Overnight Hurricane Thoughts
Could the cleanup task be even bigger than even pessimists have reckoned? My thinking is that there’s been a lot of recognition that the water in New Orleans itself is foul, full of human waste and sewage and other disease vectors. That water came from Lake Ponchartrain. But with the dikes out the flow goes both ways now – won’t the foul fllodwaters carry contagion back into the lake, assuming water levels have equalized? Was Lake Ponchartrain already a sinkhole of pestilence, or does this represent, as I suspect, a further degradation of its quality?
The Hurricane Pam exercise (discussed downblog) leaves no doubt that federal, state and local agencies recognized in advance that hundreds of thousands of people would remain behind because they were too poor to get out. The White House itself was briefed. So it’s beyond unforgiveable for people like Brown and Chertoff to pepper their comments with people who chose to stay behinds.
Two further thoughts on the Pam plan for getting the carless out of town: First, on reflection, the “pick someone up at church on your way out” is even less promising than I gave it credit for last night. (I called it a “good first step.”) A lot of families would have filled their own vehicles to capacity. Second, um, I forget. And I have to leave for the day now. It’ll come to me.
Comment by Gary Farber —
September 2, 2005 @ 8:23 am
About the water and contaminants, see the articles I linked to here.
I’ve been blogging a fair amount on the whole thing. A bit about the levee history a href=”http://amygdalagf.blogspot.com/2005/09/drove-my-chevy-to-levee.html’>here.
Kathryrn Cramer is covering a href=”http://amygdalagf.blogspot.com/2005/09/satellite-pictures-and-maps.html”>satellite photos.
A a href=”http://amygdalagf.blogspot.com/2005/09/montage.html”bunch of excerpts from current reports; note that the levee was fixed by a private contractor losing patience and driving in and just doing it.
Current downtown a a href=”http://amygdalagf.blogspot.com/2005/09/convention-center-from-interdictor.html”>Interdictor report quote.
Fats Domino: a href=”http://amygdalagf.blogspot.com/2005/09/fats-domino-found-alive.html”>found and lost.
Expect more.
Oh, right, no links, great. Will pull html.
Comment by Jim Henley —
September 2, 2005 @ 8:48 am
Sorry, Gary. And unfortunately, I don’t have my site password at work today so I can’t do the usual ongoing comment maintenance. I’ll try to fix your links tonight.
Comment by Rich Puchalsky —
September 2, 2005 @ 9:25 am
Some of the concerns about he more exotic diseases are overblown. See:
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http://effectmeasure.blogspot.com/2005/09/katrina-out-now.html
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Although people clearly need drinking water, of course. As for the concerns about chemical contaminants and sewage, well, in actuality, most pollution is handled through dilution. The contaminants here have been mixed with a great deal of water, and will be mixed with more as the runoff goes into the Gulf. I don’t know enough about Lake Ponchartrain’s drainage to know how likely it is for pollutants to settle out there, but in general I’d doubt that a single event like this is likely to permanently change its water quality, absent a spill of a particularly dangerous PBT (persistant bioaccumulative toxic) chemical.
Comment by Bill Woolsey —
September 2, 2005 @ 11:47 am
Emergency planners commonly predict numbers of people who choose to stay despite a mandatory evacuation order. Some of those people could leave, but choose not to do so. Not everyone who fails to evacuate does so because they cannot.
People who are poor may not drive their cars a couple of hours and stay in a motel for a day or two. They often get rides with relatives to stay with other relatives who live on high ground in rural areas.
Some poor people have no such relatives. Or they don’t get along with those relatives.
In the Charleston area, the plan for the people with no other options is to put them on school buses and move them the public schools on higher ground (10 or 15 miles inland.) But this is a last option. The expectation is the even quite poor people will get rides with friends or relatives to go to temporary shelter with friends or relatives on high ground.
And a good number of people refuse to do this. They will take their chances and ride out the storm.
Comment by Hesiod —
September 2, 2005 @ 12:21 pm
Jim,
True disaster planners would have understood that it was impossible to completely evacuate a major US city within a couple of days. Particularly New Orleans.
So they would have planned for dealing with the people stuck behind.
That means, a massive influx of troops/guardsmen,cops, whatever to provide security.
It also means prepositioning food, closthing, ,medicice, waqter, blankets, etc in areas that can easily be reached, or that can easily be used as staging areas to airlift those supplies into the city, pronto.
What makes the federal response all the more criminally negligent is that there IS a major land corridor into the city they can use: I-10!
They could have sent in troops via that route immediately to mainatin order, provide aid and dsirect people to safer ground.
But we didn’t call them up until it was far too late.
You have, basically, 48-72 hours TOPS after a major disaster like this to stabilize things, and start providing relief efforts or its going to get ugly really, really fast (as we’ve seen).
People can’t go without water for very long. And food for a little longer. And that’s just for the healthy adults!
Imagine trying to keep infants and the elderly alive!
If there was any justice in this world, George W. Bsuh would be IMPEACHED and removed from office for this.
Comment by Francis —
September 2, 2005 @ 7:57 pm
the solution to pollution is dilution, goes the old saying.
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so it’s not what’s pumped out that concerns me, it’s what stays behind.
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think about it — pumps draw from the bottom, but a lot of the nasty stuff floats. so it will concentrate more and more as the pumps draw down, then leave a slime trail across the city.
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so every (EVERY!) square inch of the city that was inundated will need to be cleaned or thrown away. All the drywall, all the plywood, all the carpet will need to be ripped out, then the house allowed to dry (perhaps with a chemical bath needed to kill the nasties now living in the joists) and then replaced.
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those who have replacement insurance coverage probably will just get new houses. those with less than that may find the only solution to tear down and build something smaller.
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Comment by roger —
September 2, 2005 @ 8:04 pm
There was a plan to evacuate the poor. The plan called for buses to take them to the Superdome. The “chose to stay behind” meme disguises massive government … well, what is the word to call it? Complicity in mass murder? or mass negligent homicide. There isn’t a word for that yet. If you are picked up by a government agent — a policeman, a nationa guardsman — dumped in a Civic Center or a highway, given no food, water, or security, and then blamed for staying behind, you have reached the portals of hell. Hell’s name, at the moment, is Bush’s America.
Comment by Rich Puchalsky —
September 2, 2005 @ 8:21 pm
Francis, take a long at this article:
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/02/AR2005090201802.html
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According to this, it’s going to take two years to clear everything away, and there are plans to house people for three. It sounds like a probable misquote to me; I don’t think it should take that long unless the intention is to get everyone used to living somewhere else to avoid having to rebuild. A year to have the city “dry out” sounds especially questionable.
Comment by Francis —
September 2, 2005 @ 9:05 pm
Rich, i’m a land use lawyer not a construction engineer. but i’ve been around this stuff long enough to know that early estimates about flooding abatement are usually low, not high.
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now, leaving a tropical city unoccupied for a year so it can “dry” sounds kinda nuts (tent the city and suck out the humidity? come on), not to mention politically untenable. people will be charging back into the city as soon as the roads are clear and any politician who tries to stand in the way will likely be soon unemployed. i agree that those quotes sound more like political cover to those who want to build the city elsewhere.
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it’ll be “interesting” (ie depressing, sad, awful) to discover the state of the housing stock once the water recedes. one of the all-time construction booms is about to hit the US, as everyone will be looking for contractors this winter. there’s going to be a big price shock in construction and related materials.