Via Tom Holsinger comes this Free Republic comment, as a response to a thread that offered lists of relief organizations et. al. for Hurricane Katrina's aftermath. A number of the thread denizens were annoyed re: the state and city government's poor response, whereupon "jeffers" said:
"It has been my policy for the last few days to look for and point up the brightest news I could find, because I knew what we might be facing long before Katrina ever made landfall. In my opinion, the time for optimism has passed. New Orleans did not dodge a bullet, New Orleans suffered a worst case doomsday scenario. But this is far far bigger than New Orleans alone.
By my count, America has lost not one city, but nine of them.... My purpose in being deliberately blunt today is twofold.
One, I do not believe that officials are being blunt with us or the media, for several reasons. They do not wish to start a panic, they do not wish to admit that they do not have a viable plan for dealing with between 40 and 410 thousand corpses, and they do not know how to house, feed and clothe one million people for even one week, let alone several months. Finally, I believe that their experts are telling them the exact same figures I am telling you, and, just like you, the officials do not want to believe something this bad could ever happen.
Two, I am being blunt because the scope of this disaster, the biggest disaster in the history of the United States, not one of the worst, the worst, has yet to be reported. Many, no even the majority, are pointing the finger of blame in various directions, without even barely comprehending the true scope of this event, while people who we know will die haven't died yet.
For those individuals I respectfully ask that you recalculate your priorities...."
What follows is a chilling and sobering layout of the disaster's full potential scope, the scenario that faced and faces Louisiana authorities (and what would you do?), and a simple summing up. Here it is, in its entirety.
Lead, Follow, Or...
by jeffers
To: NautiNurse
Ok, the President has spoken, and I believe it is now time for all of us to being speaking bluntly. It has been my policy for the last few days to look for and point up the brightest news I could find, because I knew what we might be facing long before Katrina ever made landfall.
In my opinion, the time for optimism has passed. New Orleans did not dodge a bullet, New Orleans suffered a worst case doomsday scenario. But this is far far bigger than New Orleans alone.
By my count, America has lost not one city, but nine of them.
New Orleans, population 1.2 million, Slidell, pop. 26,000, Bay St. Louis/Waveland pop. 12,000, Long Beach, pop. 17,000, Gulfport, pop. 71,000, Biloxi, pop. 50,000, Ocean Springs, pop. 17,000, Psacagoula/Moss Point/Gautier, pop. 42,000, and Mobile, pop. 198,000.
I have figures in my possession that indicate a total maximum death toll of 410,000 Americans and a minimum death toll of 41,000 Americans.
I derived these figures as follows.
During the Hurricane Ivan mandatory evacuation, 600,000 people answered the call for mandatory evacuation, out of a total population of 1.2 million in the metro area. 600,000 remained behind. If half of those remaining behind did not survive the storm, or will not survive from this point onward, then the death toll in New Orleans alone will rise to 300,000 people. This is clearly a pessimistic approach, but I would remind the doubters that total rescue efforts yesterday saved, by the most optimistic estimates, 3,000 people. 3,000 out of potentially 300,000.
On the brighter side, if the pre-storm estimates prove to be true, then only 300,000 people did not evacuate in the greater New Orleans metro area, 100,000 of those within the city limits as claimed by the Mayor of that city. If only one in ten of the people trapped in attics and on their roofs died, or will die before they are rescued, the death toll in New Orleans alone will rise to 30,000 souls lost.
One in ten stay, one in ten of those die, 30,000, total. Just in New Orleans.
These numbers are speculative, and, having demonstrated the method used in deriving them, you may judge for yourselves their validity. Before you dismiss them out of hand, you should be aware that pre-storm death-toll estimates from the Red Cross ranged from 25,000 to 100,000 for New Orleans alone. Engineers tasked by the City with estimating worst case scenarios estimated a death toll of 40,000. FEMA estimates were 50,000 deaths for New Orleans alone.
It is my personal view that any final death toll under 41,000 will be considered a victory. The more the final count falls short of this, the luckier we will have been.
Though these numbers are speculative, other data is not.
All of the above listed cities have been reported as having lost a minimum of half of their buildings and structures. With a total population for the region, just from the cities, rural areas excluded, this means that currently, 820,000 people have no homes and are refugees. It is probable that this figure is actually over one million.
Many of these, perhaps half, perhaps half a million people, are walking wounded or even in critical need of medical attention. Seen any hospitals that will hold half a million people lately?
My purpose in being deliberately blunt today is twofold.
One, I do not believe that officials are being blunt with us or the media, for several reasons. They do not wish to start a panic, they do not wish to admit that they do not have a viable plan for dealing with between 40 and 410 thousand corpses, and they do not know how to house, feed and clothe one million people for even one week, let alone several months. Finally, I believe that their experts are telling them the exact same figures I am telling you, and, just like you, the officials do not want to believe something this bad could ever happen.
Two, I am being blunt because the scope of this disaster, the biggest disaster in the history of the United States, not one of the worst, the worst, has yet to be reported. Many, no even the majority, are pointing the finger of blame in various directions, without even barely comprehending the true scope of this event, while people who we know will die haven't died yet.
For those individuals I respectfully ask that you recalculate your priorities.
To those who would blame the mayor of New Orleans, I would ask you to prepare, in the course of three days, to completely evacuate and rebuild a city of approximately one million people. I would further constrain you by telling you to expect that the energy to be released on your city in the coming days will be equal to the detonation of one United States W81 0.5 megaton thermonuclear warhead on your city and the surrounding areas, each and every single minute that the storm is overhead.
Not only do you have to plan and build a new city in three days, that will house one million people, you must also facilitate the traffic flow of 800,000 of those people to an area that will not be affected by the rain of 450 kiloton nuclear weapons the storm will drop after it leaves your city.
You have to find, and physically force some portion of the 100,000 remaining persons to leave, and you have to find and transport the remainder of that 100,000 people who cannot do so on their own.
Whatever routes you choose to get to your brand new one million person city will be shared with mandatory evacuees from the entire two or three state region.
Beginning on the second day of your one million person new city construction project, every asset you and your staff possesses, cars, houses, offices, telephones, computers, and basic necessities, will be unavailable, under water.
At this point you will have to make some very hard decisions. No city government is capable of building a one million person city, not in three years and certainly not in three days, but this is only the beginning. When the levees begin to fail, you will have to start choosing who gets to live and who gets to die.
Not one at a time, you will be forced to decide whether large groups of human beings, your constituents, 20,000 in the Dome, 60,000 in each of three flooded parishes, another 50,000 in the downtown area, get to live or are abandoned. Will you save the people trapped on flooded roofs, or fix the levee and let them die? How many will die if you do not fix the levee?
When your best engineers tell you that they cannot close the breach before it floods the city, will you even try? When they tell you that even if by a miracle they succeed and seal the breach, that 50 others are ready to pop at any time, what then? If you seal that breach, or even try, the people on the roofs will die. If you do not seal the breach, who knows how many in the city's center will die.
But your task is not yet complete, far from it.
The largest seaport in the US has been destroyed. How will ships get in to help you?
The largest river in the US is now blocked to ocean going ships, and river going ships. Will you just let it sit there, blocked, while the rest of the country starves for gasoline, not to mention hundreds of other necessities?
All but one of the bridges into and out of your city are destroyed, but you don't even know this, not at first. You can't get even one block from your office without a chainsaw and a crane. Your helicopters are either 200 miles away or destroyed. Your phones don't work and your power is out. Will you divert resources from saving people in attics to look over the highways to see which are open and which are closed? Will you choose to check the roads, and begin cleaning the roads, if the price of doing so is to let a thousand people in local hospitals who require electricity to live, and who therefore must be evacuated, die in their hospital beds?
Perhaps instead, you will choose to place a priority on looters, who are shooting at hospitals and policemen. Who will you allow to die, while you divert assets to maintaining security?
This is just the beginning. You still have 30,000 people in the Super Dome, the water is rising, they are getting sick and they are near rioting. What are you going to do with them?
By now, you are hopefully beginning to understand the error in trying to fix blame, at least this early.
You do not, a city does not, even the United States does not build a brand new one million person city in one day.
If you try, you seal the deaths of thousands and thousands of people. What you do first is call in the Feds. This is so far beyond the capacity of any city, even New York, that the Feds have the only chance at success. But you are the mayor, you have known for years how many cops you have, how many National Guards you have, and that the numbers available to you are less than a tenth of what you need. The Federal Government is the ONLY answer.
But even the Feds do not rush into a disaster of this magnitude. If you want to know exactly how long it takes a trained crew to set up a one million person city, I cannot give you the answer. But I can tell you how long it takes to set up the headquarters that will run a one million person city.
It takes three days. We just saw it done. We just saw how professionals work. They do not run into a disaster area with two other guys and immediately bog down, buried under a task far too large to comprehend. No, they assess the situation first. That takes 24 hours. I have never seen any kind of a hurricane damage overview in less than 24 hours after the eyewall passed the area. They assess and then they move an advance team in to build the headquarters and support facilities necessary to command the entire relief effort. While that is being built, the lower echelon units ar packing and getting into trucks and flying their helicopters closer to the area. Closer, but not in, because they, and you, do not know exactly where it is safe for them to set up, or even where they will be needed.
But once you have the headquarters up, and the troops nearby, things begin to happen quickly. Now, instead of having to choose whether this 10,000 person group dies, or that 30,000 person group stays on the roofs, you have entire battalions to throw at the problem. Battalions to throw at each problem and more in reserve. Battalions that are fed and watered and equipped and supported and have a place to sleep. Battalions that you can sustain and keep working, not for a few days, but for the months that they will be needed.
Now, you have a plan. Now, you have the tools you need, the roads, the choppers, the aircraft, the rifles, and the boats. Now you can do the job right.
But you don't have any of that as the Mayor. I don't care if you are Boss Tweed or the least corrupt politician in hostory, you do not have the resources you need, not by a factor of ten and maybe not by a factor of one hundred.
There is only one option open to the mayor. Finger in the proverbial dike, and yell for the Feds. When you understand the real scope of this storm, then you understand that the Mayor's job was to hold the fort and yell for help.
Only then can you make an accurate assessment of how well the mayor performed his or her task.
But it still isn't time for that. Not yet. Not for a long time.
America faces the worst disaster in its history. More dead than Pearl Harbor. More than 9/11. Maybe only ten times as many dead. Maybe 100 times as many.
A bigger fuel crisis than the 1973 Oil Embargo.
Nine American cities mostly or totally destroyed.
America's largest port, closed until further notice.
America's largest river, closed until further notice.
A 500 year, worst case doomsday scenario hurricane.
Now take a good hard look in the mirror.
Yes, you.
If we are going to lose 40 thousand dead, and at least half of those are alive right now, what is your priority?
If we are going to lose four hundred thousand dead, half a million people, and half of them are still alive right now, what is your priority?
It isn't time to point fingers of blame, even at the looters. 100 looters don't hold a candle to the 20,000 people that will die if they aren't rescued.
Ten thousand looters don't hold a candle to two hundred thousand people at risk.
This is a huge disaster, and it is important for America to learn how to think big. If you aren't capable of walking past ten dying people to save 100 dying people, then at the very least, stay out of the way of those who can.
You know what the price is, if you don't.
When you start thinking big, you start understanding that one person doesn't count anymore. Not the mayor, not the governor, not even President Bush. Bush will not fix this, the New Orleans police will not fix this, and the National Guard will not fix this.
They aren't big enough.
Three hundred million American people are going to fix this, or else it isn't going to get fixed.
So for all the sidewalk superintendents, all the finger pointers, all those who would grab political power over this, I have one very simple question.
Do you stand with us, or are you going to just stand in the way?
At least one person gets it.
Thank you for a cogent and timely primer in what dealing with a major disaster means. There are indeed cold equations that need to be run. And no matter which of several solutions is chosen, people will die as a direct result.
I'm sending copies of this post to the talking heads and in-the-field anchors of the media. They need to stop pointing fingers and start talking about reality.
Sorry, I don't buy your "doomsday" scenario.
The WSJ reported an estimate that 80% or NO evacuated. I don't know what the real number is, but I am ready to bet that most of those people will find shelter with friends/relatives for as long as necessary without straining either the "mayor" or the "president".
What of the 20%? There are thousands that need help. Those in hospitals, nursing homes etc. These people will be helped mostly by the folks that care for them usually, with an assist by FEMA and others. The true helpless are only a small fraction of the 20% still in NO and other devistated areas.
Who are the others? Those that chose to remain because of fault or folly. The images of the looters leaves little doubt that they are not "helpless", or starving, or dead (as you have calculated). They do pose a problem for the civilized government authorities as they try to aid the true helpless, and as the gov't tries to jumpstart the recovery process.
How many people are in need of immediate housing? 10, 20, 50, 100 thousand? Perhaps. Houston is ready to house 10K ... IN ONE BUILDING. The rest will be housed as soon as they can be directed and transported to safer areas.
Yes, there are logistical issues. Yes, it is a huge hit on the economy. Yes, it is a tragedy that many have died. But we, we the people, will not let this stop us from reorganizing and moving on.
Recovery will happen faster than you think. This will be due, not primarally due to FEMA, or the Red Cross, but due to the efforts of the 80% that left, and others who will help.
Help those in need recover. Don't wait for instructions from the gov't, but cooperate when they get there and offer to help.
People who refuse to evacuate a city below sea level when a huge hurricane hits have chosen to commit suicide. As free Americans, that is their right. We should respect their decision, and not blame the mayor (or any other government agent) for the results.
There are certainly hysterical people. I don't blame them. They have a lot to work through. But I think it is sad that just a couple of days after the fact I hear someone in New Orleans on some news channel say that we are "starving". No, you are 250 pounds and hungry. People in parts of Africa are starving. Just see about getting some water. Get a grip. Calm down. There is so much help on the way and that is already there that you won't believe that people could give as much.
We built a tent city in Kosovo in ten days to house one million people. Kept them fed and watered.
What I would do is get a nuke carrier into the vicinity and use it to make water for the people and vehicles and electricity to get the pumps running again. In addition it could serve as an airfield to get people in and out of the area. Add in an amphib carrier which has Marines and a lot of boats and you have a nice emergency services package. A nuke frigate would be better from a size point of view but they are all in the bone yard. Mine included (DLGN 25 the Bainbridge). Boo Hoo.
I wrote a bit about what the auto companies could do to make us better prepared.
Plug out hybrids?
Fred:
OK, let's say %20 remained in New Orleans. That is still 24,000 people. Sure, some of those people chose to stay. But I'll bet, especially in New Orleans, that evacuation was beyond their means, either physically or materially. These are the people who were most in need of help to begin with, and they're the starting point.
It's not just New Orleans. Coastal Mississippi was devastated. Alot of people thought they could ride it out, because their area survived Camille, for example. But the storm surge was much worse than Camille. Pass Christian and Bay St. Louis are completely gone, for example. Then there's the rural stuff. How many survivors in Plaquemines Parish? Not many, I'll wager.
I beleive Katrina fatalities are already above 20,000. It's not a doomsday scenario or hysteria.
These people will be helped mostly by the folks that care for them usually...
No, the people who are in New Orleans must be moved out of the city before they can be helped. The city is no longer safe, and it's going on three days without food, water and electricity. Moving them out will under current conditions will be a hurculean task as it is, and then they've got to be matched up with appropriate care. People who are able-bodied now may not be so in a day's time. People will start getting sick.
Recovery will happen faster than you think.
New Orleans in particular presents a refugee problem. Getting the water out of the city means building multiple coffer dams, pumping, repairing the levees, razing the structures, and then rebuilding. That will take a long time.
Rory:
I concur with your points. NO must be evacuated at this point. This is a logistical mountain to climb. This is where FEMA and the miltary resources will be very useful.
True recovery of NO will take quite a bit of time. Months to dry the place out to start with....
The devestation in Miss. and Alabama is also massive. I'm not trying to play down the facts -- I am try to emphasize that most people have the capacity /within themselves/ to recover. That is why I say that recovery will happen faster than we anticipate; because 1 million "homeless" people will be working out how to make /themselves/ un-homeless.
Of course the unaffected and the gov't will be helping as much as we can....
Let's hope that the death toll is not the 10K+ that some people have feared. At this point my educated guess is 2 to 4 thousand.
So we're largely in agreement. Except the death toll as it now stands. And believe me, I hope you're right. But seeing the true extent of the flooding doesn't make me optimistic.
I agree that no one could organize an emergency evac plan within 3 days. In this context, then everyone is doing the best they can - never good enough in a situation like this, but they are trying hard.
However, I constantly see media reports about U.S. Army Corp of Engineers and others writting about a doomsday scenerio for NO well before this happened.
So, the bigger question is was a doomsday scenerio ever planned for?
If not, why?
Who's decision and responsibility was it to plan or not to?
If they did plan, is this plan in action?
The coming days will reveal, I am sure.
YEs this situation was planned for. The Plan is now unfurling.
Let me add that from personal experience, the main artery from west to east, I-10, is low lying and very vulnerable to destruction by the Hurricane which is what happened. I-10 basically no longer exists; that means you need to make your own route, very difficult with all the water and swamps around NO from New Orleans Westward to Baton Rouge and points West. The River is also a possibility and if the Port is at all functional that might also get people out quickly. Upriver to Baton Rouge and then points West.
From New Orleans Eastwards to Florida it's a disaster. Roads simply don't exist, and there are few navigable rivers to move people and supplies in and out of the areas.
Good post.
Reality is a bitch, ain't it?
(If John Burgess is reading this blog I guess I should also. That's a great endorsement.)
"People who refuse to evacuate a city below sea level when a huge hurricane hits have chosen to commit suicide. "
Thousands of people in New Orleans have no access to a car. It's a big city full of poor people, many of whom rely on public transit. The Greyhound station in New Orleans closed Saturday morning.
As far as I've heard, neither Federal nor state nor local authorities made any preparations at all for evacuating the carless. They were abandoned. No buses, no trains, no fricking cattle cars.
It doesn't do any good to tell people to evacuate unless you also provide them a means to do so.
America's largest port, closed until further notice.
New Orleans is not America's largest port--it's America's fifth larget port ranked by tanker, sixth largest when ranked by tanker crude, third largest when ranked by tanker product, and fifteenth largest when ranked by container, according to Vessel Calls at U.S. Ports a publication of the United States Maritime Administration. http://www.marad.dot.gov/MARAD_statistics/vcalls2003.pdf
Seeing that you can't get that statistic right, it makes me wonder how much else you got wrong with your doomsday scenario.
I think that the post is somewhat alarmist, but it is at least as realistic as some popular thinking right now. This tragedy is not over. We haven't reached a turning point. The problems will only deepen in the coming days and weeks.
But I don't think that there are 410,000 people who are dead, nor do I think that is in the slightest realistic.
Right now, I estimate that there are ~6000 dead in New Orleans, ~500 dead in Plaquemines and St. Bernard Perish, ~12 dead elsewhere in LA. In Missippi, the final death toll will probably top 600. In Alabama, there are another 12 or so dead, and in Florida I think the confirmed death toll now stands at 8. I expect the final death toll will top 10,000, with most of the remaining being people who will die of exposure in New Orleans in the coming days. There will never be an exact count of the dead from this disaster.
As for the size of the port, to my knowledge it's America's 4th largest (though I've heard it refered to as high as 2nd), and handles 8% of all US shipping, including 16% of all US petroleum products and 24% of all US dry goods. That means that the price of bread and gasoline is going to take a big jump in the coming weeks. In fact, the price of grain might well go up world wide.
There are now about 1,000,000 people who are homeless and out of work, and who have lost everything that they have. Many of them are wandering around my city still unable to grasp what they should do next. The refugee crisis will deepen in coming days. I'm already beginning to see the effects of that here in Baton Rouge, even if no one else is. I'm considering temporarily getting my family out of here. I fully expect the US distribution system to burst at the seems in the next few days to weeks. We face the largest economic and refugee crisis in the United States since at least the Great Depression and possible since the Civil War. Conservatively, I think that the US has lost 6% of its annual gross domestic product to this tragedy. The aftershocks of that could deepen the crisis depending on how long its required to get the ports, refineries, oil platforms, and power plants back into operation.
Following Celebrim #15, New Orleans faces bleak future: City will encounter extraordinary problems in rebuilding, a story in today's WaPo on the long-term challenges facing New Orleans.
I live in Pensacola. I haven't been west of Mobile since the storm, but as my ex-wife and her family live there, I can categorically state that we have not "lost" Mobile. The power is already back on in most of the city. That fact alone casts doubt on the rest of the post's contentions. Like the other Fred, I don't want to minimize the scope of this, but guys, get a grip. The sky's not falling.
TJ, the people who chose to stay do deserve a Darwin award (though I feel for any children who died so their parents could win that award). But as another commenter said, many of the people who stayed did so because they didn't have the means to leave. In my view, that's a crime against humanity. Surely, those people could have been bussed out of the city and set up in a FEMA tent or trailer city until the crisis passes. If we can do it in Kosovo, surely we can do it here.
Simply getting clean, fresh water to all involved in trying to get out/stay afloat is going to be a trick. Without electricity, how many of those folks know what they should be doing to survive? Plenty of folks out there lack basic survival training, and may not realize that water, not food, is their immediate priority...
Katrina was a category 5 hurricane in the Gulf after swiping Florida.
We didn't know if it would hit New Orleans, East Texas, or the Florida Panhandle, but we knew it would hit one of them.
And today we learn that the hospital ship USNS Comfort will be ready to leave Baltimore on Friday? Five days after the storm struck?
This is totally unacceptable. It's incompetence at it's worst.
Thanks to the readers for adding their commentary, factual creections, etc. to this Guest Column. And thanks to the author for being so transparent about the calculation method, which is always commendable.
Meanwhile... Davebo, have you even the slightest idea how long it takes to get a ship from docked in port to fully anned, ready and under sail? It's not like hopping in your car, you know. Or any idea what the status of USNS Comfort was pre-hurricane?
Before you allege incompetence, you need to be competent enough yourself in he subject to know what you're talking about.
Joe,
Yes I do, something you pick up on after five years active duty in the Navy and 6 in active reserve.
We knew the ship would be needed, somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico, by last Thursday.
If you can come up with a reasonable excuse for why it is not ready to sail until 8 days later I'd love to hear it.
Does getting it bunkered at a US Naval yard take 8 days?
Can the they not get at least a partial crew prepared and on board with at least minimal supplies in 8 days?
You tell me. What's your theory? Or can I only expect more excuses?
Actually Joe, I'll give you an example with this very vessel.
Comfort was activated the afternoon of Sept. 11, 2001, in response to the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and sailed the next afternoon to serve as a 250-bed hospital facility at Pier 92 in midtown Manhattan. Comfort arrived Sept. 14 at Naval Weapons Station, Earle, N.J., to load additional supplies and Navy medical personnel. While there, the ship was informed that the crew’s mission had changed; Comfort would now be providing logistics services to disaster relief workers. Comfort quickly off-loaded nearly 450 Navy medical and facility support personnel and sailed to New York City with about 300 Navy medical personnel and 61 civilian mariners still aboard. The ship arrived at Pier 92 in Manhattan at about 8:30 p.m. Sept. 14.
That's less than three days from activation, onsite and in operations.
Somewhere between the highly negative status suggested by the author of the post/comment and the wildly optimistic prognoses I've read in other places (the New Orleans Hotel Inter-Continental has announced a September 12 re-opening conditional on the restoration of power and water) is the truth. We'll just have to dig in, work, and see what facts emerge.
Meanwhile, I think we should give Tim Oren's advice from yesterday some attention:In the two weeks, four weeks, or four months before New Orleans is ready to begin re-building (we're just trying to get people out at this point) there will be precious little left to save.
First came the wind, then the water, but the mold will render what's left behind useless. New Orleans is almost undoubtedly a total write-off. We can re-build a below sea-level city perched between a river and a lake that will continue to sink even if re-built. Should we?
Tom Paine said it in a very different time in a very different context: “These are the times that try men's souls.”
Katrina's Effect on U.S & World Trade
This is the big economic hit - temporary cessation of major shipping - perhaps almost all shipping - through the Mississippi Delta to the Gulf of Mexico. A truly gargantuan proportion of our GDP depends upon this.
It is normal for the Mississippi mouth to be temporarily closed to ocean-going ships following a hurricane in the area. The Corps of Engineers has to make certain the main shipping channels remain clear, and to remove new obstructions or dredge new mud flows as necessary.
So Katrina will have some effect here no matter what. Right now I've heard unconfirmed (for me) reports that the Corps of Engineers thinks the Mississippi has shifted its main channel through the Delta and has no idea where its major mouth is at the moment. Having to resurvey, clear and dredge a whole new major channel through the Delta would take months, and constitute THE major economic disaster from Katrina (for the U.S., though it would significantly affect world trade too).
And the Port of New Orleans is closed indefinitely. It is the port where most foreign cargo is transferred to and from Mississippi River barges to ocean-going shipping. It is much cheaper to move a lot of cargo up and down the river on barges than on ocean-going ships. AFAIK, at least 30-40% of the value of exports from the U.S. to foreign markets which passes down the Mississippi, and close to half the value of non-oil/POL imports going up the Mississippi, relies on the Port of New Orleans to get from barges to ships and vice-versa.
Things will be bad enough with the Port of New Orleans closed, though other river ports can probably make up for some of it, but closure of the entire Mississippi mouth for ALL sea-going traffic for significantly longer than the usual post-hurricane period would have a major, major, adverse effect on the U.S. economy.
And there is the loss of the Delta underground/undersea pipelines for crude oil and refined petroleum products due to earth and mud movements. That was a significant problem with the last major hurricane through this area. The problem is likely bigger now, but rebuilding of those pipelines will be slowed by higher priority demands due to all the other damage this time.
But the shipping issue is the biggie.
Davebo - you're the one who made the charge. You may be right, you may not. In order to be credible, you need to offer (a) baseline matrics - you now have; (b) ship status and state, and what had to be done - you have not. Adding © when the mobilization order was given is also rather important.
You're talking about a very specific thing, and your initial post certainly showed no indication whatsoever that you were conversant with even one of the relevant details.
Noting this is not excuse-making, it is requiring reasonable back up for your characterization.
Mr. Schuler: would not that deployment have been predicated upon knowning in advance that the levees would break?
Russ Mitchell, you're addressing the wrong guy.
Dave Schuler is correct that the New Orleans metropolitan area, and the two counties (parishes) south of it are economic write-offs. The two southern parishes are almost entirely submerged - an LSU friend says Navy reconnaissance aircraft say those are completely submerged.
Several months of evacuation in New Orleans and adjacent metropolitan areas means that EVERYTHING there, save for the structures of some sturdy modern buildings, will be totally destroyed by the environment. Most of it is flooded. What isn't flooded will suffer fire, mildew, mold, rot etc. - the climate is nasty.
Trust me, - it isn't California in Louisiana. Abandoned real, commercial and personal property in that climate doesn't go into a magic stasis field from which it emerges unchanged when the evacuation ends. It will rot. And what doesn't rot will likely be burned or be buried when buildings simply fall down from structural damage incurred during the flood.
There are exceptions - I expect the Port of New Orleans to be maintained by a skeleton staff. It's on the Mississippi River (well, duh!) and much of it hasn't been flooded. It is also high value and relatively easy to guard agaisnt looting. What hasn't been flooded (on the land side away from the River) may well survive.
But otherwise we are looking at a total rebuild job. And we should absolutely, definitely, consider whether to rebuild on the present sites of New Orleans and the surrounding metropolitan area.
Parts should be rebuilt, such as the French Quarter (old New Orleans) - it has historical value and will earn a return in tourist dollars. The French Quarter is also on the highest ground in the area, and so can be protected against future hurricanes at less expense than the rest - hopefully at a reasonable expense. Like a 100' foot high levee or something.
Next in priority should be housing and residential support infrastructure (schools, shopping - the whole nine yards) for Port of New Orleans staff, their dependents and everyone operating the support infrastructure and their dependents. This assumes that the Port of New Orleans itself retains enough capital value to merit restoration.
And this whole area too will need a 100' high levee or something to protect it against further hurricanes.
I suspect that the French Quarter and Port areas will require all the high ground in the area - that high enough to be enclosed by high but affordable levees against future Category 5 hurricane flooding.
Which means all the rest of the New Orleans metropolitan area would have to be rebuilt someplace else.
Another issue is the Louisiana and New Orleans politics are so corrupt that rebuilding won't be financially feasible unless the whole effort is controlled in toto by the federal government, with state and local governments having no role at all save to accept title and the keys when the feds are finished.
Russ,
Not at all in my opinion. The problem is more than just New Orleans.
I'm not saying that the ship should have been deployed prior to the storm. But a category five storm is going to cause a lot of damage wherever it hits. At the minimum I would have hoped the vessel had begun preparing for a ready stand by by the time the city of New Orleans was issued a mandatory evacuation order.
Why Louisiana Cannot Be Allowed To Control Rebuiding
Here is an example of why federal pre-emption must apply to federally funded rebuilding and reconstruction in Louisiana:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/05_08_28_corner-archive.asp#075067
"A LESSON IN NO GOVERNANCE [Rich Lowry]
E-mail:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/05_08_28_corner-archive.asp#075070
"RE: NO GOVERNANCE [Cliff May]
Rich, your history teach has answered my question.
So now a question for the MSM: Why have there not been stories on the “Byzantine structure of New Orleans politics, which requires separate governing boards for each levee that is built.”?
Some of those boards obviously failed to do their jobs and, more to the point, this was obviously a flawed system that the political elites of New Orleans and Louisiana should have fixed long ago.
Could it be that it’s so much more gratifying to blame Bush and “Global Warming” and other usual suspects than to fault local machines which -- I assume – comprised almost exclusively of Democrats)?
Posted at 03:53 PM"
And for some pessimism about the futility of trying to rebuild New Orleans AT ALL, try this City Journal article
House of Representatives Speaker Hastert said today that rebuilding New Orleans did not make sense given its present below-water-level site.
I am from New Orleans. My wife and I moved to New York just six months ago. Watching this...horrific...catastrophe, and watching and hearing its direct effect on our families and friends is utterly heartwrenching.
There are dozens upon dozens of people I know personally (and hundreds more acquaintences) whose only focus right now is finding a place for them and their daughters, sons, wives, husbands, parents, grandparents and other relatives to stay. Once they have a place to stay (long-term), their focus shifts to one thing:
Find a job.
There is now a city's worth of people--lawyers, graphic designers, servers/bartenders, writers, musicians, cab drivers, actors, accountants, coffee shop baristas, small-business owners--who just want to earn enough to take care of themselves...(phone call)
Sorry, I just got a call from my landlord at the house I used to live in located in Lakeview about six blocks from where the 17th Street Canal. He told me that the house, which is a single level home on one of the few streets that never flooded for previous hurricanes, is now completely under water up to the peak of the roof. But he's surviving.
That's all the people from New Orleans want to do now. They want to survive and be able to feed their children, who will not be going to school with their friends next week. They want to make a living and do it under their own power without a lot of government checks.
If you'd like to help, give these people jobs. Call your friend at Sysco, or your brother who owns a restaurant, or your cousin who works for the city, or your college friend who teaches at a university, and ask them for help getting people jobs.
New Orleanians need jobs.
There could be a sand suppletie on the lower parts of New Orleans to make it above sealevel. You would need to demolish those parts of the city but i doubt that that is now a problem. Or you could make the city float which is also a possibility
"New Orleanians need jobs."
I wish it was that simple. Alot of real wealth, and not the paper kind, has just disappeared. It's not going to reappear quickly. It takes wealth to make wealth. There is no magic wand.
The (understandable) disaffection has begun.
Civilian Conservation Corp, anyone?
I must respectfully disagree on one point:
The mayor, and any other disaster planners, did not have three days, They've had years. It was only a question of time before a disaster of this magnitude hit New Orleans. There should, therefore, have been plans to evacuate and survive.
I live in San Francisco, and I know my town has plans for the Big One. I also know that plans fail in the face of unprecedented diasters, and that no plan could have saved everyone on the NOLA coast.
I devoutly hope that the under-reporting of the disaster also applies to the evacuation. I have heard nothing about city buses (school buses, prison buses, anything of that nature) being used for evacuation, nothing being provided to residents besides a suggestion to rent a car if they don't own one. What I have heard from victims is that they were unable to leave, that no method for leaving was provided other than "get yourselves out". In a town known for its public transportation and where many people don't have vehicle access, that's unacceptable. The Greyhound stopped running on Saturday. I think the airport shut down around then too. How was a carless person - let alone a family, or elderly or disabled persons - supposed to leave?
I recognize that hindsight thinks it's got all the answers. But I'd like to see those victims' questions answered. Why couldn't they get out? Where were all the city and county buses?
I've donated all I could spare to the Red Cross; I'm too disabled to volunteer my time. I don't think it's a disservice to ask why people weren't offered a means of evacuation. I seriously don't think that anyone intended that only persons with cars or a lot of luck should survive this disaster.
But I keep hearing the same questions from many of the victims of this tragedy: Why couldn't I get out?
They deserve a better answer than silence, or to be told that questioning the disaster is in some way a disservice to the rescue workers.
I think they do deserve an answer. As do those who will never get a chance to ask. Asking the politicians who are currently safe on dry land (and by these I fully include those from the local levee boards clear up to the federal level) is not merely the right thing to do - it's part of their job. I'm sure that when the worst is over and no more lives can be saved from the wreckage, people will demand an inquiry into why the boat sank so fast and where were all the lifeboats?
On the grain shipping and fuel problem.
Have the distilleries and ADM go into full gasohol mode and change the grain we can't ship into gasahol to replace at a higher alcohol mixture then currently used. (maybe the 11% the online refinery capiacity is currently short of)
E.A.Kilpatrick: I'm in Baton Rouge. I'll try to answer those questions as best as I can.
"I devoutly hope that the under-reporting of the disaster also applies to the evacuation. I have heard nothing about city buses (school buses, prison buses, anything of that nature) being used for evacuation, nothing being provided to residents besides a suggestion to rent a car if they don't own one."
This isn't the first time New Orleans has evacuated. They evacuated in the past for Ivan and George, among others. New Orleans has long known that in the event of a Hurricane, the city would not be able to evacuate even if everyone had transportation. Remember, there are essentially just 5 roads total in and out of New Orleans, all of which are basically bridges. In fact, two of them are 20+ mile long bridges. In past evacuations, traffic became so snarled that 10's of thousands of people were left stuck on the bridges and causways over the Poncatrain as the hurricane struck. In a major hurricane like Katrina, all those people would have died. Some bus's were used (church buses in particular) to ferry people out, but no special effort was made to bring in extra transportation precisely because noone thought they could get everyone out. Of all the evacuations that New Orleans has ever had, this was by far the most successful. They got more people out, left fewer people behind, and had fewer people stuck on roads trying to get out than any other evacuation they'd done.
"What I have heard from victims is that they were unable to leave, that no method for leaving was provided other than "get yourselves out". In a town known for its public transportation and where many people don't have vehicle access, that's unacceptable."
I agree, but while many of those that stayed behind are elderly people that couldn't leave, and some of the people that stayed behind are poor people who couldn't find a way to leave, many of those that stayed behind probably could have left but didn't. The sad truth is that alot of people chose not to leave, and that choice was particularly common among the least educated members of the community who just couldn't grasp what was coming. Also remember, that in the past evacuations killed more people than the hurricane ultimately did. Evacuating for Ivan killed 4 elderly people, and it wasn't even a mandatory evacuation. The first confirmed casualties of hurricane Katrina in Louisiana were three elderly people who died while being evacuated from a nursing home. So, while rounding up all the frail and elderly people in a bus and getting them out of town now seems like a good idea, at the time it was a choice between certainly killing alot of frail old people (and getting blamed for it if the city weathered the storm) and possibly kiling alot of frail old people (and getting blamed for it if the city didn't weather the storm).
"Why couldn't they get out? Where were all the city and county buses?"
I don't know. My suspicion is that they were used evacuating nursing homes and such. Unlike some Northern cities like DC, most southern cities have only minimal bus lines simply because most southerners have cars. In New Orleans, part of the public transportation was the famous trolley lines which don't roll out of town. This is particularly true of the downtown regions which are now having the problems.
"I don't think it's a disservice to ask why people weren't offered a means of evacuation. I seriously don't think that anyone intended that only persons with cars or a lot of luck should survive this disaster."
Keep in mind that based on past experience, the city emergency planning office didn't expect everyone with cars to survive the evacuation. Read about the history of evacuations from the city. In fact, at one time the city contemplated that more people might survive a hurricane if they didn't evacuate, than if they did - simply because in the past evacuations got people stuck on the bridges. It would only take one traffic accident to kill 10's of thousands. That the evacuation was as successful as it was was a miracle.
Personally, I get sick to death of the whole, "Why isn't the government taking care of me?" line of thought. I expect the government to do the best that it can, but the idea that the government ought to be able to end human misery just is plain stupid.
Way over the top commentary. Way over. Must have been written by Blumenthal.
I'm a Florida FEMA manager. I have one question when people defend the government's slow reaction to Katrina's suffering victims. If Jeb Bush was the Governor of Louisiana, would Washington's response have been the same? I don't know if the blame lies with Chertoff and his careful cadre of Beltway lawyers, or with the Governor of Louisiana. I do know from first-hand experience that Jeb Bush would have had help on the ground immediately.
I dunno. There's two halves to this article, the first being the potential estimates of the actual extent of damage and loss of life, which could very well be true, and judging from my own SAR days, scares the socks off me.
But the second half seems to be about taking the NOLA mayor to account, by stating that a mayor has no business doing anything other than calling for federal help which has the resources to do things. Well, that's EXACTLY what the mayor did! He's been doing everything as best as he can. I've reviewed all his actions, and cannot find a problem with any of them.
What I'm actually having a problem with is two fold, and this is where finger pointing and such start. First of all, where IS the federal response? Day two or three (so end of Tuesday or Wednesday) is long past, with action only stirring now, five days later. Second of all, the underlying maintenance and preparations such as maintaining or improving the levees (didn't happen after budget cuts in 2002 onward) or having a disaster plan in place didn't happen despite years and years of warnings, some of them from FEMA itself in early 2001. These two factors are what has made this situation much worse than it should have been.
Davebo,
As a Navy man myself, I am really unhappy with their performance.
They turned the Yorktown around with battle damage in 72 hours.
And where the hell is a CVN? That could provide lots of water. Air traffic control. Electricity if it could get close enough. Enough hangar space for a hell of a lot of emergency workers/evacuees etc.
How is it that the carriers got to the tsunami folks before one could reach folks in our home waters?
I'm told there is an amphib carrier on location so it is not a complete CF. Still......
"I don't know. My suspicion is that they were used evacuating nursing homes and such. "
There's a gigantic picture with upwards of 200 buses just sitting in a parking lot. They didn't need to use all of them but at least some would have been nice. If one 20 year old (bless his heart) can steal a bus and save a bunch of people then clearly the authorities could have done more.
I loved the article, and reposted it on my blog along with my response.
It really laid things out plain, and in the times ahead we will need to face the harsh realities and rise to the challenge to reclaim what was lost and save what can be saved.
As a Middle School Counselor I find myself in a state of constant grieving for the dead, of course, but also for the "survivors" who mourn their lost loved ones, their lost homes and cities, the loss of their ordinary lives... Much of the damage of this hurricane is obvious, but there is so much more that escapes the eye and will only become apparent in time... Survivors of all descriptions will need the compassionate support , encouragement, patience and caring of the rest of us for a very long time to come.
Whatever the numbers, whoever's to "blame" for the decisions large and small that have resulted in this mind boggling catastrophe, the fact is, we are here now. We, every man, woman and child in America, is faced with the reality and the repercussions of a disaster so huge that even the many words and pictures we have applied to it can not begin to communicate its scope. as with our experience following the attacks of September 11th, we are forced to see that what we once thought could never happen in America could, in fact, happen on any otherwise ordinary, beautiful day.
With cities and towns, businesses and factories, lives and families devastated we have choices to make. Shake our heads, seeking to fix blame, grateful for our own comfort but not really investing ourselves in helping .. Or stand together. Really stand together. Today. Tomorrow. Six months from now, when the "news" has worn off, but the pain and struggle of recovery remain. And on and on...
With your permission I will copy and share this article with everyone who will read it and anyone who will publish it...
The worst natural disaster in the USA before Katrina was the Galveston hurricane of 1900. I have seen that mentioned several times in Katrina coverage. But I have seen no mention of what was done in Galveston afterward to deal with the risk of another one.
Some years ago, there was an illustrated article in one of the historical magazines - probably American Heritage - on this topic. My mind may be running several of the pictures in that article together, but what I see in my mind's eye is a panorama:
-- on the left, a typical vintage-1910 townscape.
-- center-left, a crew is at work raising a house straight up using mechanical jacks; no hydraulics in 1910.
-- center, an entire street of houses on stilts. Access is by boards casually draped across scaffolding in a style that would surely have given an OSHA inspector apoplexy, if there had been such a thing as an OSHA inspector in 1910.
-- center-right, a crew pumping and spreading large amounts of sand-water slurry under more houses.
-- right, a typical vintage-1910 townscape, much like on the far left, but about 15 feet higher.
If the USA in 1910 had the wealth to do that for Galveston, then we should have the wealth today to do it for New Orleans.
Now whose budget should cover it?