Senate disaster thread. Realities and Responses to the Force of Nature

Beezel, I'm looking and in the plan you provided I'm finding much what mr44 said: the focus is all on evacuation. In fact it seems to say that those who are hard to evacuate are to got straight to the "last resort" refuges. I can't see anything about support to evacuate those who can't or need assistance to get out.

 

page 13 states the primary vehicle will be personal but for those with special needs schoolbuses and those donated by volunteer organizations will work as well.

This plan is a really great one.

They thought of alot.

It even provides them what how to coordinate with hospitals and who is in charge of taking care of those with special needs.

For some odd reason I can quote and paste from it.

 

Because in the Terry Schiavo case, Congress was already in session, and members who supported reinsertion of her feeding tube had already drafted the resolution previously when he tube was removed. They anticipated the case coming their way and pulled out the proposed bill.

Katrina, on the other hand, hit while Congress was on recess and they are given by law a certain amount of time to assemble for an emergency session. Also, FEMA and DHS had already approved $1 billion in support operations. The additional appropriations okayed by Congress and signed by President Bush were additional dollars for support operations, and to send to various states housing refugees from New Orleans and other areas affected by the storm.


Yancy

 

Beezel: I beg to disagree that the plan is "great":

1. Where are the suggestions for people to converge to catch buses?

2. Where are suggestions for camps to be set up outside the city? Meaning, where are these people supposed to evacuate to, anyway?

3. What's supposed to be done about the possibility of fires in the wake of evacuation? What about all the chemical plants that if flooded may cause toxic wate to occur?

4. Most importantly, where are the estimations on the numbers of emergency staff needed?

The plan is pretty basic and focuses almost entirely on evacuation -- eerily, just as mr44 said.

 

Congress also voted at night for it.

 

Irrelevant, Congress will stay to conduct the day's business until it is done. While in session Congress is routinely there until the late hours of the night to finish votes on various bills.

BTW for Gonk, I posted this in the other thread:

That's just the supplement that addresses additional information, the full 252 page plan is here:

http://www.ohsep.louisiana.gov/plans/STATE%20OF%20LOUISIANA%20EOP%202005.doc

with supplements for Souteast Loisiana (New Orleans) here:

http://www.ohsep.louisiana.gov/plans/EOPSupplement1a.pdf

Southwest Louisiana here:

http://www.ohsep.louisiana.gov/plans/EOPSupplement1b.pdf

and additional Shelter Plan information here:

http://www.ohsep.louisiana.gov/plans/EOPSheltersupplement.pdf


Oh, and this site:

http://www.cityofno.com/portal.aspx?portal=46&tabid=1

has a full breakdown of New Orleans' own emergency preparedness plans... lots of good reading there.

Yancy

 

Here's a News Release from the Army Corps of Engineers that explains the entire condition of the levees and funding for them:

http://www.usace.army.mil/PA-09-01.pdf

Yancy

 

Let my silence signify that I have been Pwned.

 

The difference between the Terri Schiavo case and the hurricane was that the hurricane was a suprise. The Senate and House leadership had been working to get that bill written in the week before their spring recess. It was pretty well known among the staff that they would probably be comign back and so the bill clerks, reading clerks, cloakroom staff, etc. all began to cancel their flights well in advance. The only people that had to fly back were the Members who had already returned to their districts, and they were given official notice a day in advance. The hurricane came out of nowhere, and appropriations bills are not as easy to write as the one with Terri Schiavo.

 

Yes, but consider the insignificance of Terri Schiavo in the grand scheme of things in how this nation is run. And then consider that a hurricane (with a week's warning, not much of a surprise) effects the whole of the US. And you can see how ****'ed up our congress' priorities are.

 

I highly doubt it was a matter of priorities. It was simply easier to pull of the Terri Schiavo thing because they had just left for vacation, and most of the staff was in town. Congress takes a lot to run, because there are many people, besides the Members, that you NEED. In fact, you don't even need members as this bill passed by voice vote(no quorum), but you still need to bring back many many people from vacation all over the place.

 

The hurricane was not the surprise. This country is threatened with them all the time and is almost complacent about them.
New Orleans was different becuase of FLOODING, which was not anywhere near the problem in Florida last year.

Congress, BTW, is only one branch of Government. Louisana elected its local officials with the implication that they would pull their own weight in the event of a disastor. Considering Bush was begging the Mayor to evacuate for TWO DAYS before the Mayor finally did, can we honestly say the blame is at the Federal level?
Congress bashers would ahve us believe the Local government has no other responsibility but to lounge around all day calling Bush every 5 minutes without a single care in the world.

 

What happened before the storm is the local government's failure and responsibility, what happened afterward is the federal government's failure.

 

Once again FID you miss the point.

The plan calls for the local governments to be sufficent for 3-4 days because that is how long the federal government willt ake to get releif in.

That is not an arbitrary time limit, they don't sit around drinking pineapple schnapps waiting for 3 days to pass so they can go in, the delay is caused by making things happen. If you expect instant gratification you're going to be disappointed, however wishing for something does not make it happen.

The local governments ******* up does not automatically make anything happen faster on the recovery end.

 

Of course it doesn't. But 6 days to even get anyone in there to help is really pathetic. Slow or no.

 

6 days? My math must be off then.

Katrina hit on sunday

The levees didnt break until mid to late monday.

Mon-tue Tue-Wed Wed-Thur Thur-fri.

4 days.


Did I forget Blurnsday?

 

IIRC and the news reported it properly it took nearly 6 days for any help to arrive or aid.

 

If I can count correctly you and your media are wrong.

1, 2, 3, 4.

I'm pretty sure I'm right, but lets go ask CNN.

And the answer is

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- Four days after Hurricane Katrina devastated much of the northern Gulf Coast, tired and angry people stranded at the convention center in New Orleans welcomed a supply convoy carrying food, water and medicine with cheers and tears of joy.

 

MSNBC reported that it was five days, almost six before any aid got there.

 

Well, lets do the math again and see if there's a difference.

Levees failed late monday.

Late Monday->Late Tuesday: 24 hours
Late Tuesday->Late Wednsday: 48 hours
Late Wednsday->Late Thursday: 72 hours
Late Thursday-> Early Monday when the convoy arrive: Somewhere between 80 and 85 hours.

Hmm A little less then four days from when the Levees broke, which any reasonable person can see was the poitn where New Orleans situation became a disaster (previously lets be honest, it was little more then side swiped) to when relief arrives.

The only way you get 6 days is by saying the outer edges of the hurricane started coming ashore sunday and treat that as a whole day, then treatign everything else as a whole day it's s, m, t,w, th, f.

But again this is incredibly dishonest and no one here would dream of doing that would they?

 

Everyone is so idealogically blinded that I have no doubt the newsmedia would stretch the numbers jsut to make the govenment look bad and therefore Bush by extension.

I wont blame Bush for failing a fix a problem that was somebody elses. The Mayor and Governor get complete and total blame first, only then will I entertain any federal mistakes.

 

With Michael 'heck of a job' Brown going back to DC, and still more (seemingly plausible) reports from the international media saying that among other things, the Mayor's reaction was competent, the governor asked for as much help as was possible from the feds, and that the federal government's reaction was just weak all over the place, what would it take for you to say 'Maybe Bush and his administration didn't do a great job'?

A lot of comments here seem to indicate that the corporations that own the mainstream American media are a shadowy cabal of liberals determined to undermine Bush (let's ignore the Judith Miller/runup to Iraq war/last three years generally for a sec, I guess). And that for real news and analysis, only conservative blogs will do (or in a pinch, an mainstream article that seems to support said analysis). I'm just wondering what the standard is for reliability. Do I need to find a hardcore Bush-lovin' blog that says he ----ed up? I would have thought that the pretty universal condemnation by the international media would be sufficient, or that bipartisan criticism in the States would say something, but maybe not. Does Little Green Footballs have to blast Bush or what? It's just so hard to discuss these things when the conservative majority in this thread thinks that no report of Bush failure can be true, but rather the result of that typical corporate liberal bias.

Looking at Bush's slow sink below 40% approval (never thought it'd happen myself), you have to give the conservative movement props. Apparently 38-39% of Americans think Bush is doing an okay job (18-19%) or a great job (the rest). His approval among Republicans remains pretty damn good, while Democrats and Independents seem pretty tired of his performance. Thanks to this myth of a 'liberal media', I guess that nutty 20% that thinks Bush is kicking ass can feel free to assume that the bulk of the international media, and all the nonRepublicans, are just lying or confused. For members of the 'reality-based community', it's a bit tough to stomach.

But what is the apologist angle on Bush friend/resume padder Michael Brown being sent back to DC? Has W changed his appraisal of Brownie's awesome job these last weeks? Could a fraction of that corpo-liberal blame of FEMA and the feds have been grounded in reality? What's Rush have to say about it?

EDIT: Also, the attempted blocking of media coverage during the cleanup, what's that about? And who else is excited about companies with Bush ties getting cleanup contracts? Are these good ideas?

Anyway, gotta get dressed. I'm so psyched about the big 9/11 celebration today in DC!

 

I think I've been watching too much news about the hurricane. Last night I dreamed I was watching TV, and Governor Blanco was resigning during a press conference. What a boring dream.


But really. I think the news should stop all this Katrina coverage now, until there's actually a new story. I'm sick of it. What they SHOULD do is doing some research into other parts of the country, and warning people of other natural disasters that could happen at certain places, and informing people how to prepare and prevent them. Then they'd actually be doing something useful. Instead of keep repeating what went wrong with Katrina, start informing the public of other possible disasters and what to do, so you can fix what would go wrong with it before it even happens.

 

I want to go back on a previous argument I had with KK earlier on... I think it was this thread, and I want to use this thread because I'd rather not open a new one for debate when we can find another new use for the old one as the Katrina situation settles down -- at least as far as the initial impact.

The point was on climate change and how hurricanes were, or were not, getting larger and more numerous.

I had stipulated the following:

I think the fact we got a storm up here in the cold waters of the North Atlantic (2003), combined with a rare 6-storm year last year (2004), combined with a category 5 storm this year (2005), combined with the fact that there is a very prevailent theory of climate change that has been present for many years, might be a valid starting point to consider the possibility that this might not be just a natural cycle.

KK posted a summary (in response to me, but on another thread):

There have been 3 Category 5 storms to hit the US since 1851. They hit in 1935, 1969 (Camille), and 1992 (Andrew). Katrina will make it 4.

There have been 18 Category 4 storms to hit the US. 5 between 1851 and 1900, 7 between 1901 and 1950 (with two of those hitting in 1915), 5 between 1951 and 2000, and one in 2004.

There have been 71 Category 3 storms. 22 between 1851 and 1900, 26 between 1901 and 1950, 21 between 1951 and 2000, and 2 since 2001 (both in 2004).

There have been 72 Category 2 storms. 31 between 1851 and 1900, 24 between 1901 and 1950, 15 between 1951 and 2000, and 2 since 2001.

There have been 109 Category 1 storms. 39 between 1851 and 1900, 37 between 1901 and 1950, 29 between 1951 and 2000, and 4 since 2001.

Now, based on the average number of storms in each category for each period, we could expect that we would see forthe time period since 2001 (including 2001):
0-1 Category 5 storms
0-1 Category 4 storms
2-3 Category 3 storms
1-3 Category 2 storms
3-4 Category 1 storms

Looking at the raw statistics, the hurricane seasons are more or less about where we would expect. Yes, we got hit by a Category 5 storm earlier than we would expect, but that happens in a random distribution.

I wanted to post again my points here in the wake of the latest reports of Hurricane Rita being upgraded to a category 5 storm -- in fact CNN having reported it being the third most violent storm on record. I noted some of the other facts earlier -- at least one hurricane outside of the hurricane zone (rare), a 6 storm season last year (also rare) and now this year not just one Category 5 hurricane but... two? Before this year there were only 3 Category 5 storms since 1851. Now suddenly there's 5?

Again, isn't it time to start considering some of these effects may in fact not be simple cooincidence, or cyclical change? Or if it IS cyclical, that the cycles are getting more violent than they were in the past 150 years.

 

^^^^^^ Ocean water is rising in temperature. Thats a direct result of global warming - assuming you believe that old, dubious, wives tale, witches coven cult of SCIENCE. ( not you Gonk ).