Hurricane Katrina!

[denoir 0]

The tsunami came with really little to no practical warning. There was a carrier group in the immediate area that was able to move right in. The water washed in, then right back out so it wasn't a problem to just lift in a couple buldozers and clear a path for LCAC's out of Guam - which took a while still to show up.

I'm not talking about the carrier that showed up eventually - that was a few days after the hit. I'm talking about the evacuation of hundrends of thousands of tourists. Only a few hours after the tsunami hit, airplanes were lifting en masse from Europe building an air corridor, bringing in supplies and doctors and bringing back tourists. Note that this wasn't a military operation, but a cooperation between the governments and civilian airlines. Less than 48 hours later, people were arriving back in Europe. Hundreds of aircraft were used. At Phuket airplanes landed and took off every 15 minutes. The red cross was in place very fast and were providing food and shelter.

Why did it work so fast? Because they were acting according to a pre-defined protocol. The needed supplies were already prepared in emergency warehouses, the airlines knew what to do as did the red cross and other help organization.

And that was on the other side of the world!

Quote[/b] ]That was a case example only of the distances and regional coordination involved. If you understand US federal, state, and local lack of joint cooperation and organization, you'd realize that the fact that it's happening at all, and on the scale that it is, is quite miraculous.

It is far below expectation. This shouldn't be a big surprise. They even knew the hurricane was coming and that there was a great risk to New Orleans. Even without knowing that, they should have had protocols in place on how to act in situations like this. And knowing what might happen help should have been on the way far before the hurricane ever reached NO.

Quote[/b] ]Case in point, McChord AFB here in Seattle is shipping C-17's to NO. But before they go, theres lots to do. You have to find out whats needed. Who's bringing what? What special resources are needed - and what are already covered by other agencies? That's time on the phone, not on the tarmac. It takes time to pull pallets out of storage and rack them in. These are emergency disaster supplies, and aren't always sitting in the hanger waiting to go. Then there's the civilian rescue teams. All general air traffic - pretty much all non-military flights - in the NO area are prohibited. That means all these civilians going down need to make arrangements to take time off from work. Do you think the Doctors Without Borders sit around playing Xbox all day with bags packed and a pager on? No, they're doctors, and have to make arrangements for patients at home. Then they got to get to the base and get cleared. The United States is a rather big piece of land, and by the time you load up, fly out, and get to NO, that's effectively an entire day. They're not going to fly them down empty, they're going with rescuers and supplies, then turn around and use the C-17's for evacuation and transport. And of course this is using strategic military equipment for civilian operations, which is a major hassle.

That just shows that they weren't prepared. They should have had warehouses with emergency supplies. They should have had several disaster scenarios worked out before the hurricane was known to exist. And after they knew that it was heading to new Orleans, they should have loaded the planes, put them on stand by. Tens of thousands of national guard units in amphibious vehicles should have been in place. Alternative communication infrastructure should have been thought of etc

This isn't just a sudden thing that just happened. Primarily they knew that the storm was coming and that a catastrophic flooding was a real possibility. And beyond that, you should always have disaster scenarios and protocols in place so that you can act quickly. These people are behaving as if this was a sudden unpredictable problem that happened on the day the hurricane came. It was not. And semi-civilized nation should have well-trained established routines for emergency response. WTF are the people at FEMA doing for a living during times where there isn't an ongoing natural disaster?

Quote[/b] ]You don't get out much do you? Come over here and we'll go visit Pioneer Square about 1am. Even the police don't go down there in the middle of the night. Oh, and they don't take kindly to white guys, so bring your flak jacket and a helmet

Well, I suppose you know better, but to me that does not seem like a normal situation to me, not even in America. And yes, because that kind of shit doesn't really happen here, I do get out.

Quote[/b] ]Am I blaming everyone? Apparently you think so. I'm only blaming the fraction of 1% of the city's population, the dregs of the projects that are deliberately exploiting this disaster for their personal gain. They have none but themselves to blame for their predicament. They ignored the evacuation orders. They added to the destruction and desolation, out of spite or greed. They destroyed or prevented the distribution of supplies sent for their ingrateful relief. They attempted to take the lives of those engaged in lifesaving efforts on their behalf. And then they blame the rescuers for insulting them by the very efforts underway already.

You have in several posts implied that the people that are in trouble and complaining about the rescue efforts are to blame. You don't seem to understand that a lot of those people simply couldn't afford to evacuate. And not everybody is shooting up NG choppers, but all are suffering because of it. There is some really bad shit going down in New Orleans and the victims of it are for the most part just that, victims who have every right to expect more from the government. Those are Americans there for fuck's sake - they're in a place now that's worse than the worst hellhole in Africa. People are dying as we write this and it's been several days since the region was hit.

To end this with an optimistic note:

Yes, things might be worse today than they were yeststerday, but still, they are far better than it will be tomorrow!

Edit: I should perhaps mention that in the Tsunami case, it took well over a day for the Swedish government to realize what was going on and to take action. Fortunately other EU countries reacted much faster and helped stranded Swedish tourists. The airlines reacted very quickly as well, getting people back and supplies in far before the government took an active role. This again was made possible because other European countries got their shit together from the start. So for instance Swedish medical teams were transported to the region by Lufthansa and tourists flew back the same way.

[shinRaiden 0]

-edit- ISP's upstream dropped for a couple hours just as I was replying... editing...

[Bernadotte 0]

Btw, just before my friend in Mississippi evacuated for Katrina she was really considering staying because of evac fatigue.  Just 6 weeks earlier that same stretch of coastline was in the path of Hurricane Dennis and droves of residents boarded up, packed up and bugged out; only to see Dennis turn east towards the Florida panhandle.

Prep and evac is not cheap.  Many who can afford to do it once a year are not able to pay that price once a month.  I'm sure that the Dennis false alarm must have contributed greatly to the overall scale of the Katrina misery.

[Garcia 0]

The norwegian goverment didn't act very good when the tsunami hit. Therefor they decided to sit down and make better plans on how to handle disasters like that...

anyway...I just hope US now understands why they should sign the Kyoto deal thingy and stop releasing so much greenhouse effect gases. The goverment claim that it'll cost to much for the US industry. Well, I'd think that when more and more disasters hit US, the costs to rebuild and the cost in life will eventually be more than the loss for the industry. Sure, it won't stop the disasters, but it'll make less of them occur in the future. They should soon start thinking about the rest of the world and the nature, and not only how fat their wallet is...

[Scorpio 0]

This is really sad; I think one can only fully understand if they actually see for themselves the extent of destruction and suffering these people are going through. One priest was lying on the side of the highway with a serious heart condition and nobody had any medical supplies to help him.

Please don't turn this into political bullshit. Let's just hope that the rescue services improve and get to the people quickly enough.

[edit] did anyone hear mayor of New Orleans on his speech? crazy! I didn't know mayors were that...so eloquently spoken.

[Bernadotte 0]

anyway...I just hope US now understands why they should sign the Kyoto deal thingy and stop releasing so much greenhouse effect gases. The goverment claim that it'll cost to much for the US industry. Well, I'd think that when more and more disasters hit US, the costs to rebuild and the cost in life will eventually be more than the loss for the industry. Sure, it won't stop the disasters, but it'll make less of them occur in the future. They should soon start thinking about the rest of the world and the nature, and not only how fat their wallet is...

Has anyone been connecting this year's hurricane activity with global warming?

In the middle of a relatively cold Central European winter I was reading about how the Atlantic Gulfstream was slowing down because of increased Arctic meltwater infiltration.  Back then I began wondering where the Gulf of Mexico's heat energy would go if it no longer came to Europe.  The most probable conclusion was that it would generate many more powerful hurricanes in the Carribean and Gulf.

A guess it's a bit ironic that Katrina's impact to America's oil production might actually reduce the rate of global warming very slightly.

[Garcia 0]

At least every reserch and stuff like that that I've read and heard about connects global warming to worse weather. It may be extremly cold winters or shitloads of tornados or hurricanes or some other shit.

Though one thing I wonder is...what the f**k does some of those ppl in NO think about when they start shooting at choppers evacuating ppl? If they think they will get rescued faster by shooting at choppers, they should think it over again

[Harnu 0]

If they think they will get rescued faster by shooting at choppers, they should think it over again

I bet they're those damn newbies from OFP multi-player that try shooting choppers as they take off because their asses werent fast enough to grab ammo and go before the pilot took off

[Supah 0]

Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans sounds like the sort of politician I could actually muster respect for. Blaming people for not leaving, 30% of New Orleans was living below the poverty line .... they simply couldn't afford to get to safety .... doesn't that make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

[Baz 0]

in my opinion Nagin is part of the problem as well.... What do you think will happen when you cram thousands of people into a sports arena? Oh and then have thousands more come to that arena in hopes of evac after the storm... The mayor should have thought more carefully about his evac plans and the instability of the levee system... As an engineering standpoint (becasue i'm studying to be one) it is much more worth it to have never had the city there in the first place. If need be they could provide sea access through a manmade river... Being completely reliant on a levee system, and being below sea level is not a smart idea.. As you all know water looks to travel to low elevations. In my opinion, New Orleans was an engineering disaster waiting to happen. Common sense should have prevailed when deciding how to design / place the city.

[Airbourne Alchaholic 0]

Bush Bitch-slapped nature when he refused the Kyoto treaty, now nature has bitchslapped him back.

[Supah 0]

in my opinion Nagin is part of the problem as well.... What do you think will happen when you cram thousands of people into a sports arena? Oh and then have thousands more come to that arena in hopes of evac after the storm... The mayor should have thought more carefully about his evac plans and the instability of the levee system... As an engineering standpoint (becasue i'm studying to be one) it is much more worth it to have never had the city there in the first place. If need be they could provide sea access through a manmade river... Being completely reliant on a levee system, and being below sea level is not a smart idea.. As you all know water looks to travel to low elevations. In my opinion, New Orleans was an engineering disaster waiting to happen. Common sense should have prevailed when deciding how to design / place the city.

Oh the weaknesses of the levee system were know for a long time. there was a plan to upgrade them, look back a few pages and you will find the link I posted to the article about how the bush adminstration slashed that budget to finance the war in Iraq. We here in the netherlands rely on a levee system, we here in the netherlands are living below sea level en masse. You know what makes the difference? We don't take money out of the maintenance budget of those levee's for trivial things. You maintain your levee's or you drown. New Orleans is drowning. Your complaint about the placing of the city would probably best be directed at the french government of about 300 years ago ... its one of the oldest cities in the US ... well it was anyway. You cant just move a city because its in an inconvenient spot. Mayor Nagin was a lot more honest then the congresswoman for louisianna. She was just giving shout outs to her homeys on capitol hill and in the white house, disgusting. The Senator was just being very passive and coming across like a scared little bird, please mr bush, can we have some more?. Nagin was being honest, he has hands on experience at how bad the situation is. What he said was true, at lot of mistakes being mad. The president flies in and out in a plane that could have carried 80+ people out of misery on the way out but apparently he didn't want the icky people on his plane.

Oh remember bush saying the convention center was now secure and save? Well he was lying apparently as people on the ground, reporters and guardsmen, are of the COMPLETE opposite opinion.

[billybob2002 0]

in my opinion Nagin is part of the problem as well.... What do you think will happen when you cram thousands of people into a sports arena? Oh and then have thousands more come to that arena in hopes of evac after the storm... The mayor should have thought more carefully about his evac plans and the instability of the levee system... As an engineering standpoint (becasue i'm studying to be one) it is much more worth it to have never had the city there in the first place. If need be they could provide sea access through a manmade river... Being completely reliant on a levee system, and being below sea level is not a smart idea.. As you all know water looks to travel to low elevations. In my opinion, New Orleans was an engineering disaster waiting to happen. Common sense should have prevailed when deciding how to design / place the city.

Oh the weaknesses of the levee system were know for a long time. there was a plan to upgrade them, look back a few pages and you will find the link I posted to the article about how the bush adminstration slashed that budget to finance the war in Iraq. We here in the netherlands rely on a levee system, we here in the netherlands are living below sea level en masse. You know what makes the difference? We don't take money out of the maintenance budget of those levee's for trivial things. You maintain your levee's or you drown. New Orleans is drowning. Your complaint about  the placing of the city would probably best be directed at the french government of about 300 years ago ... its one of the oldest cities in the US ... well it was anyway. You cant just move a city because its in an inconvenient spot. Mayor Nagin was a lot more honest then the congresswoman for louisianna. She was just giving shout outs to her homeys on capitol hill and in the white house, disgusting. The Senator was just being very passive and coming across like a scared little bird, please mr bush, can we have some more?. Nagin was being honest, he has hands on experience at how bad the situation is. What he said was true, at lot of mistakes being mad. The president flies in and out in a plane that could have carried 80+ people out of misery on the way out but apparently he didn't want the icky people on his plane.

Oh remember bush saying the convention center was now secure and save? Well he was lying apparently as people on the ground, reporters and guardsmen, are of the COMPLETE opposite  opinion.

The levee system was designed to withstand only up to Category 3 hurriances. Furthermore,

http://www.kron4.com/Global/story.asp?S=3801720&nav=5D7lBwNh

Quote[/b] ]

Army Corps of Engineers: Flood projects would be no match for Katrina

Email to a Friend  Printer Friendly Version    

PENTAGON The commander of the Army Corps of Engineers says even if certain water and flood-control projects in New Orleans had been fully funded, they would have been no match against Hurricane Katrina.

But Lieutenant General Carl Strock acknowledged that complete funding for the Southeast Louisiana Flood Control Project would have allowed the Corps to get water out of New Orleans faster.

The budget of the Corps has trimmed by the Bush and other administrations several times to free up money for other White House priorities.

Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tm....looding

Quote[/b] ]

In a telephone interview with reporters, corps officials said that although portions of the flood-protection levees remain incomplete, the levees near Lake Pontchartrain that gave way--inundating much of the city--were completed and in good condition before the hurricane.

However, they noted that the levees were designed for a Category 3 hurricane and could not handle the ferocious winds and raging waters from Hurricane Katrina, which was a Category 4 storm when it hit the coastline. The decision to build levees for a Category 3 hurricane was made decades ago based on a cost-benefit analysis.

....

Quote[/b] ]Bush Bitch-slapped nature when he refused the Kyoto treaty, now nature has bitchslapped him back.

[red oct 2]

not that i don't care about the environment, or deny that global warming exists, but im getting real tired of reading these superstitious claims that the huricane was a result from not signing the Kyoto agreement. i find it almost as distasteful as the repent america link, claiming it was god's wrath on a city of sin. C-5 huricanes are going to be a reality w/ or w/out global warning and people seem to wana ignore the geography of the area. signing the agreement wouldn't have changed the outcome anyway. it was a disaster waiting to happen and nobody did anything about it.

[Supah 0]

in my opinion Nagin is part of the problem as well.... What do you think will happen when you cram thousands of people into a sports arena? Oh and then have thousands more come to that arena in hopes of evac after the storm... The mayor should have thought more carefully about his evac plans and the instability of the levee system... As an engineering standpoint (becasue i'm studying to be one) it is much more worth it to have never had the city there in the first place. If need be they could provide sea access through a manmade river... Being completely reliant on a levee system, and being below sea level is not a smart idea.. As you all know water looks to travel to low elevations. In my opinion, New Orleans was an engineering disaster waiting to happen. Common sense should have prevailed when deciding how to design / place the city.

Oh the weaknesses of the levee system were know for a long time. there was a plan to upgrade them, look back a few pages and you will find the link I posted to the article about how the bush adminstration slashed that budget to finance the war in Iraq. We here in the netherlands rely on a levee system, we here in the netherlands are living below sea level en masse. You know what makes the difference? We don't take money out of the maintenance budget of those levee's for trivial things. You maintain your levee's or you drown. New Orleans is drowning. Your complaint about the placing of the city would probably best be directed at the french government of about 300 years ago ... its one of the oldest cities in the US ... well it was anyway. You cant just move a city because its in an inconvenient spot. Mayor Nagin was a lot more honest then the congresswoman for louisianna. She was just giving shout outs to her homeys on capitol hill and in the white house, disgusting. The Senator was just being very passive and coming across like a scared little bird, please mr bush, can we have some more?. Nagin was being honest, he has hands on experience at how bad the situation is. What he said was true, at lot of mistakes being mad. The president flies in and out in a plane that could have carried 80+ people out of misery on the way out but apparently he didn't want the icky people on his plane.

Oh remember bush saying the convention center was now secure and save? Well he was lying apparently as people on the ground, reporters and guardsmen, are of the COMPLETE opposite opinion.

The levee system was designed to withstand only up to Category 3 hurriances. Furthermore,

http://www.kron4.com/Global/story.asp?S=3801720&nav=5D7lBwNh

Quote[/b] ]

Army Corps of Engineers: Flood projects would be no match for Katrina

Email to a Friend Printer Friendly Version

PENTAGON The commander of the Army Corps of Engineers says even if certain water and flood-control projects in New Orleans had been fully funded, they would have been no match against Hurricane Katrina.

But Lieutenant General Carl Strock acknowledged that complete funding for the Southeast Louisiana Flood Control Project would have allowed the Corps to get water out of New Orleans faster.

The budget of the Corps has trimmed by the Bush and other administrations several times to free up money for other White House priorities.

Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tm....looding

Quote[/b] ]

In a telephone interview with reporters, corps officials said that although portions of the flood-protection levees remain incomplete, the levees near Lake Pontchartrain that gave way--inundating much of the city--were completed and in good condition before the hurricane.

However, they noted that the levees were designed for a Category 3 hurricane and could not handle the ferocious winds and raging waters from Hurricane Katrina, which was a Category 4 storm when it hit the coastline. The decision to build levees for a Category 3 hurricane was made decades ago based on a cost-benefit analysis.

....

Quote[/b] ]Bush Bitch-slapped nature when he refused the Kyoto treaty, now nature has bitchslapped him back.

Have you read the article I posted? looks like you didnt. Also try googling for "Wetlands draining" and bush's policies on that. Those would have lessened the punch of the hurricane. Anway, glad you agreed with the rest of my post :P

[Sophion-Blue 0]

Were is this green house effect comments comming from? Can someone please connect a Kyoto signing with whats hapening now?

This disaster was, is, and will still be inevitable. There is no changing, it is out of human hands. lets see how a huricane is Formed. I can get in deeper with the green house effect but I would go too far off-topic. So know this, I think the green house effect is irrelivent to life today because humans have learned to adapt through many many years.

Don't let me hear anything more about the greenhouse effect in this topic because I will point and laugh at you untill you drown yourself from self-pity. If you whant to discuse it then create another topic, but not here guys.

Disaster strikes when it can inflict the most possible damage. Has anyone noticed that yet or am I looking at a differant direction. In other words, it was impossible for all the possiblities to be layed out for decisions. You never know what will happen in the futre untill it just heppends.

Quote[/b] ]Oh remember bush saying the convention center was now secure and save? Well he was lying apparently as people on the ground, reporters and guardsmen, are of the COMPLETE opposite opinion.

one of the main problems of refuge center down there is organization. people don't know what thier supposed to do.

[Bernadotte 0]

C-5 huricanes are going to be a reality w/ or w/out global warning...

Try and see the shades of gray.  Nobody is claiming that C-5 hurricanes wouldn't exist without global warming.  But, there's nothing superstitious about saying that global warming could be creating more of them.

This disaster was, is, and will still be inevitable. There is no changing, it is out of human hands.

Are you denying that the number of hurricanes is increasing?  This article was printed just 6 days before Katrina struck:

Quote[/b] ]The 2005 hurricane season already has set several records for the number of storms.

The next three weeks likely will determine if the streak continues. Late August and early September are historically the most active for tropical storms and hurricanes.

"This is prime time for the formation of storms," said Hugh Cobb, a forecaster with the National Hurricane Center in Miami. "They can form anywhere (in the Atlantic Basin)."

As if on cue, Tropical Storm Jose formed in the southwest Gulf of Mexico on Monday afternoon, the earliest a 10th named storm has formed in any season on record.

Or do you believe that global warming and all these new records are just a coincidence?  

[Bernadotte 0]

[Baz 0]

with all politics aside, as an engineering standpoint as to what has happened the city's placement was very poor, and the levee system that let the city even be located in such an area was its excecutioner. The geographic aspects of the placement of New Orleans was not well thought out to say the least... You have 3 major bodies of water able to converge on New Orleans should the levee system fail. The Mississippi river, the sea, and not to mention a rather large lake. The condition of the city in the first place was deplorable, lack of propper maintainance and planning for such an event occuring made it more catastrophic. And the fact that so many people stayed behind eventhough given the order to evacuate, has certainly made search and rescue much more difficult. I place blame on the city and state officials who should have seen this comming... They had days in advance for activating the national gaurd, and for propper planning. It is beyond any logical explaination as to why city planners never thought about levee or pump failure. They seemed too cought up with their plans for the superdome. Which by the way, after watching the news for 4 days... We say how ugly that turned up. Forcing thousands of people into 1 area is not a very smart idea. I hate to be one of those guys that says what if... But what if the superdome roof had collapsed, thousands would be dead or injured... By sending everyone there, they were taking a large risk. In my opinion, the mayor should have concentrated his efforst on getting those people out of the city. Not keeping them in the superdome, only to face deplorable and disturbing conditions. This disaster will change the way the federal gov. and FEMA and local gov. run disaster relief for the years to come. And hopefully everybody learns a thing or two. I already learned something, building a city so close to the sea and having such a low elevation and having its only lifeline being a levee system... Its just a disaster waiting to happen. One guy mentioned that in the netherlands they have levees and citys/towns below sea level. Yeah i'm sure they work great in normal conditions, why don't you tell me you have the same confidance in them after a cat. 4 or 5 hurricane. I'm sure your opinion will change.

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]Have you read the article I posted? looks like you didnt. Also try googling for "Wetlands draining" and bush's policies on that. Those would have lessened the punch of the hurricane. Anway, glad you agreed with the rest of my post :P

Actually, I read the articles. The levee system failed not because of maintenance but it was design only to withstand Cat. 3 hurricanes. The cost of building a levee system to withstand a Cat.4 hurranice outweighted the benefit of having one.

Quote[/b] ]Also try googling for "Wetlands draining" and bush's policies on that. Those would have lessened the punch of the hurricane. Anway, glad you agreed with the rest of my post :P

Please. People were crapping their pants because of the fear that Kat. would had directly hit NO. This is not the first time a Category 4 hurricane has hit the mainland USA. Category 4 and 5 hurricanes are going to hit the mainland USA at one point or another and no policy is not going to change that.

[Bernadotte 0]

The geographic aspects of the placement of New Orleans was not well thought out to say the least...

Wikipedia has an interesting page dedicated to Katrina's affect on NO.  It includes a detailed map of the city with shading to show which parts are below sea level.

You'll notice that the cities oldest areas are above sea level and much of that area has remained dry.  So, I'd say the French did a rather good job of placing their settlement where they did 300 years ago. It's just a pity that it was allowed to expand into the low-lying areas.

[shinRaiden 0]

- back online now, fixed post... -

The tsunami came with really little to no practical warning. There was a carrier group in the immediate area that was able to move right in. The water washed in, then right back out so it wasn't a problem to just lift in a couple buldozers and clear a path for LCAC's out of Guam - which took a while still to show up.

I'm not talking about the carrier that showed up eventually - that was a few days after the hit. I'm talking about the evacuation of hundrends of thousands of tourists. Only a few hours after the tsunami hit, airplanes were lifting en masse from Europe building an air corridor, bringing in supplies and doctors and bringing back tourists. Note that this wasn't a military operation, but a cooperation between the governments and civilian airlines. Less than 48 hours later, people were arriving back in Europe. Hundreds of aircraft were used. At Phuket airplanes landed and took off every 15 minutes. The red cross was in place very fast and were providing food and shelter.

That's 747 and A340 routes normally, so there were planes enroute and it was possible to shuffle things around. Plus there airport was dry and there wasn't much the local government could do.

In NO, all those people were long gone, most before the storm. What you're seeing now is the 1~2% of the entire city. They go around here and there picking a couple people from roofs, take them to a staging shelter like the convention center, then stuff them on buses to whereever they go. All standard commercial flights in or out of NO are restricted, it's only authorized - thus military - flights since the airport is not fully functioning. If the disaster management agencies decide they want/need commercial aircraft in addition to the military transports operating and enroute, then they'd practically have to commendeer them, and the airlines will be charging through the roof for fuel. Plus there's the hassle of wrangling all the custom FAA commercial flight plans, instead of running strictly military protocol. And all the pilots called up to fly the transports... well a lot of them are regular pilots for their day job, so the airlines are scrambling already.

Quote[/b] ]

Why did it work so fast? Because they were acting according to a pre-defined protocol. The needed supplies were already prepared in emergency warehouses, the airlines knew what to do as did the red cross and other help organization.

And that was on the other side of the world!

The needed supplies were already prepared in emergency warehouses. All that was waiting was the dispatch orders. Who's warehouse is it coming out of, who needs what, and so on. Civilian agencies such as the Red Cross have shipping contracts standing, but not always the trucks to ship stuff. They often - and in this case - have to bum a ride from the military, since civilian flights are blocked since technically the airport is offline. The military can't get involved until they have all the authorization and waivers, and that doesn't happen until a request is made. The requests don't happen until status assesments are made, and it takes time to go through the chain of command.

There's a pre-defined protocol, and they're working by it. The problem is that the media's not at the staging points or at the in-between waystations, so they don't see the infrastructure moving the relief efforts along. So all they have to report is crackheads in NO, and irresponsible race-baiting rumor-mongering such as people eating dead black babies.

Quote[/b] ]

Quote[/b] ]That was a case example only of the distances and regional coordination involved. If you understand US federal, state, and local lack of joint cooperation and organization, you'd realize that the fact that it's happening at all, and on the scale that it is, is quite miraculous.

It is far below expectation. This shouldn't be a big surprise. They even knew the hurricane was coming and that there was a great risk to New Orleans. Even without knowing that, they should have had protocols in place on how to act in situations like this. And knowing what might happen help should have been on the way far before the hurricane ever reached NO.

They're there, and working, and not getting reported. No one on the ground had a practical idea, let alone recovery training for the scenario of a significant levee breach in NO. That never got past the theoretical planners table, because how do you train for that kind of engineering scenario? You make it up as you go. As for the idiot mayor, if he'd ever worked an honest day's labor pouring concrete he'd know it takes some time to transport and set 17 tons of concrete, and do that many times over.

Quote[/b] ]

Quote[/b] ]Case in point, McChord AFB here in Seattle is shipping C-17's to NO. But before they go, theres lots to do. You have to find out whats needed. Who's bringing what? What special resources are needed - and what are already covered by other agencies? That's time on the phone, not on the tarmac. It takes time to pull pallets out of storage and rack them in. These are emergency disaster supplies, and aren't always sitting in the hanger waiting to go. Then there's the civilian rescue teams. All general air traffic - pretty much all non-military flights - in the NO area are prohibited. That means all these civilians going down need to make arrangements to take time off from work. Do you think the Doctors Without Borders sit around playing Xbox all day with bags packed and a pager on? No, they're doctors, and have to make arrangements for patients at home. Then they got to get to the base and get cleared. The United States is a rather big piece of land, and by the time you load up, fly out, and get to NO, that's effectively an entire day. They're not going to fly them down empty, they're going with rescuers and supplies, then turn around and use the C-17's for evacuation and transport. And of course this is using strategic military equipment for civilian operations, which is a major hassle.

That just shows that they weren't prepared. They should have had warehouses with emergency supplies. They should have had several disaster scenarios worked out before the hurricane was known to exist. And after they knew that it was heading to new Orleans, they should have loaded the planes, put them on stand by. Tens of thousands of national guard units in amphibious vehicles should have been in place. Alternative communication infrastructure should have been thought of etc

This isn't just a sudden thing that just happened. Primarily they knew that the storm was coming and that a catastrophic flooding was a real possibility. And beyond that, you should always have disaster scenarios and protocols in place so that you can act quickly. These people are behaving as if this was a sudden unpredictable problem that happened on the day the hurricane came. It was not. And semi-civilized nation should have well-trained established routines for emergency response. WTF are the people at FEMA doing for a living during times where there isn't an ongoing natural disaster?

They do have warehouses with supplies. They're just coordinating their activities, because there are so many agencies and resources to draw from, and the mobilization to do the job is significant. And to call a mobilization request for reserve military transports up to 3300km away, picking up doctors, supplies equipment from all across the country, and so on, is no 24 hour wonder.

Well, for all you Bush-haters pointing out that NO FEMA's budget got cut, that's because the district office is under federal investigation for corruption and fraud.

In terms of truck transport, we just shipped my sister's harp 4000km coast-to-coast. That took nearly a whole week in transit. There's a news item that a relief convoy just pulled out of South Carolina. It's got 1500 kilometers to drive before it reaches NO. There is some distance involved, and it takes time to get there. Local supply warehouses in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida are being used for local disaster recovery and refugee shelters. New Orleans had a population of about a million and half people, with many hundreds of thousands more in the metro area. Supplies, equipment, transport, and crews are coming in from all parts of the US. This is no short holiday excursion from Stockholm to Gotlands, it's a massive nationwide mobilization. And the reason you're seeing stuff come in now is because it was prestationed and moved up, but out of range of the short-legged media.

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Quote[/b] ]You don't get out much do you? Come over here and we'll go visit Pioneer Square about 1am. Even the police don't go down there in the middle of the night. Oh, and they don't take kindly to white guys, so bring your flak jacket and a helmet

Well, I suppose you know better, but to me that does not seem like a normal situation to me, not even in America. And yes, because that kind of shit doesn't really happen here, I do get out.

My point is that there are some bad neighborhoods, and it's not exclusive to the US. Theo van Gogh was in a pretty good neighborhood, wasn't he? When you see the 1% of the population left, and only a fraction of them are the hardened criminals, do you see the other 99%+ on TV putting their lives back together in an out of state shelter? No, that's boring, send the cameras back to the rapes and corpses. That's high-ratings media entertainment. An evacuation order means YOU pick yourself up and move YOURSELF to a shelter. It does not mean sit at home playing xbox snorting crack and gathering your shopping carts for a merry trip to walmart. Those are much of the people that are left, and that's what the media chooses to whore.

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Quote[/b] ]Am I blaming everyone? Apparently you think so. I'm only blaming the fraction of 1% of the city's population, the dregs of the projects that are deliberately exploiting this disaster for their personal gain. They have none but themselves to blame for their predicament. They ignored the evacuation orders. They added to the destruction and desolation, out of spite or greed. They destroyed or prevented the distribution of supplies sent for their ingrateful relief. They attempted to take the lives of those engaged in lifesaving efforts on their behalf. And then they blame the rescuers for insulting them by the very efforts underway already.

You have in several posts implied that the people that are in trouble and complaining about the rescue efforts are to blame. You don't seem to understand that a lot of those people simply couldn't afford to evacuate. And not everybody is shooting up NG choppers, but all are suffering because of it. There is some really bad shit going down in New Orleans and the victims of it are for the most part just that, victims who have every right to expect more from the government. Those are Americans there for fuck's sake - they're in a place now that's worse than the worst hellhole in Africa. People are dying as we write this and it's been several days since the region was hit.

It's not the people that are in trouble, it's the people that put themselves in trouble, that are wrecking it for the other innocent victims. I know there's lots of poor people that couldn't evacuate. Those that had some sense of decency moved to shelters when they were told. Those that stayed behind by and large were the belligerent, or terminally stupid. Of course there are some innocent people that fell prey to slumlords and such. I'd be the insensitve clod you accuse me of being if I were to unjustly blame them. The fact that this has fallen to the level requireing petty explanation and reitteration of the obvious is pathetic.

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To end this with an optimistic note:

Yes, things might be worse today than they were yeststerday, but still, they are far better than it will be tomorrow!

Edit: I should perhaps mention that in the Tsunami case, it took well over a day for the Swedish government to realize what was going on and to take action. Fortunately other EU countries reacted much faster and helped stranded Swedish tourists. The airlines reacted very quickly as well, getting people back and supplies in far before the government took an active role. This again was made possible because other European countries got their shit together from the start. So for instance Swedish medical teams were transported to the region by Lufthansa and tourists flew back the same way.

If that's optimistic, why do you bother getting out of bed in the morning? Seriously, there's a lot to do, but the response to this scale of a unique disaster is quite incredible. Yet again the pessimistic nay-sayers get outed as hyperventilating too much.

Again, run the numbers. What you are seeing is only a fraction of one percent of the city population that's choosing mayhem over order. You're not seeing the couple million plus people scattered in shelters across an area half the size of western Europe. You're not being told that the trucks rolling into town were prepositioned so they could respond as fast as possible. You're not seeing the backend infrastructure coordinating military, civilain, and other agency interoperation across 4 time zones and 4000+km of distance, while the US is also fighting two major deployed military conflicts. You're not hearing that the oil supply to a quarter of the US is temporarily cut off due to power problems - not lack of crude. You're not hearing about the thousands of volunteers and citizens who can't afford the gas it's going to cost to get there, but are loading their trucks and vans with tools and supplies and going in anyway to assist.

There's a whole lot to be optimistic and proud of, unfortunately the media doesn't like to report it. Instead you get half-hour race-baiting TV specials intended by the biased media to incite insurrection to be manipulated against the Bush Administration, and baseless rumor-mongering laced with deliberately devisive, and often inaccurate or profoundly ignorant pyscho-babble. I'd love to see Wal-Mart and Target and Loews send the bill for looted goods to ABC News and the Rev. Jesse Jackson and have them cough up the money. Not that it would help them get a clue any.

On a seperate note, my ISP's upstream connection has been konked out all afternoon. Traceroute shows issues at the SuperPOP connection here in Seattle. Anybody have any info on the impact NO being offline is having to routing? I know it's got some hosts, I'm curious more though about the backbone and how the traffic is going.

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]Instead you get half-hour race-baiting TV specials intended by the biased media to incite insurrection to be manipulated against the Bush Administration, and baseless rumor-mongering laced with deliberately devisive, and often inaccurate or profoundly ignorant pyscho-babble.

I think you should not blame NBC or the Red Cross ( ?) becauce K. West did not follow the script. You could tell Mike Myers was reading a script and he had almost a WTF look in his eyes when West said the most retarded thing in a long time. Also, NBC rushed to cut off from that "segment" and switch to Chris Tucker who was not ready and had a strange look of WTF. So, I don't think NBC was trying to incite something.

Anyway, Shepard Smith (Fox News) reported that 400 (?) people who were trapped in the hotel near the mayor office were freed and put in front of the line when the buses came (I forgot where they were dropped off). Smith says the Mayor had a hand in that..

Also, Geraldo Rivera is fecking crazy...

[shinRaiden 0]

If you've got NASA Worldwind you can stream fairly detailed topographic maps of New Orleans from the USGS servers. I'm going to duck into Google Earth to see if there's any cool overlays, and see if I can match the wiki pic to make an overlay.

Some high-res pics are starting to trickle into defenslink's archives. Probably loads on militaryphotos as well.

Interdictor scanner channels could always use some help transcribing live radio comm's.

[Bernadotte 0]

Here's an interesting source of recent air photos showing damage - like this one - note the destroyed bridges.