Ramblings on politics, film, music, literature, current events, pop culture, lists, dirty words, trapezoids, birds, cartoons and any other damned thing that strikes my synapses. A 39ish-year-old freelance journalist and writer living with his wife and baby daughter in the hardscrabble environs of Oklahoma, Chase McInerney now spends much of his time frozen in stark, cold sweat-inducing, gut-percolating fear. For it will be soon ... yes, very, very soon.
Once this sad, sorry tragedy ultimately shifts into something approaching stability, there will be a reckoning. There is much furious anger, and it stems from raw testimonials like this -- an astonishing, deeply moving "Meet the Press" interview with Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, president Aaron Broussard.
posted by Chase McInerney @ 12:07 AM
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4 Comments:
it was defintely moving, I just wish the blatant partisanship would stop. He praised the Governor. C'mon.. she shares as much accountability as anyone. I agree.. Prez and feds f***ed it up pretty royally and heads should roll, but you can't ignore the poor performance of city and state too. For those who say ( like Chertoff) that it's not time to blame, it's time to help.... hey buddy, Hurricane Maria or Ned or Olivia or Phil or Ruth could be next.. or Al Queda. We damn sure better be ready this time. by the way.. where's Dick been through all of this???
Some insightful information from today's Tulsa World -- in an article that suggests the more advanced the nation, the harder we fall from the really hardhitting natural disasters.
In fact the analysis also suggests that more advanced nations like ours will put more people in harm's way by building extensively in areas that are more likely to face enormous natural disasters (such as enormous megametroplexes built on eartquake fault lines just waiting to fall into the ocean).
Anyway, the Tulsa World's reprint of the AP article cites examples of 3rd world nations that are better prepared, and what I found so interesting about the examples (one from a communist nation no less) is that they focus on LOCAL response and control, volunteers and personal responsibility (such as individual Jamaicans knowing search and rescue skills and teams in towns)......
-"No one was reported killed when Ivan struck Cuba in 2004, its worst hurricane in 50 years and a storm that, after weakening, killed 25 people in the United States. Cuba's warning-evacuation system is minutely planned, even down to neighborhood workers keeping updated charts on which residents need help during evacuations."
NOTE that last sentence please. Why didn't New Orleans have precinct volunteers who keep records on needy residents who would need help?
-"Along Bangladesh's cyclone coast, 33,000 volunteers stand ready to shepherd neighbors to raised concrete shelters at the approach of one of the Bay of Bengal's vicious storms."
33,000 volunteers. Where were those volunteers in New Orleans.
-"In 2002, Jamaica conducted a full-scale evacuation rehearsal in a low-lying suburb of coastal Kingston, and fine-tuned plans afterward. When Ivan's 20-foot surge destroyed hundreds of homes two years later, only eight people died. Ordinary Jamaicans also are taught search-and-rescue methods, and towns at risk have trained flood-alert teams."
So here's a basic and fundamental question that I don't think has been answered in the press: Both the Louisiana governor and New Orleans mayor had to have known that an enormous and tremendously disadvantaged underclass in that city would lack the resources to be able to evacuate, would be stranded and would need help.
Why wasn't there better advance planning for that? The entire evacuation of the city before the hurricane hit seemed very haphazard and not at all organized. Indeed it appears that the lack of planning and organization beforehand precipitated the horrific chaos that followed.
The feds should have jumped in there much earlier once it became clear that the local authorities lacked control. But what about the examples cited above? Why couldn't New Orleans officials have been organized in this way?
I think it's abundantly clear they weren't.
Some excellent points there, Red Dirt. To be sure, the Superdome fiasco has got to fall on the shoulders of state and local authorities, since that was the designated shelter for those who didn't evacuate, and there was absolutely nothing -- nothing -- for those people.
I don't think anyone can argue that the state authorities will face serious questions of competence. But I have to disagree that FEMA would not be the obvious coordinating agency in this case. The examples of rescuers you mention in Third World countries, such as the 33,000 volunteers in Bangladesh, find their U.S. counterparts under FEMA command, such as urban search-and-rescue groups and other FEMA rescuers.
On your question about precinct volunteers, I think that's an excellent point, but one that will need to be reviewed by cities for future preparation. If something like this had impacted my home city of Oklahoma City, I don't know that there would be precinct volunteers tied into county or state emergency management who could designated those with special needs.
The other reason I think FEMA holds additional accountability -- and this is something national media has paid little attention to in light of the magnitude of New Orelans -- is how absent they were for so long along Mississippi's Gulf coast. Before all is said and done, the town of Biloxi might have more than 1,000 casualties,and that city didn't see much in the way of aid for about four or five days.
Ultimately, Red Dirt (or Mr. Dirt, in case Red is a first name), I agree that there will be lots of material for a post-mortem.
Hey okpartisan, I bet you're a lot of fun at parties!
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