So Hurricane Gustav looks like it’s going to suck. As of tomorrow, New Orleans will be under a mandatory evacuation order. Gustav has already decimated western Cuba, and hurricane-force wind stretched as far east as Havanna itself. The storm appears all but certain to bulls-eye Louisiana, with most of the models taking it in just to the west of New Orleans — which is the worst place for it to hit, as the highest winds and storm surges are to the north and east of a hurricane. It should hit as a Category 4 storm on Monday afternoon.
We have, one hopes, learned a bit in the past three years about how to deal with a hurricane in the Gulf, and one can hardly imagine that the state, local, and federal governments could possibly do worse than they did in 2005. But one immediate concern is the fact that there will be no shelter of last resort. Yes, that means there will be no Superdome, no concentrated focus of misery. But that also means for those left behind in New Orleans, there is nowhere for them to go; the state is, to their credit, mobilizing to evacuate absolutely everyone from the city, spending millions on busses to get people out. But it’s foolhardy to think they will get everyone out, and I’m very worried about the people who get left behind.
New Orleans is what it is, a city 10 feet below sea level — and nature, in its impassive wisdom, will try to fill that. We don’t know if the levees, which have been shored up since 2005, can hold. We don’t know if the evacuation will work as planned. We do know that FEMA can’t do worse than they did three years ago, but we don’t know if they can do better.
The one thing that is certain is that the Bush administration will not ignore the disaster this time. Katrina ended George W. Bush’s ability to effectively lead the nation; after August 29, 2005, George W. Bush had no credibility, and was treated like it. The Bush administration will try to use this to undo the damage of their neglect. Sorry, it’s too late for that — 1800-odd people are dead, and they aren’t coming back. But if they want to prove that they’ve learned their lessons, good — prove it. Because I want New Orleans to get the support it deserves from its government. It’s the least we, as a country, can do. And if George W. Bush getting credit for it is the price it takes to get that governance, well, that’s the price we pay.
Stay safe, Louisiana. We’ll be hoping and praying you come through okay.
I was relieved to see that they had issued an evacuation order. You are right when you say that no matter what they do, they cannot bring back the people who died through neglect in Katrina. It is my hope that their deaths will make the government more accountable this time.
What I cannot stop thinking about is the fact that New Orleans still was not properly rebuilt and how many more people this storm will dislocate. They didn’t rebuild any affordable housing or even regular apartments, where will this leave the poor and disenfranchised now?
The issue of course is that this:
is sort of rendered more than a little bit problematic by this:
insofar that there is no especially good way to “deal with” a hurricane when you are below sea level and on the coast. One can certainly do a hell of lot better than did the Bushies in Katrina, but new orleans is difficult if not impossible to make hurricane proof.
new orleans is difficult if not impossible to make hurricane proof.
Absolutely true, and that’s one of the reason the 2005 debacle was so maddening — everyone who’d studied what a strong hurricane could do to New Orleans knew it would be catastrophic. Everyone but FEMA, that is.
FEMA knew it would be catastrophic, but it was not George Bush’s fault or FEMA’s fault that people died in that hurricane. It was the fault of the State and local authorities that failed to do what they have now done, which is to evacuate the city.
You know, I understand that there’s no love for George Bush on this blog. I expect to see him pilloried for his policies. But you strip yourselves of credibility when you attack him for not doing things that he had no authority or responsibility to do. Do you just not understand how government works in the United States? Do you know what the word “Federal” means? Or are you simply so consumed by your feelings about George Bush that the facts become secondary to the rhetoric?
As far as the levees go, they were not then, are not now, and will not be designed to resist a direct hit by a category 4 or above storm. What state they are currently in I don’t know, but even if they are perfect they won’t survive a direct hit by Gustav.
we are still in a situation where it is the foremost duty of thinking men to continually restate the obvious. hence: Hurricane Katrina Timeline.
this time around, evacuation has been declared early. transportation and housing for New Orleans residents too poor to evacuate on their own dime, still not provided — at least, not in time for them to be out of the hurricane’s path.
I always get profoundly annoyed when people make it out to seem like New Orleans bore the brunt of Katrina. They got sideswiped compared to other parts of the state that were absolutely brutalized. Thats not to minimize the damage in New Orleans by any means, but other parts of Louisiana got hit much harder
Perhaps people who do not have the means to leave a place as disaster-prone as New Orleans should not be living there. Certainly, we should not be pursuing a national policy of (re)settling impoverished people at government expense in a place where it is *inevitable* that they will need to be evacuated on a regular basis.
I have no objection to people deciding they want to live ten feet under sea level in Hurricane Alley, or that they want to live perched on a fault line, or that the ideal location for their million dollar home is in the middle of a mudslide and wildfire zone. Go nuts. But come on, pay for your own risks. Why should the government be on the hook for foreseeable risks that people freely choose?
It’s not like Kansas is full. Tornadoes are a pain in the butt, but they don’t generally wipe out cities.
has it ever occurred to you that people of low means have to live in cheap places, Robert? or that disaster-prone places tend to be cheap for that very reason?
Mid-Delta Mississippi is cheaper, Nomen, and it doesn’t depend on luck and engineering to stay out of the frickin’ ocean.
I’m not saying “poor people can’t live New Orleans”. I’m saying, why the hell are we deliberately settling poor people in New Orleans?
Or that major ports produce plenty of low wage work, and it would be crippling to the US not to have a major port at the mouth of the Mississippi?
Also, the levees failed in Katrina because they were not well maintained. The agency that maintains the levees is the Army Corps of Engineers, a federal agency. Three years on, repairs to the levees are still not complete. Plans to restore the Mississippi Delta, which provides a buffer for New Orleans against hurricanes, have gone nowhere under the Bush administration.
Also, trying to claim that FEMA’s hands were tied during Katrina is just a lie.
The people who cannot possibly afford to drive north for a few days are not, by and large, the people employed at the port. Of course we need a port at the mouth of the Mississippi, and New Orleans will do that job just fine. We can have cities on the mouths of volcanoes, if we want to.
You don’t need fifty thousand welfare cases to have a thriving port, however. You don’t need any. It is insane to take people who were helpless the last time, evacuate them somewhere safe during the crisis, pay to resettle them in the disaster zone after it calms down, and then evacuate them again…rinse and repeat.
You don’t have to think that Brownie did a heckuva job to see that.
How, exactly, do you expect people who are too poor to get themselves 500 miles north at short notice to afford relocation to a location that is safer?
Relocation is more expensive than temporary escape.
since when is anybody “deliberately settling” free U.S. citizens anywhere, Robert? “we” do not get to dictate where poor people are to live — except indirectly, through bidding up real estate prices too far for their pocketbooks everywhere else. yet somehow, i don’t think you’re complaining about the predatory and harmful side effects of the free market here, are you?
How, exactly, do you expect people who are too poor to get themselves 500 miles north at short notice to afford relocation to a location that is safer?
We paid to relocate them to New Orleans. Just as easy to pay to settle them in Jacksonville.
since when is anybody “deliberately settling” free U.S. citizens anywhere, Robert?
When we resettled them in New Orleans. We should have said that we would resettle New Orleans refugees anywhere they liked (on the same budget), but that they could not go back to this death trap of a city.
I have no objection to free US citizens doing whatever they like. If they want to resettle in New Orleans on their own nickel, it’s fine with me.
We paid to relocate them to New Orleans.
From where?
Ron, even if it’s true that the Federal government has less responsibility for disasters, that doesn’t excuse Bush, because it was Bush’s choice to restructure the government’s disaster response in that way. It’s ridiculous to claim that Bush’s bad judgment in reorganizing the Federal government means that he can’t be held responsible for the results.
Nor, really, does it seem true that FEMA’s hands were tied and they couldn’t act. Indeed, during the period that you claim they couldn’t have acted, they were acting — they were turning water and fuel and other help away from New Orleans. The post-hoc claim that the Federal government is helpless to act in the face of natural disaster is a Republican talking point, but it doesn’t seem to have been true during the time that Clinton administration people — which is to say, competent people — were in charge.
From a 2005 article in Salon:
I’d also recommend checking out Drum’s FEMA chronology; and noting that Bush himself has admitted that the Federal Government bears part of the blame; and remembering that Bush blatantly lied when he claimed that he couldn’t have anticipated the levee’s failure.
Finally, Ron, what’s the specific evidence that Chertoff would have needed local approval to issue his memo declaring an “Incident of National Significance” days earlier? (Here’s a couple of links on Chertoff’s delays).
would we also have said that we would find them jobs in their new locations? would we have resettled their families along with them, their social support networks? helped them in any way whatsoever to start their lives over in those new locations? or would we have dumped these, by definition not well-to-do, people alone and unsupported to fend for themselves in strange towns where their arrival most likely would not have been welcomed (cf. Houston)?
trivia question: if you’d been in their place, given the recent example of federal “aid”, would you have trusted the government to treat you right had you taken them up on such an offer of relocation?
see also this recent documentary. i note the protagonists in it did manage to relocate from N.O., on their own dime (though it’s not really clearly explained just where they got that truck they were driving around…) but had to move back, due to being unable to find jobs to support themselves with.
Amp, I wholeheartedly embrace the concept that FEMA’s response to the aftermath of Katrina was deficient. But what we’re talking about is the role of the Federal government in getting people out of New Orleans before Katrina made landfall. That was not something that failed due to a lack of Federal resources. That failed because the local authorities didn’t have the guts or foresight or wit to actually do it. What part of the current process is dependent on Federal resources? Not much, I’ll bet. Looks to me like the Mayor got on the TV and told people to get the hell out of Dodge and has marshalled the resources under his and (with the cooperation of the Governor) the State’s resources to make sure it happens.
That’ll be news here in Chicago. Google “Cabrini Green” and see what you find. I worked nearby and got a front row seat as the City of Chicago ordered thousands of poor people out of their government-built project homes whether they wanted to leave or not, resettled a bunch of them, left others to their own devices for various reasons, and tore those projects down.
Then there’s the zoning concept known as a “flood zone”. About 800 feet from my house there’s a great spot to build a house. Under current market conditions you could subdivide the land and sell it for about $200,000 for a 1/4 acre. But it won’t happen. Why? Because about once every 5 years that land is going to be under at least 6 inches of water. So it’s zoned as a flood zone, and no one is allowed to build there.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that either the City of New Orleans or the parish it’s in has the authority to zone land that’s 10 feet below sea level a flood zone. Around here, the definition of an unbuildable flood zone is land that FEMA defines as being likely to flood one year in 100! What do you think the odds are for N.O.’s 9th ward in the next century?
So. I don’t know the identity of the precise board, but someone has the authority to tell people “No, you can’t live in certain areas of New Orleans.” It’s based on geology, not economic status, but in this case only poor people would be in the market for that land.
Forget the levees and the Army Corps of Engineers. Making that land proof against floods from a Category 4 or 5 storm is not planned and isn’t going to happen. And when it does flood, it’s not going to be a few inches of water filling up people’s basements like it is around here. It’s going to be watermarks on the 2nd floor and probably at least some bodies floating in the water again. Rebuilding residences in those areas is absurd and a waste of money. Using public money to do it is outrageous.