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Emergency preparedness
Posted by Yankee on September 1, 2005 - 1:58pm
This morning, Atrios had an entry about emergency preparedness in this country (original link at Josh Marshall). The author of the question that Atrios posted wasn't talking about the fact that perhaps the low-lying lands in the Gulf of Mexico are unsustainable, or even that the levees were only built to withstand Category 3 storms when it was known that eventually a Category 4 or 5 would come through the region. He was talking about the mess that is the relief effort—the military not being sent in until today, the evacuation having to be suspended because shots were fired, FEMA suspending operations because it's violent in New Orleans. (Oh, and the US is currently blocking help from Canada.)
This Washington Post article talks about how FEMA has been gutted in the past several years in order to prioritize "the war on terror".
I know that this post isn't directly related to the energy issues that Katrina has raised, but there is something important here. To take a more oil-related example: what if a coordinated attack on our oil infrastructure were carried out (as in the Oil Shockwave simulations)? What if 50% or more of our gasoline deliveries were affected? People would surely go into chaos-mode. And what we see from Katrina is that our government is not prepared to handle it.
But nothing on how the government is working toward greater emergency preparednes at a national level. It seems as though this would be important, because if you don't have a home, or a business, or a school, you're going to end up relying on something other than your own preparations.
This year it was announced that FEMA is to "officially" lose the disaster preparedness function that it has had since its creation. The move is a death blow to an agency that was already on life support. In fact, FEMA employees have been directed not to become involved in disaster preparedness functions, since a new directorate (yet to be established) will have that mission.
I know that this post isn't directly related to the energy issues that Katrina has raised, but there is something important here. To take a more oil-related example: what if a coordinated attack on our oil infrastructure were carried out (as in the Oil Shockwave simulations)? What if 50% or more of our gasoline deliveries were affected? People would surely go into chaos-mode. And what we see from Katrina is that our government is not prepared to handle it.
Oddly enough, it's Emergency Preparedness Month. Did you know? According to the Dept. of Homeland Security:
National Preparedness Month is a nationwide coordinated effort held each September to encourage Americans to take simple steps to prepare for emergencies in their homes, businesses and schools. National Preparedness Month 2005 is being co-sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the American Red Cross.
But nothing on how the government is working toward greater emergency preparednes at a national level. It seems as though this would be important, because if you don't have a home, or a business, or a school, you're going to end up relying on something other than your own preparations.
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I do note, with a lot of "attaboys" and hope, that the state, parish and municipal authorities responded very quickly. However, with the state National Guard unable to respond with any kind of head count (Iraq), they have been overwhelmed. The Coast Guard also gets "attaboys" - they went into high gear, knew their mission, and never looked back.
I do think the problem lies with Federal agencies, which didn't have shit to say of consequence until TWO DAYS after this disaster. The president couldn't be bothered, and he should have his ass kicked for not being all over this and providing leadership. The current administration has so mucked up inter-agency lines and cooperation that it actually requires the friggin president to make anything happen.
Homeland Security should have their butts kicked too for knowing about exactly what could happen and having NO PLAN WHATSOEVER to deal with reality.
The New Orleans Levee Board should all be taken out and hung for letting their city be ruined and for allowing uncounted numbers of people to be killed. The fault for the flooding lies squarely on their corrupt shoulders in the end. New Orleaneans know this, and they share responsibility for allowing the Levee Board to become a rewarding political tub of graft and corruption.
(1) The current administration simply does not care for domestic spending of any stripe.
(2) The administration is peopled with operatives who are highly skilled at building electoral coalitions like Karl Rove, or at political infighting (Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld). I don't know of anyone at the top level of the administration who actually cares about the actual nuts and bolts of governing.
I am exaggerating here, but not much: regarding "FEMA," Ianqui, you have an administration that thinks that all agencies with acronyms are a boring waste of money. Not to mention a sinkhole of administrative time that buys no votes in the Republican base.
You might remember that after 9/11 the EPA flagged over 7,000 chemical plants (in a later report the number was reduced to around 5,500) that could be terrorist targets. Under pressure from the chemical industry, that did not want the expense, the administration did not push to make the plants secure. Besides, that's the kind of boring, mundane task you can't sell in a soundbite. I mean, "emergency preparedness" is just not a phrase that grabs you when you hear it on the evening news, and Karl Rove knows that.
Is this also true about politicians in general? Absolutely, but not to this degree. Nor am I, believe it or not, slamming Republicans in general. Under Reagan and Bush I, there was always someone who read the boring bureaucratic reports and made sure that vital tasks were carried out, even if some of them weren't obvious vote getters. I can't imagine Bush I starving FEMA, especially after 9/11. I could imagine Reagan not caring about it -- but delegating the matter to someone like Michael Deaver who would keep him out of trouble on the issue. In this administration, I have come to the chilling conclusion that they simply don't care.
I heard last night on NPR (sorry don't have the link to the spot) that National guard troops from the Gulf States have and are rotating back in from Iraq but their equipment stays, to be used by fresh troops.
These guard troops are being used for emergency response to Katrina but most of their motorized equipment, tents, command centers, etc. are back in Iraq. We now have a need for organized troops and equipment on our shores (the reason the Guard exists) but we have spent the last few years moving it all overseas and not replacing it here because IT COSTS TOO MUCH!
Doing things on the cheap and not asking people to pay for it up front will catch up to you eventually.
I agree with posts above. The current administration people are not good thinkers. All tactical and not enough long term strategy for the whole country. Leave the mess for the next group in power. Well they are getting caught short this time.
Official response seems lacking in so many ways, except for the Coast Guard, who just know how to save lives -- they do it all the time.
And lest anyone thinks I'm dissing the troops from my previous post. The people on the ground in GOM and Mideast are working their butts off. The problem is not with people operating aircraft, ships and trucks. The problem is the people coordinating them from afar.
Cafferty on CNBC asked rhetorically - "why can't they even get sandwitches" into the area for people.
i am a little more interested in Pres. Bush's speech preparedness. I envision a room of his top aides with Rove and whole gang saying 'talk slow so no one gets scared' and 'be sure to show confidence like you knew this would happen and you are totatlly prepared' and 'don't mention the national guard' and 'we are going to save lives not "hunt down" or "bring to justice"' and 'do not call katrina a weapon of mass destruction or a terrorist'
i hope this did not muddy the waters of this site
this is the best site on the net and i am bored at work
(admin: feel free to delete this post)
Guys, this is a very big problem. These refugees are going to run out of money soon, staying in hotels and being forced to eat out. They have no income, as their jobs are gone. They run up credit card debt trying to survive, and cannot pay it. They can't file for unemployment, can they? What about food stamps? And how many middle class people actually THINK along these lines?
So how long before THIS starts to simmer and boil, resulting in another crisis? Already local people in some areas are angry because refugees have taken first priority in the job market... there are BIG ramifications to this mess.
Ironic... I was just going to post a link that clearly fortold of the danger, before the storm hit and just now heard Cafferty on CNN quoting someone, not sure which lamebrain official it was:
"nobody was clairavoyant enough to see this coming"
WRONG
On August 28th the Nat. Hurr. Center warned what it would be like:
http://kamala.cod.edu/offs/KLIX/0508281550.wwus74.html
A MOST POWERFUL HURRICANE WITH UNPRECEDENTED
STRENGTH...RIVALING THE INTENSITY OF HURRICANE CAMILLE OF 1969. check
MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...PERHAPS LONGER. AT
LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL
FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL...LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY
DAMAGED OR DESTROYED. CHECK
THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL.
PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE IS EXPECTED. ALL WOOD
FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED. CONCRETE
BLOCK LOW RISE APARTMENTS WILL SUSTAIN MAJOR DAMAGE...INCLUDING SOME
WALL AND ROOF FAILURE. CHECK
HIGH RISE OFFICE AND APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL SWAY DANGEROUSLY...A
FEW TO THE POINT OF TOTAL COLLAPSE. ALL WINDOWS WILL BLOW OUT. CHECK, on windows at least
AIRBORNE DEBRIS WILL BE WIDESPREAD...AND MAY INCLUDE HEAVY ITEMS SUCH
AS HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES AND EVEN LIGHT VEHICLES. SPORT UTILITY
VEHICLES AND LIGHT TRUCKS WILL BE MOVED. CHECK THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATE
ADDITIONAL DESTRUCTION. PERSONS...PETS...AND LIVESTOCK EXPOSED TO THE
WINDS WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH IF STRUCK. CHECK, we can assume
POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS...AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN
AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. CHECK, to be borne out in time here WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS. CHECK
THE VAST MAJORITY OF NATIVE TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. CHECK ONLY THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING...BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED. FEW
CROPS WILL REMAIN. LIVESTOCK LEFT EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL BE KILLED.
Where was FEMA? George Junior? Homeland Security? Dick "Dick" Cheney?
Earth to the Feds, Earth to the Feds.... this is NOLA calling, this is NOLA calling....
People who lived in the area still talked of Camille like it was yesterday. These people KNEW the power of a hurricane to change lives. Now we are all witnessing it thanks to 24/7 news and internet coverage.
Okay, now that this has happened, not only do we need to clean up and deal with the current mess, but we need to prepare for the next time. The fact that killer storms don't happen on any kind of schedule makes it easy to pretend they don't happen, or won't happen in your state.
But clearly, in spite of several years of the NHC warning that there will be "more major storms" and talk of "possible catastrophe since the gulf coast is overbuilt and difficult to evacuate quickly," we weren't paying attention. Maybe now we will. With a little luck, mama nature won't hit us again this season, or at least not quite so hard, so we have a chance to get back on our feet.
(1) I think it's fitting that the country that was least interested in global warming, and where in the papers you could read that "low lying countries like Bangladesh" would be affected by it (via sea level rise), is suddenly the very country most affected by it. Fitting also that we are experiencing the same kind of mass administrative confusion we disparage in third-world countries; that the kind of pain we assumed would be felt "elsewhere" is being felt at home. I only hope that other people besides the poor get to suffer from this enough so we'll pay attention.
(2) We knew this disaster would happen just as clearly as we knew 9/11 would happen. And I recall Dick Cheney's comment during the last campaign, that if the wrong people got elected, there was a danger that we'd go back to a pre-9/11 mentality which would be very dangerous for the country. Well, guess what? This administration did just that - it's in a pre-9/11 mentality about everything, it seems, except 9/11. What will they be unready for next? Probably some epidemic we don't yet know about.
On 9/12/2001 the local free transit paper The Metro carried the burning towers on page 1 but carried warnings of environmental and health concerns on inside pages. The message (to me) was: By what will we be blind-sided next?
(3) Preparedness means paying attention to the world around us. This administration is not preparing for everything, but is living on its own private planet. In the famous remark by a Bush aide to author Ron Suskind, "we create our own reality". They are so busy with their own agenda they seem unable to see "systems blinking red" whether it's terrorism or the environment.
IMO, if the states had more authority and money to deal with these disasters, then the response would be much more effective. But the Federal government has ALL the money, and doles it out so the states will do what the Feds want them to...
http://www.sciam.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=00060286-CB58-1315-8B5883414B7F0000
The key underlying critique everyone above has pointed to is the woeful leadership, both present and past. Such leadership is no where near what is required by our current and future challenges.
That data should have been collected around the Katrina area, and should still exist somewhere.
http://www.colorado.edu/hazards/o/nov04/nov04c.html
Now I hear that our "leaders" may be realizing that the levee system down there required some maintenance and enhancement. Might as well close and secure the barn door now that that horses are already gone.
His speech of Wednesday, in which he rattled off a laundry list of goodies being (ostensibly) being shipped to the disaster region, ended with a ludicrous platitude. We'll make America stronger, he declared. I can't help but recall how President Carter reacted after the hostage crisis began. He stayed at the White House so as to (properly) tell Americans he was working to resolve the crisis.
There is no excuse for levys failing and pumps that won't pump. There are ways to prevent this from happening.
Please look at my open thread post here. Perhaps TOD should consider replacing that Red Cross donation box with another pointing to Operation Blessing.
Bottom line, both parties have done nothing but offer lip service up to now when it comes to alternative energies. With oil so inexpensive, it wasn't politically expedient.
That said, I've had a tough time taking this board seriously lately, as it seems like it's degenerated into an unintelligent rambling of "hate Bush speak" - not all of you, by any means, but a good number of posters.
There is a reason why RunningOnEmpty does so well, and that's because the discussion is geared towards what we can do to solve this problem together and not along the lines of pointing fingers every other post.
Just my honest opinion...
Of course, if you don't agree with my basic premise that the government will inevitably be involved, than this whole point will be moot for you.
With respect to that topic, as far as political issues go, if "the lights are on but nobody's home" in our current administration, then I'm afraid that's what I'm going to talk about.
I apologize to no one for being political right now as people die in New Orleans.
Re: an earlier post, I have little faith that Pat Robertson and the 700 club can run a relief effort in NOLA and the Gulf Coast. I find it offensive that they are listed along with the Red Cross as charities that will help in this post-hurricane situation.
Inevitably, everything and I mean especially Peak Oil is a political problem. What policies do we adopt? Does the leadership acknowledge the problem? etc. So don't go talking about finger-pointing and all your other nonsense, skagen.
I know that is a crazy question but when we bus more than 40,000 school children per day in Mineapolis alone, I guess I am just having a little trouble figuring it out. And we feed them -
Either I am missing something or what.
Shut down Houston schools for two weeks and send the buses and the food to New Orleans -
Am I missing something?
No, it's inexcusable. The finger pointing has already begun. Of course, it's more than just the poor souls in the Superdome, there are thousands of people in the area (90,000 square miles estimated) that are in a world of hurt.
The first bus full of refugees to arrive at the Astrodome was stolen. Kinda fitting, it seems...
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/02/opinion/02krugman.html
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=4784
Having lived there, I can readily agree with the points made in that article. The New Orleans Levee Board is perhaps the most corrupt entity in the metro area, and it is going to be hard for them to dodge the bullet.
But blame for the poor response and preparedness should be distributed just like the money is, because that is what it takes to make things happen. Thus it will eventually fall at the feet of the Federal government, because they collect more taxes from each of us than any other entity. The state and local officials must then lobby Washington for redistribution of THEIR OWN MONIES back to their area. He who lobbies best, wins.
I think J would say to follow the money, and that track leads to Congress and the Whitehouse...