was a natural disaster now a humanitarian catastrophe

[argyll]

Its all getting a bit like a Monty Python sketch....nobody expects the 'Spanish Inquisition'.

 

If we followed the advice of those who smugly know best about impending disaster, then I suspect that most of the world's population would right now all be heading for the Himalayas to avoid the possibility of hurricanes and tsunamis. In doing so, we would of course have to ignore the possibility of avalanches, a defective Indian Airways 747 landing on top of us, or being attacked by a rabid yeti.

 

I've been to New Orleans... a fine city full of music, architecture, history, pigeon french and gumbos. Its been standing there for several hundred years and never got this wet once in its history, good enough reason to suspect it might have done so for several hundred more, so I'm not surprised that its population not only stayed put over the years, but also increased. Forget the stuff about 'poor people' and 'not being able to afford to live elsewhere' Property prices in and around New Orleans are amongst the highest in the southern states and 80% of the families in the area just got into their 2/3 cars and simply drove away. The vast majority live in the area because they want to.

 

If you move New Orleans to somewhere else instead of shoring up the sea defences, then you also have to move everything from Biloxi upwards as well. Thats a fair chunk of real estate to turn into a wasteland. On the other hand you might take a philosophical view, as do most of those that live in potential tsunami, hurricane, avalanche areas and make better preparation for the next time. Same goes for London. Same went for Canvey Island after the fifties floods (Den will have a morbid view on that ---sure to)

 

Most of us live with some kind of potential danger of meeting a sticky (or just wet) end from floods, terrorists bombs, bird flu or some other natural or unnatural disaster that some soothsayer had predicted but nobody heeded. Whilst worrying about this indistinct possibility, I could of course walk under a bus.

 

[ 05. September 2005, 10:52 AM: Message edited by: argyll ]

[Leon Roskilly]

argyll:

Same goes for London.

Something to read:

 

Flood by Richard Doyle

 

Tight Lines - leon

 

[ 05. September 2005, 10:36 AM: Message edited by: Leon Roskilly ]

[Ken Davison South Wales]

The power of the hurrican and the damage it inflicted upon the coastal areas went far beyond the predicted out come.

 

As I understand it a large amount of food and rescue services were wiped out leaving local services unable to do anything to control the situation.

 

There was as always a small but deadly proportion of the local population who went out of their way to exploit this situation at the expence of others.

 

This was however out weighed by a number of local heroes who went out of their way to help others.

 

With communications down evaluating the situation would have been serverely handicapped and left organisations running around headless.

 

I am not a Bush fan but the man is only as good as the information he is supplied with, I am glad that I do not have to shoulder his current load.

 

The meadia as usual is looking for heads to roll and in doing so using up local resources which could be put to better uses. They are the worlds best at criticising after the event, lets face it they cannot even get the weather forecast right.

[argyll]

From MSN NEWS

 

'While the city's human population suffered enormously, its famous Audubon Zoo managed to take good care of its charges. Only three of its 1,400 animals died, officials said, adding that they had planned for years for a catastrophic storm'

 

They can get elephants to high ground but..... I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions.

 

 

Ken Davison said

 

'I am not a Bush fan but the man is only as good as the information he is supplied with, I am glad that I do not have to shoulder his current load'

 

The whole world via news reports seemed to know what was going on...except the White House. I also wouldnt like to be Bush right now. He and his staff within the last few days talking about 'dynamic action' and 'helping those people who cant help themselves' was genuinely cringeworthy stuff.

[Leon Roskilly]

Whether fishery management issues, or flood protection etc, the problem is a lack of communication between those academic specialists who know about these things, and those (usually generalist politicians who make the decisions and need to assign spending priorties).

 

Academics cannot produce a simple definitive message.

 

Rather they produce long reports, couched in academic terms and full of caveats.

 

To another academic the report quite clearly may say 'New Orleans will flood, probably quite soon', but only if you understand both the jargon and coded language that it has been written in.

 

It's 'campaigners' who are likely to bring such information to the notice of the decision makers, but they will have their own agendas, cherry-pick the information that most suits their case, and apply some spin.

 

And it's 'campaigners' from both sides who the politicians have to listen too, not just on this issue but many other unrelated issues at the same time, so instead of the 'clear' message from academics, they recieve conflicting messages from those with agendas.

 

No wonder they may miss a message that almost every 'expert' agrees was obvious, with hindsight.

 

Instead of producing an academically rigorous report and putting it on the table, believing that's their job done, academics must take responsibility to ensure that the essential message does get through, in an understandable way, to those who make the decisions.

 

(They won't though!)

 

That is what I see as the failure here, and why so many will now be saying 'it was obvious what was going to happen, sooner or later' whilst others will be saying 'no one saw this thing coming'!

 

Argyll, sure there are risks everywhere, sometimes a tiny risk, sometimes a massive risk.

 

New Orleans faced a massive and increasing risk!

 

(as natural seaward flood barriers against hurrican surge were washed away because of flood protection measures designed to prevent flooding from the Missipi, sea levels increased and hurricanes were forcast to become more frequent and more destructive)

 

The message simply didn't get through!

 

Tight Lines - leon

[Jim Roper]

I think there was a figure of about $25Billion to repair the levvees, alone.

 

As for leaving it as wasteland, I think it will be covered with water!

 

How much is the tidal range in that area?

 

[ 09. September 2005, 09:03 PM: Message edited by: Jim Roper ]

[poledark]

Argyll, not sure my outlook is morbid but things are a little different now to say 20 years ago. We now know that sea levels are rising..we seem to be getting more extremes of weather (not just N.O. that got flooded a while ago, there was severe flooding all over Europe, even in Switserland????

 

My real beef is with the media.."rapes..murders....looting...thousands dead......starving........Bush unaware........"

 

I think that when seen in retrospect that the "authorities" did a pretty good job....even the media were finding difficulty in shocking us after 7 days.

 

I would hope that if Britain (Katrina severely affected an area the size of GB) were subject to a similar disaster then I would only have to wait a few days for the rescuers to find me in deepest Kent

 

Den