FEMA Director Mike Brown was fired by the IAHA??? - Katrina TIMELINE on p.17

[LJD]

Did not read the entire thread so I don't know if this was already stated, however, why is no one involved in Lousiana politics being lambasted? Indeed, the Federal government has been slow to move on this and the situation is atrocious. But why is no one placing blame on the LA governor or mayor of New Orleans? They deserve some criticism for not ordering buses prior to the hurricane hitting. Shouldn't they have made the evacuation truly mandatory? Closed roads leading into the city?

[Erin]

I've been trying to find more detailed articles about what was and wasn't done for the initial evacuation, but am not turning much up. Here's one from Shreveport Times.

New Orleans had an evacuation plan that called for buses to help evacuate those without cars. There apparently WERE buses running, but they took people to the Superdome.

Another part of the evacuation plan was to open up the INbound lanes of the expressways to OUTbound traffic, which was done and apparently did work relatively well in easing some of the traffic congestions. It was reportedly better than it had been for the last near-miss hurricane that went through the area. (Ivan, perhaps?)

I recall on the day before the storm hit, they were saying that people going into the Superdome were supposed to bring 2-3 days' worth of clothing and food. So, obviously, they expected to be able to move people out shortly after the storm, but I haven't seen whether the city had a plan for moving them out, or if they expected the feds to do it, or if they just expected that people would be able to go home.

[Policy of Truth]

uh...Clinton was not all perfect either...he was President last time I checked when the first trade center bombing happened....and he did very little about it.

If you want to buy into Michael Moore's version and opinion on the events, go ahead. I choose not to buy into his opinion entirely. I personally don't like being told how to think about an event...I like to hear as many sides as I can before forming an opnion...but, to each his/her own. Same goes for reading books that paint Clinton as if he were the anti-Christ....whatever...I think both sides suck and are equal-opportinity jack asses who only serve to serve themselves.

Neither Bush nor Clinton is all good or all bad. They both have screwed up and trying to make "your guy" look great just makes me think you don't think anyone can be correct but you...

The poor WERE given the opportunity to evacuate by Red Cross. I do not know why a person would choose poverty AND being flooded over just poverty. If they were poor on Sunday, they were STILL going to be poor Monday....

I think the local government is the first to be repremanded for their lack of planning. The people of NO were paying taxes that paid salaries of people who did nothing to prepare for an event like this. The Federal government should NOT be the ones to decide if the levies of a city are appropriate. They DID their job...since when is it the Federal Governemnt who ought to dictate how states run? God help us if the Federal Government gets any more powerful! States have GOT to be more responsible for themselves...

I do not understand all the inner-workings of FEMA, but I know they USED to be ADDITIONAL help verses the primary help in a natural disaster.

If you are mayor of a city with lots of poor, as well as levies that could only withstand a cat 3, it is necessary to have some logical and reasonable and WORKABLE plans IN CASE BAD THINGS HAPPEN!!!! It is not Bush, FEMA, or any other person's responsibility but YOURS. When people quit expecting everything to be the Federal Government's responsiblity, I imagine we'll all be happier and less taxed....but that's a whole 'nother issue.

[Glimmerglass]

Did anyone see the rather interesting flashback article on the drudgereport from the Times-Picayune that spoke to the whole crisis that would face the local folks in the event of a massive hurricane - from June 24, 2005?

It's not like an evacuation procedure by the idiot chuckle heads who oversee N.O. - including those worthless, corrupt police and the idiot mayor - shouldn't have been worked out well in advance. They were too busy counting their bribes and asking women to flash for beads to be bothered I assume with disaster drills.

NEW ORLEANS FLASHBACK: OFFICALS WARNED RESIDENTS 'YOU'LL BE ON YOUR OWN'

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">But the TIMES-PICAYUNE published a story on July 24, 2005 stating: City, state and federal emergency officials are preparing to give a historically blunt message: "In the event of a major hurricane, you're on your own."

Staff writer Bruce Nolan reported some 7 weeks before Katrina: "In scripted appearances being recorded now, officials such as Mayor Ray Nagin, local Red Cross Executive Director Kay Wilkins and City Council President Oliver Thomas drive home the word that the city does not have the resources to move out of harm's way an estimated 134,000 people without transportation."

"In the video, made by the anti-poverty agency Total Community Action, they urge those people to make arrangements now by finding their own ways to leave the city in the event of an evacuation.

"You're responsible for your safety, and you should be responsible for the person next to you," Wilkins said in an interview. "If you have some room to get that person out of town, the Red Cross will have a space for that person outside the area. We can help you." </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

[Lily]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by pacificsolo:
If you are mayor of a city with lots of poor, as well as levies that could only withstand a cat 3, it is necessary to have some logical and reasonable and WORKABLE plans IN CASE BAD THINGS HAPPEN!!!! It is not Bush, FEMA, or any other person's responsibility but YOURS. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

How many category 5 hurricanes have reached land in recent years? Not many. So the odds that one would hit New Orleans were fairly low.

To play devil's advocate, pacificsolo, what would you honestly rather the Louisiana government spend its money on: contingency planning for something statistically unlikely, or dealing with omnipresent problems like education and poverty? I'm sure they all thought they were making the right decisions at the time. Hindsight is 20/20.

[Cartier]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">If you are mayor of a city with lots of poor, as well as levies that could only withstand a cat 3, it is necessary to have some logical and reasonable and WORKABLE plans IN CASE BAD THINGS HAPPEN!!!! It is not Bush, FEMA, or any other person's responsibility but YOURS. When people quit expecting everything to be the Federal Government's responsiblity, I imagine we'll all be happier and less taxed....but that's a whole 'nother issue. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>


It has been long recognized that there are limits to local government’s budget and resources and that for the greater good of this society we all have an interest in providing assistance. We created federal agencies to address emergency situations (like Katrina) which exceed the resources of local government. The single purpose of these federal agencies is to step in when needed and assist - to the benefit of American citizens and America’s interests.

[Erin]

Glimmer, that's obviously what happened... people were on their own.

But honestly... is it even POSSIBLE for a city to evacuate some 50-100,000 people within 24 hours? What do other hurricane-prone states do? Or is this only a problem because New Orleans has such a large percentage who live below the poverty line and are unable to evacuate on their own? Or is it only a problem because the city is so low and will flood, and it's not the hurricane that people have to worry about, but the rising waters?

I know the righty blogs are going nuts over the picture of the 200-odd school buses outside NO and saying those could have been used to get people out. (Before they were underwater of course.) But what I want to know is, REALISTICALLY, is that possible? Or is talking about a complete evacuation total folly because no city can ever achieve it?

[Glimmerglass]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Lily:
How many category 5 hurricanes have reached land in recent years? Not many. So the odds that one would hit New Orleans were fairly low.
</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Ok apply the same statement to California with talk of "the really big one" hitting. Hasn't happen since the last one since the 1906 one in SF.

So you could say the same about there too - do you really think No. California is sitting on it's hands claiming "well it hasn't happened yet". Nope - they work on disaster drills as do most metro cities, from Chicago to New York.

So why did a city below sea-level with a surrounding levy (clearly warned by the Army Corps of Engineers that it couldn't take Cat 4 or above) just play the "odds are it won't ever happen" game?

[kb]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Erin:
I've been trying to find more detailed articles about what was and wasn't done for the initial evacuation, but am not turning much up. Here's one from Shreveport Times.

New Orleans had an evacuation plan that called for buses to help evacuate those without cars. There apparently WERE buses running, but they took people to the Superdome.

Another part of the evacuation plan was to open up the INbound lanes of the expressways to OUTbound traffic, which was done and apparently did work relatively well in easing some of the traffic congestions. It was reportedly better than it had been for the last near-miss hurricane that went through the area. (Ivan, perhaps?)

I recall on the day before the storm hit, they were saying that people going into the Superdome were supposed to bring 2-3 days' worth of clothing and food. So, obviously, they expected to be able to move people out shortly after the storm, but I haven't seen whether the city had a plan for moving them out, or if they expected the feds to do it, or if they just expected that people would be able to go home. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

There were shelters set up all over the state for those that could not afford or locate a hotel - the Superdome was a shelter of last resort. But you have hit the nail on the head - everyone planned to be home in three or four days at the latest. That is historically the way it had been. The problem was when the levee broke. Then you had a situation where many of the people that could have helped with a situation like that had been evaucated. They were spread out over Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana...etc. One thing to really keep in mind regarding the evacuation is that the first time NOLA officials were informed that the hurricane was headed towards them was late Friday night. So people went to bed on Friday night under the assumption that the Florida panhandle was at risk and woke up Saturday morning and were told to leave. So really you had about 36 hours to evacuate EVERYONE in that region (Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama). You are talking probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 million people. It was a nightmare before it started.

[Glimmerglass]

Erin - worthy of another flashback ...

CNN Monday 8-28-05 12:10 am - "New Orleans braces for monster hurricane"

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Katrina is blamed for at least seven deaths in Florida, where it made landfall Thursday as a Category 1 hurricane. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

So they had several days not 24-hrs to address the issue of it being projected to hit N.O. Again the local officials just glad handed and talked with the media instead of doing their jobs in leading, preparing, and commanding.


<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Jesse St. Amant, the emergency management chief for Louisiana's southernmost Plaquemines Parish, said nearly 95 percent of the parish's 27,000-plus residents had fled by Sunday afternoon. Those who remained were being told that they are "gambling with their own lives." </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Looks like they were able to get out so and we can't say all were "rich" or had cars either.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Nagin estimated that nearly 1 million people had fled the city and its surrounding parishes by Sunday night. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

And these people got the hint too and when 1 million flee don't you think you could have had commondeered every freaking greyhound bus, school bus, tour bus, et al in the northern counties to start evacuating?

[Duffy]

Not that it matters, but I heard those headed to the Superdome were told to bring 3-5 days of food/water/supplies.

This is the first I've heard that there WERE sites available for shelter outside of the Superdome. I do NOT understand why more people were not evacuated. Period. It sure looked like there were school buses available. I don't CARE who's responsibility it was ultimately. Initially, it's the local and state governments' jobs, imo.

The political bashing is getting really old, folks...

[Lily]

Glimmerglass, I in no way meant to suggest that contingency planning should not be a budget item! I think it is horrible that there was no plan in place for such an incident.

What I meant to say was, because Louisiana is a low-wealth state, I can see how government officials would be able to justify to themselves low prioritization of contingency planning. Again, I don't agree- but it is easier to explain to taxpayers that you are spending money on current problems rather than a "just in case" for something that's never happened.

[SGray]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Lily:
How many category 5 hurricanes have reached land in recent years? Not many. So the odds that one would hit New Orleans were fairly low.

To play devil's advocate, pacificsolo, what would you honestly rather the Louisiana government spend its money on: contingency planning for something statistically unlikely, or dealing with omnipresent problems like education and poverty? I'm sure they all thought they were making the right decisions at the time. Hindsight is 20/20. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Exactly the point of the gentleman from the Army Corps of Eng. -- he said that they looked at statistics, probabilities and relative costs - this is what led to the decision to build to withstand a Cat 3 vs a Cat 5. They decided that the amount of money that it would take to upgrade to Cat 5 standard was not worth it given the probability of a direct hit.

[Perfect Pony]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Erin:
I know the righty blogs are going nuts over the picture of the 200-odd school buses outside NO and saying those could have been used to get people out. (Before they were underwater of course.) But what I want to know is, REALISTICALLY, is that possible? Or is talking about a complete evacuation total folly because no city can ever achieve it? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

You know, one thing people don't like to talk about is what really was the correct thing to do? What would have been better, thousands of people stranded in busses in a hurricane, or thousands of people in one place (the superdome)?

IF aid had arrived the next day as it should have (I mean, what do we pay our federal government to do??), would it not have been better to have all the people safe and dry in one place rather than spread all over the country?

The problem as I see it is that the aid never came. People waited days at evacuation spots and things decended into chaos. Had the national guard swepped in immidiately and food and water arrived within 24 hours, I believe we would have seen a much different outcome.

[Erin]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Glimmerglass:
And these people got the hint too and when 1 million flee don't you think you could have had commondeered every freaking greyhound bus, school bus, tour bus, et al in the northern counties to start evacuating? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

But that's exactly what I'm asking...

What would it take for a city to evacuate all those people left behind for whatever reason? Can they legally comandeer buses? Who would drive them? I can't see some Greyhound driver saying "Sure, I'll head SOUTH into the path of the storm and drive around the ghettos of NO and pick up people for you."

I believe Katrina was originally expected to turn northeast rather quickly and thus, as kb said, would have hit the panhandle. It didn't, so it got much stronger and bigger. Realistically, I think the earliest anyone knew it was going to be as bad as it was was about 48 hours ahead.

Part of the problem, I'm sure, is that people who live in the area get used to being told "Oooh, this could be bad!" and don't always take it seriously. I remember when Isabel was headed here, the local news was going NUTS... I'm from tornado country, and I don't know nothing about no hurricanes! So it freaked me out and I took it seriously. But I'm sure if this is an annual occurence, people wait until they're SURE it's going to be bad before taking off.

Whether that's right or wrong, that's human nature, and an evacuation plan has to take that into account. Realistically, I think in most cases you're talking about a 24-36 hour window in which to evacuate people.

[nhwr]

There are 2 significant factors that cause the problem in New Orleans; poverty and the lack of a coordinated relief plan.

It is easy for all of us, who just got off our horses, to say the poor should have left behind everything they have worked their whole lives to acquire. But let's face it, if you own a horse, you don't know the first thing about being poor. We may fret if we have to wait an extra week to get our horse's feet done or wonder how we are going to pay the vet, but we don't have a clue about the life of the poor. We dimissively say they should have just boarded the buses (that Nagin did provide, BTW). But I don't think it would be that easy to leave behind all that you truly had. I have been evacuated because of a wild fire. It was pretty hard to face. I turned my horses loose, took some photo albums, some heirlooms and thought I'd have fun shopping for anything else with the insurance money. But I knew I'd have the means to recover what I'd lost. I was amazed that many of my neighbors refused to leave. For those of you that don't understand why some stayed, thank your lucky stars for your ignorance. You guys need to start a clique for the Marie Antionette school of social consciousness

The storm cause the devastation. But the lack of response after the storm is what caused people to die by the thousands. If you think Nagin sounded "inappropriate", consider where he was, watching suffering and choas, not on TV, not from an Airforce 1 fly by. He was living it. The premise of his question is valid, why did it take so long? I am sure we will have followup investigations and commissions to find this out. And they will be as elucidating as what we learned from 9/11. What is the purpose of the Federal government, if not to respond to a crisis like this.

[kb]

Erin - that is exactly the case...they evacuated for Ivan and Georges....and nothing. My sister left Saturday kicking and screaming about it. The only reason she did so is because my parents (who reside in Houston) were in town and the literally forced her to do so. Her exact words - we do this all the time for nothing.

There were busses at the Superdome to take people to the shelters outside of the city...they refused to get on them and go.

[Erin]

nhwr, I agree... I think those who are really, seriously poor probably have a much stronger attachment to what little they do have than the rest of us. Again, it's not necessarily right or wrong, but is human nature.

kb, are you sure about the buses going out of the city? Like I said earlier, I haven't turned up much info about the local response and I'm really curious what actually happened.

I tend to agree with Perfect Pony that the people who were in the Superdome (which was still structurally quite sound... I don't think the people there were ever in danger from the storm itself), while obviously not in ideal conditions, were more or less OK the day after... and the day after that. When we started to hit 3 and 4 days (and longer) and they were still there, that's when things really began to fall apart.

Could people have been moved out of the Superdome earlier, and whose responsibility was it at that point... the locals or the feds?

[Duffy]

In my expert opinion. The initial stocking of the Superdome should have been handled by the local/state level of government and the individuals who were supposedly advised to BRING provisions to last 3-5 days. I think the Feds should have been set up to take over within 5-7 days.

[SGray]

if Galveston could raise itself in 1900 then surely New Orleans can be raised now



http://www.1900storm.com/rebuilding/index.lasso

The 1900 Storm: Tragedy and Triumph





Dredge material is pumped into the island during the
grade raising after the 1900 hurricane. Residents endured
years of pumps, sludge, canals, stench and miles of catwalks
during the project. Photo courtesy of Rosenberg Library.

Post-storm rebuilding considered
'Galveston's finest hour'

By MICHAEL A. SMITH
The Daily News

GALVESTON - The great storm that came roaring out of the Gulf of Mexico 100 years ago, destroying this island city and assuring its place in history, deserves its due.

But the wind and water and death brought by the unnamed hurricane, even the acts of courage and sacrifice played out in its face, are only half the story.

For while the story that began Sept. 8, 1900, is one about the fate of people at the hands of nature, it's also one about people altering their own fates by changing the face of nature.

Storm and early aftermath

Historians contend that between 10,000 and 12,000 people died during the storm, at least 6,000 of them on Galveston Island. More than 3,600 homes were destroyed on Galveston Island and the added toll on commercial structures created a monetary loss of $30 million, about $700 million in today's dollars.

The Great Storm reigns today as the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history. But while the storm was phenomenal, so was the response of the people who survived it.

"Sunday morning, the day after the disaster, began with the sound of bells from the ruined Ursuline Convent calling people to worship," wrote historian David G. McComb in "Galveston: A History."

It was a fitting beginning.

Despite the unimaginable devastation and what must have been a hard realization that it could happen again, the city immediately began pulling itself out of the mud.

By 10 a.m. Sept. 9, Mayor Walter C. Jones had called emergency city council meetings and by the end of the day had appointed a Central Relief Committee.

Ignoring advice from its sister paper, The Dallas Morning News, that it move temporarily to Houston, The Galveston Daily News continued publishing from the island and never missed an issue. Sept. 9 and 10, 1900, were published together on a single sheet of paper. One side listed the dead. The other reported the devastation of the storm.

In the first week after the storm, according to McComb's book, telegraph and water service were restored. Lines for a new telephone system were being laid by the second.

"In the third week, Houston relief groups went home, the saloons reopened, the electric trolleys began operating and freight began moving through the harbor," McComb wrote.

Residents of Galveston quickly decided that they would rebuild, that the city would survive, and almost as soon, leaders began deciding how it would do so.

The two civil engineering projects leaders decided to pursue - building a seawall and raising the island's elevation - stand today and are almost as great in their scope and effect as the storm itself.

Raising the grade

It's impossible to stand anywhere in the historical parts of Galveston and get exactly the same perspective a viewer would have gotten 100 years ago.

Everything is higher than it was back then, and some spots are much higher.

The feat of raising an entire city began with three engineers hired by the city in 1901 to design a means of keeping the gulf in its place.

Along with building a seawall, Alfred Noble, Henry M. Robert and H.C. Ripley recommended the city be raised 17 feet at the seawall and sloped downward at a pitch of one foot for every 1,500 feet to the bay.

The first task required to translate their vision into a working system was a means of getting more than 16 million cubic yards of sand - enough to fill more than a million dump trucks - to the island, according to McComb.

The solution was to dredge the sand from Galveston's ship channel and pump it as liquid slurry through pipes into quarter-square-mile sections of the city that were walled off with dikes.

Their theory was that as the water drained away the sand would remain.

Before the pumping could begin, all the structures in the area had to be raised with jackscrews. Meanwhile, all the sewer, water and gas lines had to be raised.

McComb wrote that some people even raised gravestones and some tried to save trees, but most of the trees died. In the old city cemeteries along Broadway, some of the graves are three deep because of the grade raising.

The city paid to move the utilities and for the actual grade raising, but each homeowner had to pay to have the house raised.

By 1911, McComb wrote, 500 city blocks had been raised, some by just a few inches and others by as much as 11 feet.

The Seawall

The most apparent of Galveston's efforts to prevent a repeat of 1900's devastation is the seawall, which today runs from just past Boddeker Drive on the east end to just past Cove View Boulevard on the west.

The current span of just more than 10 miles was built in six sections in a period of almost 60 years, said County Engineer Mike Fitzgerald.

The oldest part of the seawall still visible runs from Sixth street to 39th street and was built between 1902 and 1904, he said.

"The original seawall ran from Eighth Street at the Galveston Wharf front to Sixth Street and from Sixth to 39th," he said.

The next section, which runs from 39th Street to 53rd Street, was built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to protect its property at Fort Crockett and was completed in 1905.

In the early 1920s, the county and U.S. Army extended the original wall eastward to protect Fort San Jacinto. That project took a sharp northward curve that originally ran from Sixth Street to Eighth Street out of the seawall.

The eastward run of the wall was extended again in the late 1920s and by 1926 ran all the way to the bay just past Boddeker Drive.

In 1927, a section of wall running from 53rd Street to 61st was completed, and the final run of the wall, from 61st to its current end, was built between 1953 and 1961, Fitzgerald said.

Fitzgerald, whose crews are charged with inspecting and maintaining parts of the wall, said he always was impressed with the engineering and construction of the wall.

"They did a great job," he said.

He said that aside from paving and painting stripes on Seawall Boulevard, there is very little to maintain. But while the engineers and builders did a good job, he said there are some glitches with the wall.

One is the fact that it's only 15.6 feet above sea level, when it was supposed to be 17 feet.

"These were marine engineers who were accustomed to measuring from mean low tide," he said.

Because of the difference between sea level and mean low tide, the seawall came out a little short.

One of the most important aspects of the seawall often goes unnoticed, he said.

"In a severe Category 4 or a Category 5 hurricane there will be some over-topping of the seawall," he said. "What a lot of people don't know is that the ground across Seawall Boulevard is sloped upward so it is 4 or 5 feet higher on the inland side than at the top of the concave surface."

The slope helps to break the action even of waves that manage to top the wall, he said.

The wall got its first real test in mid-August of 1915 when a hurricane of severity comparable to the 1900 Storm blew across the island.

While much of the city was flooded and most of the structures outside the protection of the original wall were destroyed, those behind it fared well.

The cost of such protection was high, though.

McComb estimated that it cost about $16 million to build the seawall and raise the grade.

For comparison, Fitzgerald said it would cost $10 million a mile to build the seawall in today's dollars - or more than $100 million total.

While Galveston received financial help from the county, state and federal governments, a large portion of the burden had to be carried by the city itself, at the expense of other projects.

McComb sums it up about as well as it can be:

"Human technology made it possible - for the city of Galveston to remain on such unstable land. The city did not flourish. Houston - left the island city far behind. Galveston simply survived.

"The public defenses against nature came at a high cost, but they succeeded for the most part. Its struggle for survival against nature through the application of technology represents the strongest tradition of Western civilization. Galveston's response to the great storm was its finest hour."
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