current estimates are that half of the homes in New Orleans did not have flood insurance, since the levees that guarded them took them out of the flood plain where it is typically required. Many of the uninsured buildings in New Orleans would have been subject to substantial mortgages. Except to the extent that ad hoc disaster relief funds make property owners whole, the banks who hold those mortgages are going to face massive losses that are likely to cause smaller banks to fail. Banks run a tight ship and simply don't have sufficient reserves to handle the loss of much of their principal in secured loans. Without the collateral, many of the debtors, who have lost homes and jobs, will be unable to pay in any fashion. If they go bankrupt under Chapter 7, they will have to turn over the land and ruined buildings to the banks holding the loans, and will have the remainder of their obligations discharged. Ironically, the only defaulting loans where the banks have some chance of being made whole may be the low down payment loans with mortage insurance.
Also somewhat oddly, to the extent that people without flood insurance are not made whole through disaster relief aid, one of the main sources of relief to the region may end up being the FDIC. If a bank fails, because its mortgage assets have become worthless, FDIC will step in and insure most of the bank's deposits as a multi-billion dollar cost, in many cases making payouts to local depositors that far exceed the failed banks' assets.
Another story on NPR mentioned that two-thirds of New Orleanians are renters and not homeowners (compared to a national homeownership rate of almost two-thirds). This is relevant to both banks and to tenants. In the case of buildings ruined by the flooding of New Orleans, which includes the vast majority of rental housing in the city, the likely approach taken in the landlord-tenant relationship will be to discharge landlord and tenant alike of any further obligation under those leases. Tenants will seek new homes from scratch. Landlords will try to decide what to do. Landlords without flood insurance or ad hoc federal aid may have to simply surrender the land to banks and make up as much of the difference from their personal funds as they can, as few landlords are completely insolvent. Also, since landlords often own more than one property, and since middle class residences in the older part of the city are probably most likely to have survived the storm (and hence will likely simply be rehabiliated) the pool of property owners and repossessing banks who decide how to rebuild New Orleans may be far smaller than one might expect. If each landlord owned just 10 units, and 10-12% of them surrender the properties to foreclosures, perhaps 10,000 landlords will dominant the reconstruction process, and that in turn would likely be dominated by a couple of thousand property owners who own the bulk of those properties.
For all the grand plans of civic leaders and community members, the future shape of the city is going to be largely decided on a case by case basis, by those property owners and repossessing banks, and it isn't at all obvious that they will be inclined to build as much low income housing as existed before the Hurricane. Revised zoning and building codes will guide their decisions, but the city can't force someone to rebuild (without condemning their property and paying for it, something New Orleans may have difficulty doing at the moment as the City currently has no cash on hand, and the State is working hard to fend off rumors that it too might have to itself go bankrupt). The biggest incentive to build new low and moderate income rental properties to replace those destroyed may come not from city zoning requirements, but from strings tied to federal aid for those who did not have flood insurance. Those conditions, of course, have not yet been set, although the President's speech this evening from New Orleans may set the tone of that debate.
13 September 2005
Katrina Death Toll
The Katrina death toll is currently 659. This includes a large share of the deaths that will be found in Mississippi, but the process of locating the dead in Louisiana is just beginning.
08 September 2005
More Katrina Lessons Learned.
God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change,
courage to change the things we can,
and wisdom to know the difference.
-- Attributed to Roman Philosopher Boethius and popularized by Alcoholics Anonymous.
I don't believe in God, but do agree with the sentiment behind the serenity prayer. Preventable misfortune needs to be stamped out. Unpreventable fortune needs to be accepted serenely.
I've ranted at some length on the abject failure of FEMA to handle the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina well, and the lack of leadership provided by the Bush Administration.
There is, of course, blame to go around.
The biggest federal mistakes before the disaster were (1) a failure to fund levee maintenance and improvement projects, despite the fact that what New Orleans experienced was one of the top three most likely disasters to occur, (2) the development of a plan (based on a "Hurricane Pam" scenario) which simply assumed that 100,000 people or so would remain in the city and suffer, instead of recognizing that this status quo was unacceptable and trying to address it, and (3) a failure to mobilize resources and get them moving to the scene in advance of the storm actually hitting (a failure exacerbated by the fact that many Louisiana National Guard troops were in Iraq). Naval ships and trucks could have been en route before the Hurricane even made landfall, instead of days later, as actually happened.
Even one less levee break would have dramatically reduced the danger to the city. But, the funds that could have prevented that were intentionally diverted elsewhere by the Bush Administration over local protests.
Likewise, a mandatory evacuation isn't very meaningful when it isn't enforced and people aren't given the means to evacuate. Local officials do share blame for not doing a better job of enforcing the mandatory evacuation order before the Hurricane hit, or at least making it easier for people to comply. But, the Mayor's failure to do this is understandable, because efforts like city sponsored buses to get people out weren't part of the Hurricane plan. Still, we need to learn from this for all future predictable disasters. If even two-thirds of those who stayed in New Orleans and other hard hit areas had been bussed to shelters a hundred miles inland in advance of the storm, the amount of suffering from this disaster would have been an order of magnitude smaller. It is clear, after the fact that at least, that many stayed, not because they were determined to sit out the storm, but because they were unable to leave, either due to health problems, or poverty. Allowing pets to be evacuated in advance of the storm with their owners or caretakers, would have induced even more people to leave.
Sure, not everyone would have left without intense use of force. The 15,000 who are still in New Orleans now, wouldn't have left. Perhaps twice as many wouldn't have left without seeing the devastation wrought by the storm and the subsequent broken levees.
But, evacuations of even two-thirds of those who ended up staying would have helped not only those who left, but those who stayed. Rescue and supply resources would have been less strapped. Shelters of last resort would have been less full. Those who remained would have been less overwhelmingly composed of the weakest members of society, like the elderly and poor single mothers with young children.
The issue of lawlessness in the city after the storm mostly goes to the third issue, failure to dispatch help as soon as possible. Violence comes from desperation and an impression that civil authority has vanished. The city should have been swarming with relief boats, national guard troops and rescue helicopters hours after the eye passed, not several days later. National Guard officers should have been appropriating supplies from damaged groceries and pharmacies for public use and supervising their distribution within twenty-four hours, leaving potential looters without the desperation that would drive them to take those goods in the first place. People are more reasonable when they haven't gone without food, water, dry shelter and medical care for two or three days.
The biggest local failure was again, a long term one, rather than one attributable to this particular Mayor (unlike the failures at the federal level, which were mostly attributable to the ineptitude of our current leaders). Indeed, the near universal fact that land use decision making is not coordinated meaningfully at a metropolitan area level was an important part of the problem. The region's building codes and land use patterns exacerbated the risk.
These steps weren't taken, and there were other failures after the fact as well, as discussed before, most notably, failure to use resources that were available to be used, especially from volunteers, the military and distant governments. As a result, Hurricane Katrina will likely be the most deadly disaster in U.S. history, and cause more property damage than any other disaster in U.S. history. The best we can do is punish those officials who failed, mitigate the damage that has already been done, and learn our lessons from this disaster so that these consequences will never be experienced again.
There will be natural forces of comparable capacity to do harm in the future. Global warming and the proximity of so many major cities to coastal areas makes the future risk from hurricanes like this one a near inevitability. New Orleans itself could easily be hit again, even this season. But, we can improve the measures we put in place to plan for these disasters so that when they happen again they are not so catastrophic. Toughening the infrastructure in place to mitigate risk, planning development with risks in mind, improving mechanisms for evacuating people and pets to distant shelters in advance of disasters, and improving the extent to which relief forces are pre-deployed and then immediately get to the scene, would go a long way towards achieving those ends. It is hard to imagine that these costs could possibly exceed the costs of suffering another disaster like this one.
courage to change the things we can,
and wisdom to know the difference.
-- Attributed to Roman Philosopher Boethius and popularized by Alcoholics Anonymous.
I don't believe in God, but do agree with the sentiment behind the serenity prayer. Preventable misfortune needs to be stamped out. Unpreventable fortune needs to be accepted serenely.
I've ranted at some length on the abject failure of FEMA to handle the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina well, and the lack of leadership provided by the Bush Administration.
There is, of course, blame to go around.
The biggest federal mistakes before the disaster were (1) a failure to fund levee maintenance and improvement projects, despite the fact that what New Orleans experienced was one of the top three most likely disasters to occur, (2) the development of a plan (based on a "Hurricane Pam" scenario) which simply assumed that 100,000 people or so would remain in the city and suffer, instead of recognizing that this status quo was unacceptable and trying to address it, and (3) a failure to mobilize resources and get them moving to the scene in advance of the storm actually hitting (a failure exacerbated by the fact that many Louisiana National Guard troops were in Iraq). Naval ships and trucks could have been en route before the Hurricane even made landfall, instead of days later, as actually happened.
Even one less levee break would have dramatically reduced the danger to the city. But, the funds that could have prevented that were intentionally diverted elsewhere by the Bush Administration over local protests.
Likewise, a mandatory evacuation isn't very meaningful when it isn't enforced and people aren't given the means to evacuate. Local officials do share blame for not doing a better job of enforcing the mandatory evacuation order before the Hurricane hit, or at least making it easier for people to comply. But, the Mayor's failure to do this is understandable, because efforts like city sponsored buses to get people out weren't part of the Hurricane plan. Still, we need to learn from this for all future predictable disasters. If even two-thirds of those who stayed in New Orleans and other hard hit areas had been bussed to shelters a hundred miles inland in advance of the storm, the amount of suffering from this disaster would have been an order of magnitude smaller. It is clear, after the fact that at least, that many stayed, not because they were determined to sit out the storm, but because they were unable to leave, either due to health problems, or poverty. Allowing pets to be evacuated in advance of the storm with their owners or caretakers, would have induced even more people to leave.
Sure, not everyone would have left without intense use of force. The 15,000 who are still in New Orleans now, wouldn't have left. Perhaps twice as many wouldn't have left without seeing the devastation wrought by the storm and the subsequent broken levees.
But, evacuations of even two-thirds of those who ended up staying would have helped not only those who left, but those who stayed. Rescue and supply resources would have been less strapped. Shelters of last resort would have been less full. Those who remained would have been less overwhelmingly composed of the weakest members of society, like the elderly and poor single mothers with young children.
The issue of lawlessness in the city after the storm mostly goes to the third issue, failure to dispatch help as soon as possible. Violence comes from desperation and an impression that civil authority has vanished. The city should have been swarming with relief boats, national guard troops and rescue helicopters hours after the eye passed, not several days later. National Guard officers should have been appropriating supplies from damaged groceries and pharmacies for public use and supervising their distribution within twenty-four hours, leaving potential looters without the desperation that would drive them to take those goods in the first place. People are more reasonable when they haven't gone without food, water, dry shelter and medical care for two or three days.
The biggest local failure was again, a long term one, rather than one attributable to this particular Mayor (unlike the failures at the federal level, which were mostly attributable to the ineptitude of our current leaders). Indeed, the near universal fact that land use decision making is not coordinated meaningfully at a metropolitan area level was an important part of the problem. The region's building codes and land use patterns exacerbated the risk.
These steps weren't taken, and there were other failures after the fact as well, as discussed before, most notably, failure to use resources that were available to be used, especially from volunteers, the military and distant governments. As a result, Hurricane Katrina will likely be the most deadly disaster in U.S. history, and cause more property damage than any other disaster in U.S. history. The best we can do is punish those officials who failed, mitigate the damage that has already been done, and learn our lessons from this disaster so that these consequences will never be experienced again.
There will be natural forces of comparable capacity to do harm in the future. Global warming and the proximity of so many major cities to coastal areas makes the future risk from hurricanes like this one a near inevitability. New Orleans itself could easily be hit again, even this season. But, we can improve the measures we put in place to plan for these disasters so that when they happen again they are not so catastrophic. Toughening the infrastructure in place to mitigate risk, planning development with risks in mind, improving mechanisms for evacuating people and pets to distant shelters in advance of disasters, and improving the extent to which relief forces are pre-deployed and then immediately get to the scene, would go a long way towards achieving those ends. It is hard to imagine that these costs could possibly exceed the costs of suffering another disaster like this one.
05 September 2005
Getting out of the way.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency could probably have done more good in Hurricane Katrina by simply not existing. How else can you explain an organization which is charged with facilitating emergency action, and instead turns it away, en masse?
Command and control style management isn't appropriate or useful in situations such as this one where the command elements don't appear to know anything more than the average person, and where vast numbers of volunteers willing to help share a common purpose. FEMA's job is not to say no to people who want to help. It is to encourage as many people as possible to get to places that need help.
Ordinary people with boats can save hundreds or thousands of lives in a flood. Sometimes a county supervisor in Northern Wisconsin is somehow more able to get a bus to evacuate people to the scene than a federal agency. Ordinarily, stealing a bus is a bad idea, but when it is a means of rescuing a bus load of people from a dangerous situation and it has been abandoned, it is an act of heroism.
Also, rather than universally decrying looters, we should, in times of disaster, recognize a general rule that property rights are subordinate to the needs of the community to perserve life and health and safety. Stealing food from grocery stores that would otherwise throw it away months later upon returning is no crime. Grabbing vehicles to get people to safety is acceptable. This doesn't mean that armed gangs grabbing television sets need to be protected, but the need for balance in situations like these is real.
Even in ordinary times good management often involves giving people a common purpose and doing your best to keep bureacracy and interference and hold ups out of the way. Wikis and open source software projects have taught us that it is possible to harness the efforts of thousands of strangers in a manner that does more good than harm.
Many people who praise laissez-faire capitalism fail to understand its real genius. There is no one in charge. There are simply some basic ground rules and common objectives which produce good results in a decentralized fashion. Our emergency management agency needs to learn to get out of the way of other people and countries who are doing good and focus instead on doing good itself.
Command and control style management isn't appropriate or useful in situations such as this one where the command elements don't appear to know anything more than the average person, and where vast numbers of volunteers willing to help share a common purpose. FEMA's job is not to say no to people who want to help. It is to encourage as many people as possible to get to places that need help.
Ordinary people with boats can save hundreds or thousands of lives in a flood. Sometimes a county supervisor in Northern Wisconsin is somehow more able to get a bus to evacuate people to the scene than a federal agency. Ordinarily, stealing a bus is a bad idea, but when it is a means of rescuing a bus load of people from a dangerous situation and it has been abandoned, it is an act of heroism.
Also, rather than universally decrying looters, we should, in times of disaster, recognize a general rule that property rights are subordinate to the needs of the community to perserve life and health and safety. Stealing food from grocery stores that would otherwise throw it away months later upon returning is no crime. Grabbing vehicles to get people to safety is acceptable. This doesn't mean that armed gangs grabbing television sets need to be protected, but the need for balance in situations like these is real.
Even in ordinary times good management often involves giving people a common purpose and doing your best to keep bureacracy and interference and hold ups out of the way. Wikis and open source software projects have taught us that it is possible to harness the efforts of thousands of strangers in a manner that does more good than harm.
Many people who praise laissez-faire capitalism fail to understand its real genius. There is no one in charge. There are simply some basic ground rules and common objectives which produce good results in a decentralized fashion. Our emergency management agency needs to learn to get out of the way of other people and countries who are doing good and focus instead on doing good itself.
01 September 2005
Trust Betrayed After Katrina
The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and across the Gulf Coast has dissolved into anarchy while the weak are left to suffer. Read selected posts from the Times-Picayune blog, read about thousands left to die without food or water or any kind of authority on hand at the New Orleans convention center, look at the pictures posted from various sources, read about the devistation in unthinkably poor Plaquemines Parish, look anywhere else you need to look. Mississippi South of Jackson isn't much better.
We have known since 2001, at least, that this was one of the three most likely major disasters to happen in the country. One of the others was a terrorist attack on New York, and the other was a major San Francisco earthquake. We knew that this particular storm was headed towards New Orleans eight days ago.
FEMA and the National Guard (many of whose members are in Iraq right now) have been unable to fulfill the basics of their mission, getting people out of the affected area in advance, maintaining some semblence of order, and getting help and evacuations for people who didn't leave in time. The storm hit five days ago. Getting water and food and rescue a week late is likely to be a death sentence. Private individuals who have sought to provide aid, even the Canadian government's offers of assistance have been rebuked. President Bush stayed on vacation, while Condaleeza Rice decided to buy shoes and take in Broadway shows while Canada begged to provide some assistance.
Authorities seem more concerned about people grabbing perishables out of grocery stores that would otherwise rot, when they are in dire need and no one can sell goods to them at any price, than they do about helping those in need.
The national government has done nothing as panics as a result of broken pipelines have sent gas prices above $6 a gallon (from below $3 a gallon) in Georgia, and spurred similar panic in North Carolina.
I can accept that people who could not be evacuated or refused to evacuate might die from the force of the storm, although the inability of some people who wanted to leave to do so for lack of transportation, many of whom have now spent days of privation in the Superdome, was itself inexcusable. I can accept that any hurricane of this force would have left thousands of people homeless.
But, I cannot accept that our government has let many, many people die after the event because it has bungled the job of providing aid to the victims. I cannot accept that New Orleans has flooded because the Bush Administration postponed levy work to spend the money on Iraq and tax cuts, as documented in nine seperate articles from 2004 and 2005 in the Times-Picayune.
This disaster has been as devistating as it has been because our leaders have failed us and betrayed our trust. This didn't have to be an event with deaths rivaling the Galveston Hurricane in 1900, or the San Francisco Earthquake in 1906, or the Titanic shipwreck in 1912, or the Lake Okeechobee flood in Florida in 1928 or the Johnstown flood in Pennsylvania in 1889, or 9-11, but those are the only events in U.S. history that are comparable. It didn't have to have property damage comparable to the great Chicago fire of 1871. But, it did.
Katrina will cost us thousands of lives, instead of hundreds. There will be hundreds of thousands of refugees for months, instead of thousand of refugees for weeks. The economic damage will be in the hundreds of billions, instead of the billions. This was a catastrophe and it was a needless one. There is nothing wrong with being an estate planning attorney from Colorado, I am one myself. But, that isn't the proper experience base for running the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is charged with responding to national disasters. This disaster was as bad as it was because President Bush and the people he chose to work for him and carry out his policies made decisions that were literally dead wrong.
To learn how to help, click on this link, where they noted this afternoon that: "The word is that in Jefferson Parish and Orleans, FEMA has 'bugged out.' They haven't brought supplies in." They know better than I do. I'm just a Colorado estate planning lawyer.
We have known since 2001, at least, that this was one of the three most likely major disasters to happen in the country. One of the others was a terrorist attack on New York, and the other was a major San Francisco earthquake. We knew that this particular storm was headed towards New Orleans eight days ago.
FEMA and the National Guard (many of whose members are in Iraq right now) have been unable to fulfill the basics of their mission, getting people out of the affected area in advance, maintaining some semblence of order, and getting help and evacuations for people who didn't leave in time. The storm hit five days ago. Getting water and food and rescue a week late is likely to be a death sentence. Private individuals who have sought to provide aid, even the Canadian government's offers of assistance have been rebuked. President Bush stayed on vacation, while Condaleeza Rice decided to buy shoes and take in Broadway shows while Canada begged to provide some assistance.
Authorities seem more concerned about people grabbing perishables out of grocery stores that would otherwise rot, when they are in dire need and no one can sell goods to them at any price, than they do about helping those in need.
The national government has done nothing as panics as a result of broken pipelines have sent gas prices above $6 a gallon (from below $3 a gallon) in Georgia, and spurred similar panic in North Carolina.
I can accept that people who could not be evacuated or refused to evacuate might die from the force of the storm, although the inability of some people who wanted to leave to do so for lack of transportation, many of whom have now spent days of privation in the Superdome, was itself inexcusable. I can accept that any hurricane of this force would have left thousands of people homeless.
But, I cannot accept that our government has let many, many people die after the event because it has bungled the job of providing aid to the victims. I cannot accept that New Orleans has flooded because the Bush Administration postponed levy work to spend the money on Iraq and tax cuts, as documented in nine seperate articles from 2004 and 2005 in the Times-Picayune.
This disaster has been as devistating as it has been because our leaders have failed us and betrayed our trust. This didn't have to be an event with deaths rivaling the Galveston Hurricane in 1900, or the San Francisco Earthquake in 1906, or the Titanic shipwreck in 1912, or the Lake Okeechobee flood in Florida in 1928 or the Johnstown flood in Pennsylvania in 1889, or 9-11, but those are the only events in U.S. history that are comparable. It didn't have to have property damage comparable to the great Chicago fire of 1871. But, it did.
Katrina will cost us thousands of lives, instead of hundreds. There will be hundreds of thousands of refugees for months, instead of thousand of refugees for weeks. The economic damage will be in the hundreds of billions, instead of the billions. This was a catastrophe and it was a needless one. There is nothing wrong with being an estate planning attorney from Colorado, I am one myself. But, that isn't the proper experience base for running the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is charged with responding to national disasters. This disaster was as bad as it was because President Bush and the people he chose to work for him and carry out his policies made decisions that were literally dead wrong.
To learn how to help, click on this link, where they noted this afternoon that: "The word is that in Jefferson Parish and Orleans, FEMA has 'bugged out.' They haven't brought supplies in." They know better than I do. I'm just a Colorado estate planning lawyer.
31 August 2005
New Orleans Disaster Note.
Much has been made of the fact that New Orleans must be safe because the city is 300 years old. But, this 300 year span must be interpreted in light of an important detail:
The part of New Orleans that is 300 years old did survive unflooded. It is the less historic part of the city that is underwater now.
As the day wore on, the only dry land was a narrow band from the French Quarter and parts of Uptown, the same small strip that was settled by Bienville amid the swamps.
The part of New Orleans that is 300 years old did survive unflooded. It is the less historic part of the city that is underwater now.
29 August 2005
New Orleans: Tipping Point or Nadir
New Orleans is at a turning point. It is being pummeled by a category 4 hurricane, Katrina, which made landfall 40 miles from downtown. By itself, this is not the end of the world. There isn't a city in the Southeast that hasn't been hit by a serious hurricane at some point or another in its history.
But, New Orleans was not at a great point before this happened. No major city in the South has declined in population more markedly in the past twenty-five years (unless you count St. Louis as a major Southern city). The City has been bedeviled by corruption and crime. There are also doubts about whether the city's cycle of levee and pump building is a sustainable solution to the fact that much of the city is below sea level. There is a real risk that property owners with the buildings seriously damaged and an insurance check in hand will choose to leave now, rather than rebuild.
Certainly, a large share of the building stock in the city will have to be torn down or rebuilt. But, the options chosen in that process will remake the nearly 300 year old city more dramatically than any other event in its recent history. Obviously, new buildings will be built to a hurricane and flood conscious building code, but can the city be rebuilt in a way that will capitalize on its charm and vitality, as opposed to simply rechristening it as yet another generic city in the mold of places like Columbus, Ohio?
Like so many cities in crisis in the United States, New Orleans truly needs to hit bottom so that it can begin to rise again, rather than seeing a moment of bad fortune send it plummeting further and further down into irrelevance. This takes vision. But, it isn't clear that anyone in the Big Easy has the vision to make this happen.
But, New Orleans was not at a great point before this happened. No major city in the South has declined in population more markedly in the past twenty-five years (unless you count St. Louis as a major Southern city). The City has been bedeviled by corruption and crime. There are also doubts about whether the city's cycle of levee and pump building is a sustainable solution to the fact that much of the city is below sea level. There is a real risk that property owners with the buildings seriously damaged and an insurance check in hand will choose to leave now, rather than rebuild.
Certainly, a large share of the building stock in the city will have to be torn down or rebuilt. But, the options chosen in that process will remake the nearly 300 year old city more dramatically than any other event in its recent history. Obviously, new buildings will be built to a hurricane and flood conscious building code, but can the city be rebuilt in a way that will capitalize on its charm and vitality, as opposed to simply rechristening it as yet another generic city in the mold of places like Columbus, Ohio?
Like so many cities in crisis in the United States, New Orleans truly needs to hit bottom so that it can begin to rise again, rather than seeing a moment of bad fortune send it plummeting further and further down into irrelevance. This takes vision. But, it isn't clear that anyone in the Big Easy has the vision to make this happen.
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