I'm Tired Of These Ungrateful Hurricane Victims

[Bob the Cow]

What level hurricane do you require to execute a plan - Level 3, 4 or 5?
When do you execute a plan? Most important, "Where do you evacuate people
to"?

These are important questions. The answer is obvious to me. You keep
people on the move, all the time. That way, nobody stays in a dangerous
area for very long at any one time. Mass transit would be good, but until
we get that going, everyone get in your car and get on the Interstate, right
now.

Oh, wait... Someone's obviously already thought of that.

Never mind.

 

[AguaGirl]

Tehcnically it was. The first of the Plans on the LA Emergency
Managemenet wesbite (okay different agency name, but I am too lazy
to look it up) were dated in early 2000. There were a couple
updates, but none addressing anything of interest here, mostly
changing names of things.

Ahhh...but see that is a local plan. Clinton probably doesn't
even know it exists.

 

[AguaGirl]

It is interesting to note that prior to Bush, nobody expected the president
to personally develop an evacuation plan. Now that one was expected, it is
only Bush's problem and all prior presidents are excused from any
responsibility. I personally think that they should have used the
evacuation plan developed during Clinton's presidency.

Everyone who believes that an evacuation plan should have been in place and
executed without hitch is living in a dream world. An evacuation plan would
be almost impossible. First, you would have to decide when an evacuation
plan should be put into effect. This alone makes it unworkable.

What level hurricane do you require to execute a plan - Level 3, 4 or 5? Do
you have a different plan for each level? Who should the plan address?
Does it exist on the local, state or multi-state level? If you plan on a
multi-state level, who is in charge? A state, a committee, or a federal
agency? If on a State level, do you make sure that it doesn't conflict with
adjacent states? If local, who should be shot for stupidity?

When do you execute a plan? When the hurricane is 1, 2, 3, 4 or more days
out? If you execute it in advance, the cone of projection of the path is
wide and how do you know where it is going to hit? Do you evacuate east,
west or north or a combination of these? If the hurricane is headed for New
Orleans, for example, the path might be 50 miles west of the city or 50
miles east, which would definitely affect the direction of evacuation.

Most important, "Where do you evacuate people to"? You probably are only
guessing how many people that the local or state plan would require public
transportation. You would have to have a method of transporting them
immediately available. For 100,000 people, this would require more than a
handful of buses. Where would they go and how would you decide, based on
the direction of evacuation and the level of the hurricane. If a hurricane
hits west of New Orleans, the destination would be very different than if it
hits east. A truly workable plan would identify actual sites that could
take people, how many each site could take, an alternate if that site is
unavailable for some reason, a method for stocking that site with food,
water, cots, etc., well in advance of any emergency, exactly how to get
people to that site, identify support personnel for that site, ensure that
they are on location prior to the evacuation,. and probably 100 other items
that I haven't thought of.

There are probably only about 5,000 other questions that have to be answered
and most of them will conflict with each other based on resources, where the
storm hits, level of the storm and advance notice required. If truth, there
is no way that a good, valid, workable evacuation plan can be formulated.
If the Democrats had been in control in Washington, the same results would
have
happened in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. The Republicans would be the
ones pointing fingers and blaming the Democratic president. It is all
political and there will, in the end, be nothing tangible accomplished by
all of the finger pointing and blame.

After a false alarm, who is to be shot for spending the millions and
millions (Maybe billions) that were necessary to execute the evacuation
plan. Everyone who was activated, will have to be paid for the time pulled
from their actual employment and I would bet that after a couple of false
alarms, the volunteers would be reduced.

You can't fight mother nature and you can't change human nature.

Don D

Exactly. BTW...Key West does have a plan in place that
is based on "possible" trajectory and cat. Apparently
they have figured out it takes 72 hours to totally evacuate.
72 hours before a hurricane "may" hit they kick out all
the tourist. They know the single road in and out will be
clogged and of course tourist are the most transit. I don't
know who comes next or when since I don't live there but
they do have some sort of time table. We were kicked out
in 2002 (may have been 2001). Hurricane didn't hit
KW, we probably would have been fine if they hadn't
"evicted" us but plans are like that. You have to go with
what works and if they had waited until they were sure
it would have been too late to get everyone out.

Nola didn't even bother to tell the tourist to leave. God
forbid they lose money. Get the tourist out of the way
early and that at least lightens the load.

I still think they can ear mark unused or under used
military bases. They are fairly secure, are rarely in
the path of distruction, can house a lot of people and
have distrubition networks already set up for bringing
in supplies. With all the base closings it seems like
a no brainer to me.

AG

 

[Karen Selwyn]

Everyone who believes that an evacuation plan should have been in place
and executed without hitch is living in a dream world.

You're using a straw man logical fallacy. No one expected the evacuation
to proceed "without a hitch" Nevertheless, a few hitches along the way
in a well-developed evacuation plan would have been preferable to what
actually took place. Case in point: the stranded school buses. The plan
should have included moving the school buses to higher ground a couple
of days prior to their being needed.

Plans are made in calm conditions so that when the emergency hits and
people are not thinking at their best, they can go to the plan and still
achieve good results. Of course, that assumes the planners are competent
professionals. In today's security-conscious world -- let alone
hurricane season -- this job can no longer be left to mediocre people at
the local, state, or national level.

An evacuation plan would be almost impossible.

Why? Don't you make plans in your own life? Don't you think the military
makes plans? Don't you think businesses make plans?

People who want to achieve specific goals routinely makes plans. The
security and the welfare of the population sure strikes me as a
worthwhile goal.

First, you would have to decide when an evacuation
plan should be put into effect. This alone makes it unworkable.

Who's the "you"? Civil engineers routinely deal with traffic flow
problems. They can -- and have -- determined how many hours/days it
would take to evacuate "x" number of people from a locale taking into
account things like the number roads leaving a city and the number of
lanes of those roads. Knowing this, government officials have a ready
timeline for giving an evacuation order

What level hurricane do you require to execute a plan - Level 3, 4 or 5?

Why do you think this is an either/or situation? Why isn't it obvious to
you that you have a set of plans for each of the category storms?

Do you have a different plan for each level?

To a certain extent, the answer is "yes" if only because the resources
controlled by the local government are different from those of the state
from those of the federal government. However, these plans are not made
in a vacuum; the plans have to be coordinated. Local, state, and federal
official coordinate all the time on any number of issues. Why do you
think disaster preparedness and recovery should be any different?

When do you execute a plan?

Your plans will define the timeline for you.

If you execute it in advance, the cone of projection of the path is
wide and how do you know where it is going to hit?

Clearly the people who give the evacuation order won't know. It will be
a risk-benefit trade-off.

But it goes back to good planning. Professionals can use gaming strategy
to play out different scenarios to better understand their options. When
they have an adequate understanding of the problem, they commit their
plan to paper and live by the plan.

You probably are only guessing how many people that the local or state
plan would require public transportation.

No. There's a difference between a guess and a logical hypothesis.
Professional planners could look at factors such as people living below
the poverty level (who would more likely not own a car), people who
routinely use public transportation, etc. These factors combine to
produce a reasonable estimate of people requiring public transportation
in an evacuation.

Where would they go and how would you decide, based on the direction of
evacuation and the level of the hurricane?

Why do you keep assuming that there's a one-size-fits all plan?

A truly workable
plan would identify actual sites that could take people,
how many each site could take, an alternate if that site is
unavailable for some reason, a method for stocking that site with food,
water, cots, etc., well in advance of any emergency, exactly how to get
people to that site, identify support personnel for that site, ensure that
they are on location prior to the evacuation,. and probably 100 other
items that I haven't thought of.

That's a fine list of issues to be addressed. If you can come up with
that in the time you devoted to this message, surely you can appreciate
the fact that professionals can do an even better job in advance of an
emergency.

If truth, there is no way that a good, valid, workable evacuation plan
can be formulated.

So you keep insisting. I disagree. You've used the words "good" "valid"
and "workable." You haven't said "flawless." People with a will and the
intelligence to hire competent professionals can accomplish the former.
No one can accomplish the latter.

You can't fight mother nature and you can't change human nature.

This is an invitation for going through life being buffeted by random
chance. Insofar as possible, I choose to take control of my life.

Karen Selwyn

 

[The Wogster]

It is interesting to note that prior to Bush, nobody expected the president
to personally develop an evacuation plan. Now that one was expected, it is
only Bush's problem and all prior presidents are excused from any
responsibility. I personally think that they should have used the
evacuation plan developed during Clinton's presidency.

Well, look at Florida, they seem to be able to get plans working,
without the president doing it, so why can't other states?

Everyone who believes that an evacuation plan should have been in place and
executed without hitch is living in a dream world. An evacuation plan would
be almost impossible. First, you would have to decide when an evacuation
plan should be put into effect. This alone makes it unworkable.

Even the best plan can fail, however a plan that executed less the
ideally, is better then no plan at all.

What level hurricane do you require to execute a plan - Level 3, 4 or 5? Do
you have a different plan for each level? Who should the plan address?
Does it exist on the local, state or multi-state level? If you plan on a
multi-state level, who is in charge? A state, a committee, or a federal
agency? If on a State level, do you make sure that it doesn't conflict with
adjacent states? If local, who should be shot for stupidity?

I would think you would have a plan with different levels, probably
similar in scope to the different categories of hurricane, you could
also execute say level 1 the day before a cat 1 storm, two days before a
cat 2 storm, level 2 gets executed 1 day before a cat 2 storm, etc.

A plan should start at the local level, with state and surrounding
states having involvement, depending on the size of the storm, and where
it's heading. For example a NOLA plan could involve, finding places in
other states for people to go to, and report in.

When do you execute a plan? When the hurricane is 1, 2, 3, 4 or more days
out? If you execute it in advance, the cone of projection of the path is
wide and how do you know where it is going to hit? Do you evacuate east,
west or north or a combination of these? If the hurricane is headed for New
Orleans, for example, the path might be 50 miles west of the city or 50
miles east, which would definitely affect the direction of evacuation.

That would depend on the plan, and how it executes, considering that a
hurricane can be hundreds of miles across, 50 miles one way or the
other, isn't going to do much for you. You evacuate in the direction
opposite of the storms path (duh!).

Most important, "Where do you evacuate people to"? You probably are only
guessing how many people that the local or state plan would require public
transportation. You would have to have a method of transporting them
immediately available. For 100,000 people, this would require more than a
handful of buses. Where would they go and how would you decide, based on
the direction of evacuation and the level of the hurricane. If a hurricane
hits west of New Orleans, the destination would be very different than if it
hits east. A truly workable plan would identify actual sites that could
take people, how many each site could take, an alternate if that site is
unavailable for some reason, a method for stocking that site with food,
water, cots, etc., well in advance of any emergency, exactly how to get
people to that site, identify support personnel for that site, ensure that
they are on location prior to the evacuation,. and probably 100 other items
that I haven't thought of.

All of this is part of the plan, true you can't evacuate 100,000 people
with a hand full of buses, but cities with transit systems, tend to have
a largish collection anyway. Level one of the plan, might contain how
to identify how many buses are available, what type they are, what
capacity, how many operators are available, and a place for each bus to
go. Yes there might be things to do, at low levels of the plan, that
are only needed if higher levels of the plan may be executed.

There are probably only about 5,000 other questions that have to be answered
and most of them will conflict with each other based on resources, where the
storm hits, level of the storm and advance notice required. If truth, there
is no way that a good, valid, workable evacuation plan can be formulated.
If the Democrats had been in control in Washington, the same results would
have
happened in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. The Republicans would be the
ones pointing fingers and blaming the Democratic president. It is all
political and there will, in the end, be nothing tangible accomplished by
all of the finger pointing and blame.

True, however it's much easier to figure out what to do, when the sun is
shining, and no storms are on the way, then when the wind is 115MPH and
it's raining buckets.

After a false alarm, who is to be shot for spending the millions and
millions (Maybe billions) that were necessary to execute the evacuation
plan. Everyone who was activated, will have to be paid for the time pulled
from their actual employment and I would bet that after a couple of false
alarms, the volunteers would be reduced.

That is why you have different parts of the plan that are executed at
different times, and in different ways, if your preped for a cat 5, and
it ends up the day before that it's only a cat 4 that is 50 miles
further away, that's a good thing, at least your prepared for it.

W

 

[Don]

Exactly. BTW...Key West does have a plan in place that
is based on "possible" trajectory and cat. Apparently
they have figured out it takes 72 hours to totally evacuate.
72 hours before a hurricane "may" hit they kick out all
the tourist. They know the single road in and out will be
clogged and of course tourist are the most transit. I don't
know who comes next or when since I don't live there but
they do have some sort of time table. We were kicked out
in 2002 (may have been 2001). Hurricane didn't hit
KW, we probably would have been fine if they hadn't
"evicted" us but plans are like that. You have to go with
what works and if they had waited until they were sure
it would have been too late to get everyone out.

Nola didn't even bother to tell the tourist to leave. God
forbid they lose money. Get the tourist out of the way
early and that at least lightens the load.

I still think they can ear mark unused or under used
military bases. They are fairly secure, are rarely in
the path of distruction, can house a lot of people and
have distrubition networks already set up for bringing
in supplies. With all the base closings it seems like
a no brainer to me.

AG

Key West is a unique city. There 'is' no other way out of the city other
than north. The population is small enough to allow for a plan to be in
place and work. New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast would be a
different story. Miami can only evacuate on a limited basis because of the
limited routes out, but the millions of people there make evacuation
extremely difficult. I don't know if anyone has calculated the time
required to evacuate everyone, but it would take a long time.

The problem with earmarking unused or under used military bases is the
preparation of the sites prior to use. You can't keep them in a condition
ready to be used because the cost of maintenance would be restrictive.

Don D.

 

[Kurt Ullman]

Ahhh...but see that is a local plan. Clinton probably doesn't
even know it exists.

That was sorta my point with Bush.

 

[Kurt Ullman]

I still think they can ear mark unused or under used
military bases. They are fairly secure, are rarely in
the path of distruction, can house a lot of people and
have distrubition networks already set up for bringing
in supplies. With all the base closings it seems like
a no brainer to me.

Won't work. First of all you can't just shut down and ignore the
buildings without having them begin to fall apart. If you mothball
them, you still have to go in clean them out, demothball them, get
the utilities up and running again, fix things that need to be
fixed, etc. and that costs money to both mothball and demothball.
ALso, many of the bases are turned over to the local governments
for redevelopment.

 

[Joe Biden is a Big Fat Whiner]

That was sorta my point with Bush.

http://thomasgalvin.blogspot.com/2005/09/forgotten-national-tragedy-bill.html

 

[Jasper Janssen]

I'm too smart to live in an area prone to hurricanes tornadoes
earthquakes, tsunamis, glaciers, volcanoes,

So you live on Mars?


Jasper

 

[Fat Man Pedaling]

Look pal, they have already made up their minds, now they are just
assembling whatever facts support their conclusions and suppressing any
that might make them look as silly as they are. Please don't confuse
them with the truth, especially if it contradicts the dying orthodoxy
that they labor to preserve.

Especially with such a fabulously incompetent recovery effort done by
Saint Clinton in the aftermath of natural disasters in the 90's, they
have a long way to go to.

(PS, nice bike)

GG

 

[Fat Man Pedaling]

If you need to look up to see the ocean (ie, you live BELOW the level
of the ocean), then perhaps getting out of the way of even a CAT 1
hurricane would not be a bad idea.

But when you are 3rd generation ward of the state, it is commonplace
for people who have done nothing for themselves for so long are
suddenly going to start. Yet another "benefit" of $6.6 trillion of
wealth redistribution.

 

[Nuck 'n Futz]

Look pal, they have already made up their minds, now they are just
assembling whatever facts support their conclusions and suppressing
any that might make them look as silly as they are. Please don't
confuse them with the truth, especially if it contradicts the dying
orthodoxy that they labor to preserve.

Especially with such a fabulously incompetent recovery effort done by
Saint Clinton in the aftermath of natural disasters in the 90's, they
have a long way to go to.

No idea who "pal" is since you don't quote, but otherwise you're right --
the partisan finger-pointing is pathetically obvious. (Rare exception:
Donna Brazile, well-known Dem, who wrote a column praising Bush recently.)

Clinton's little talk-show circuit is particularly disgusting, as the facts
betray practically EVERYTHING he says.

1) FEMA responded faster to Katrina than it did to any disasters during his
admin.

2) Bush got to the Gulf area sooner than Clinton got to OK City.

3) When 1,000 people died in Chicago ('95 heat wave), where was he? Where
was the outcry? The outrage? The accusations of racism?

4) Spending on poverty programs is up under Bush.

5) Poverty percentage was 13.7% under Clinton; it's 12.7% today.

6) Government revenues are up under Bush; money was NOT a factor in the
disaster or the response.

7) Just read some of Clinton's past comments re. Iraq, AQ, OBL versus the
bilge he's pushing today. Shameless.

Most telling is that Bush, for whatever reason, has bent over backwards to
treat Clinton with respect and in fact PRAISE him on many occasions, and
gets stabbed in the back repeatedly in return.

Maybe that's why he couldn't look the interviewer(s) in the eye while he was
spewing his lies and distortions.

N&F

 

[Kurt Ullman]

3) When 1,000 people died in Chicago ('95 heat wave), where was he? Where
was the outcry? The outrage? The accusations of racism?

The consensus is 739 heat releated deaths.
Although as an aside, you will note the trumpeting of the order of
25,000 body bags, 10,000 alone for NOLA, but little notation of the
fact that it may come in around 1,000 OVERALL. The count as of
yesterday was around 883 with only 646 coming from LA, let alone
NOLA. This also includes related deaths from Georgia and TN, I am
assuming either from flooding or tornadoes, but the article did not
break it out.

6) Government revenues are up under Bush; money was NOT a factor in the
disaster or the response.

As they have with every major tax cut, including Clinton's, rev
go down the first year and then go up. Despite the fact that the
scoring by Joint Committee on Taxation ALWAYS says they will go down
for a few years.

 

[Vic Vega]

No idea who "pal" is since you don't quote, but otherwise you're right --
the partisan finger-pointing is pathetically obvious. (Rare exception:
Donna Brazile, well-known Dem, who wrote a column praising Bush recently.)

Clinton's little talk-show circuit is particularly disgusting, as the facts
betray practically EVERYTHING he says.

1) FEMA responded faster to Katrina than it did to any disasters during his
admin.

2) Bush got to the Gulf area sooner than Clinton got to OK City.

3) When 1,000 people died in Chicago ('95 heat wave), where was he? Where
was the outcry? The outrage? The accusations of racism?

4) Spending on poverty programs is up under Bush.

5) Poverty percentage was 13.7% under Clinton; it's 12.7% today.

6) Government revenues are up under Bush; money was NOT a factor in the
disaster or the response.

7) Just read some of Clinton's past comments re. Iraq, AQ, OBL versus the
bilge he's pushing today. Shameless.

Most telling is that Bush, for whatever reason, has bent over backwards to
treat Clinton with respect and in fact PRAISE him on many occasions, and
gets stabbed in the back repeatedly in return.

Maybe that's why he couldn't look the interviewer(s) in the eye while he was
spewing his lies and distortions.

N&F

This should teach Bush not to include Slick Willy in anything he is doing.
He will stab you in the back every time.

 

[Petal and Leif]

Who heard about the hurricane in India and Bangladesh that killed as many
people as Katarina?
It is fresh news, it happend yesterday...

 

[tr2267]

Maybe being called refugees kinda makes them angry. They are American
Citizens. If a person does not own a house and rents are they refugees.

Do you really think Americans enjoy a special protection from God against bad
things happening to them and therefore are immune to becoming refugees?
Let's cut the PC crap and the ignorant nationalism. The hurricane doesn't give
a shit whether you're an American citizen or not when it is coming to destroy
your home.

 

[Dave - Dave.net.nz]

Do you really think Americans enjoy a special protection from God against bad
things happening to them and therefore are immune to becoming refugees?
Let's cut the PC crap and the ignorant nationalism. The hurricane doesn't give
a shit whether you're an American citizen or not when it is coming to destroy
your home.

actually it isn't necessarily "coming to destroy your home" either...
it's just coming, and your home may or may not be in the way.

either way, whats with all the odd cross posting, doesn't anyone know
how to set followups.

 

[tr2267]

Like there was someplace to move them within the US that wasn't within
a STATE?

But let's have some freaking common sense next time. It's not my city
government or state government's job to ask every city and town in the 48
states what shelter capacity they have so we know where to send the refugees
that are already on their way to my city whose shelter capacity is already
maxed out. Bush's government that spends trillions of dollars every year
couldn't find one person to do even the most simple and obvious tasks during
a crisis of biblical proportions??

You guys don't expect much out of the POTUS, do you?

No but every time I start to think that Bush cannot possibly ever top
his last disaster somehow he always manages to shock and awe me with his
incompetance. What I expected from the New Orleans disaster was some
LEADERSHIP and a clue. It was already obvious on _Tuesday_ (the
federal government actually knew Monday) that an entire US city was being
wiped out and that shit-for-brains gives a speech about Iraq and barely
notices what is going on in America.

First, he should
be able to discern buried facts in intelligence reports that escaped
the FBI, CIA and military intelligence - now he's supposed to
personally oversee disaster recovery and relocation efforts. Thing

He was supposed to personally SHOW SOME LEADERSHIP during a crises of biblical
proportions with a MILLION refugees. He was supposed to make sure some of
the obvious critical tasks were getting taken care of. I expected him to go on
national television on _Tuesday_ to tell the nation what his plan of action
would be and ask for the whole country's help.

This is the same President who rushed overnight to Washington DC to sign
legislation intefering with the judical process dealing with a SINGLE PERSON
who was mentally a vegetable because he wrongly thought such grandstanding
would win him political points, but he couldn't be bothered to deal with a
MILLION REFUGEES during his month long vacation. This unbelievable screw-up
who always made a big f*cking deal out of holding everybody "accountable"
suddenly doesn't want to play "the blame game". For George W. Bush the little
people must be "held accountable", while collosal ****-ups like him and his
yes-men deserve automatic immunity from "the blame game".

is, you are also blasting those whose job it is to do so for having
"too little experience", but would turn the job over to someone who's
never done it.

What the hell are you talking about? Neither I nor anyone with common sense
would have ****-up government agencies like FEMA, the CIA, state department,
treasury department, etc, by chasing all the key professionals out and stuffing
critical functions of government full of incompetent personal cronies and
political commissars.

 

[tr2267]

Your assuming that POTUS knows with intent detail exactly what is going

on in every town in the country, he can't.

The President can't know what everybody watching CNN knew?

He needs to deal with what
are important issues,

The destruction of an entire city and biggest natural disaster in American
history was not an important issue?

and until the dust er water settled in NOLA, it
wasn't even on his agenda, except as maybe a FYI. Considering Florida,
which had at least 3 cat 4 hurricanes cross the state last year, without
needing the feds to take over, it would be a small item indeed, until
after the fact. Hind sight is always 20/20.

What hind sight?? It was obvious to any American who watched CNN on
_Tuesday_ (when Bush gave a speech about Iraq) that the country was
going to have to manage up to a million refugees and this was way
more than a local matter. I'm not faulting Bush for failing to anticipate
the disaster beforehand (althought it would certainly be a fair criticism
because it was utter nonsense that "nobody could have forseen that the levee
would breach"). I am faulting Bush for not acting for several days after the
need was PLAINLY OBVIOUS because the levee had already been breached. This
has nothing to do with "hind sight", is it about plain common sense.