Hurricane Katrina response

[kestra]

I'm reading alot on the web and in papers about the government's response to Hurricane Katrina; that they weren't quick enough, and that this sort of catastrophe could've been lessened if certain dikes and levies had received upgrades, etc..

Any Threshers living down there that can give their own opinion about the level and quality of response??

[Katidyd]

threshers down there would've lost all their belongings ya know

[kestra]

any Threshers in the surrounding states who have heard any first hand accounts, or has helped out refugees personally?

[Katidyd]

ok but wouldnt they still be out there in the middle of no power land helping out to have a spare moment to be here?

[Thalia]

A way to get a feel of how things are on the Gulf Coast is to read the local papers online. There are editorials and first hand accounts.

It's late and I'm too lazy/tired to find links but these are all online:

New Orleans Times Picayune
Biloxi Sun Herald
Mobile Register


New Orleans has nola.com too.

[Salimar]

I think what Kestra wants to stress is the fact that nobody has started a tread about this tragedy although it is the main news all over the world. Personally I checked these forum a few times, mainly to know how the disaster was being lived by American Threshers.

For instance, there have been threads for the London bombing, for the tsunami, for wars, for Sep. 11. Why not for Katrina? Does nobody care? is there no interest?

There are clearly things to talk about here. Like the disorganisation of the response to the humanitarian need, the lack of precautions before the disaster and the current effort to compensate the "a little too late".

For the long-term, will this response affect the present administration in the next legislatives?

There is enough material to create interest but the interest does not seem to exist, which is a strange fact to foreigners like Kestra and myself.

Salimar

[Malacasta]

There are a few posts here: http://www.thresholdrpg.com/forums/s...&threadid=2908
I'm not sure why people aren't commenting, perhaps it's because nobody knows anyone from the area?

[Aristotle]

Originally posted by Salimar

For instance, there have been threads for the London bombing, for the tsunami, for wars, for Sep. 11. Why not for Katrina? Does nobody care? is there no interest?

Reading is Fundamental:

http://www.thresholdrpg.com/forums/s...&threadid=2901

Thread started August 30.

As for why people are not going off on the various flamebait issues, I imagine it is because the newsmedia is doing it absolutely to death, and probably most folks are disgusted by the politicization of it.

Frankly, I'm sick of the fact that it is starting to feel like a permanent election cycle in the US.

[Caer]

Well, what is there to say? It's far too simple to assign blame to any factor.

People were under evacuation orders, but either refused to leave or did not have the means.

After the hurricane, there were numerous logistical issues to overcome in getting aid to the people still down there. Yes, perhaps the government was slow and underestimated the amount of guard and so forth that should be sent.

However, you have to consider that the rest of Mississippi and (to a lesser extent) Alabama had damage too, and relief efforts have to get -through- those areas to get to New Orleans and Biloxi. For example, from what I understand, the Red Cross had trouble getting in and getting aid efforts started because all the nearby hotels were already full with people who fled before the storm, so there was no where to lodge volunteers.

Another issue is that directly after the storm, New Orleans looked bad but mostly -okay-. It wasn't til the next day that the situation suddenly got worse, when there was a new breach in one of the levees.

Then relief efforts were hampered by people -shooting- at the very people trying to help.

When you add up all of these issues, the government really doesn't carry -all- the blame for the slow response. However, I will add that I certainly do think more could have been done in preparation for the storm. Unfortunately, hindsight is 20/20. Prior to the hurricane, everything that was being done sounded pretty much like the standard fare. People are told to evacuate, prepare buildings, etc. The soon-to-be affected areas were declared disaster zones. Official shelters were set up in the city. It's kinda hard to look at the Superdome and think "gee, that thing's not gonna make it and it's gonna turn into a madhouse cesspool afterwards".

At any rate, it's a full week later, but people are finally at shelters all over the Southeast. We have some residing at the civic center and a few other places here in Birmingham. Over this weekend, we did laundry for some of the refugees. According to my mother, everything is set up incredibly orderly and nice.


And finally, I want to add one issue that no one seems to have looked at and may actually be quite important. Perhaps part of the problem is that we are simply becoming acclimated to hurricanes. With two -busy- (record-breaking busy) seasons in a row, you get used to "here comes another one". It becomes increasingly easy to compare storms to past ones, and to underestimate the true threat that any one storm may pose. This is especially true when several really hyped-up storms end up not delivering the feared level of damage.

[Lokrian]

Meh...

I am from Texas and am working in the Alabama and Mississipi areas for Nationwide insurance. They got the roads cleared in Mississipi in good time. Power is an issue in southern Mississipi and gas continues to be at a premium pretty much anywhere south of I20. I am of the opinion helicopters should have been into New Orleans and other coastal cities earlier, but don't know enough about it to tell you who to blame.

I was stuck in Hattiesburgh I guess this time last week, though, and I think a large part of what people don't realize is it took a day or two just to get all the trees off the highways, quite litally a hundred miles and more from the coast... It might have been nice for the Highway Patrol to have set up roadblocks around the areas that had no power, as a lot of people ran out of gas in areas with no power and were stuck there. Most of them people who got too excited to get back home and assess the damage.

I'm kind of like most people who have already posted, in that I do think the blame game hit way to hard and early on this particular disaster. It's disheartening that no one else suggested anything, that there is silence from EVERYONE for a couple of days, then all of a sudden it is this or that person's 'fault'. Where were you, oh person laying the blame, on the first days? Why did you not speak up sooner if you saw things not working out correctly? It just seems a lot like manufactured angst to me. On the other hand, things do not improve unless people discuss what has gone wrong and how to make it better... But it did seem to get politicized awfully early.