What went wrong? - just the facts, please

[dreamshark]

I am getting SOOO tired of this. The Culture War Over Katrina, that is. That was Salon's term - really it's more like the Katrina front on the Continuing Culture War. Like everybody else that has been paying any attention at all, I have been deeply moved, disturbed and obsessed about the disaster in New Orleans, but identifying targets for tearful rage and pouring energy into inveighing against them just isn't my style. I'm trying to understand those of my friends who are reacting this way, but it's hard. I have to tell you, if your postings on this topic have been laced with vitriol about Bush, FEMA, the military, the looters, The Bush-haters, The Bush-lovers, etc., I have probably stopped reading.

I'm a very high T on the Myers-Briggs. We respond to crisis by suspending emotional judgements, gathering facts, and making lists. If this reaction is alien to you, you should probably stop reading this now. (Ok, cakmpls are we alone now? )

This was a horrible natural disaster. In the best of all possible worlds, where planning had been prescient, and not a single mistake was made by the agencies and humans responding to the disaster, there still would have been death, despair and destruction. However, with hindsight there are clearly things that could have been done differently to lessen all of those. Here's my list of the biggest and most damaging mistakes, in priority order.

1) The City of New Orleans apparently had an evacuation plan that was entirely based on people getting in their cars and driving out of the city. On the plus side, they executed that part of the plan remarkably well, reversing the highways and getting 400,000 people out of the city in 24-48 hours. On the *HUGE* downside - 27% of the households in New Orleans didn't own a vehicle.

2) All of the city services within New Orleans (police, fire, etc.) relied on a centralized communication infrastructure (wireless?) that was no longer functional after a hurricane. There was no backup system. Police cars couldn't even talk to each other.

3) Although some thought had gone into designating emergency shelters within the city of New Orleans, and there apparently were some supplies of food and water, no provision whatsoever had been made for dealing with human waste. Even a single storeroom in the Superdome filled with 10-gallon plastic buckets with tight-fitting lids would have made a big difference.

4) Having a centralized agency to coordinate disaster response (that would be FEMA) is not a bad idea. However, setting up such an agency so that inaction on its part blocks essential parts of the disaster response from happening is exactly the wrong way to go about it. When the centralized agency is overwhelmed, regional organizations should have the authority to do what needs to be done. Reports are still coming in on this, and some of them appear to be unsubstantiated rumors, but it sounds like in many cases FEMA was not only ineffective, but directly COUNTER-effective.

5) Everybody knew that a sufficiently large storm-surge would overfill Lake Ponchartrain to the point where the storm walls could rupture. More money could have gone into reinforcing the levies and storm walls. I put this at #5 because I don't think there is any clear answer to how much would have been enough. Nobody really knew how big a hurricane it would take to rupture the walls, let alone how much money it would have taken to keep every single wall from rupturing. New Orleans was always asking for more money to shore up its defenses. In hindsight, obviously someone should have listened.

Comments

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

On that last point, I'd love to hear from some Dutch engineers. Pretty much their whole country being below sea level, I imagine their informed opinion would be interesing.

K.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

Do they have hurricanes, or equivalent unpredictable coastal storms? If not, the Dutch might not have much to add. The question isn't how the levees behave under normal conditions, it's how much of an abnormal surge they can stand.

[wombat-socho.livejournal.com]

Something similar could be done for New Orleans, but it may be better in the long run to look at downsizing it and letting the lowest lying areas become open space and wetlands.

I agree. I seriously doubt whether insurers will be willing to cover the risk of something like this happening again, especially since one of the levees that blew out (the 17th Street Levee)had just finished its upgrading (http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/005362.php). (Original quote from the NY Times.)

[wombat-socho.livejournal.com]

That could well be. They'll be looking at this for years to come...it's chock full of "how not to" lessons.

[joelrosenberg.livejournal.com]

Well, depending on what you mean by unpredictable, probably not. Much less energy to be found in and around the North Sea, because it's so cold there. Hurricanes need warm water to build.

[kalikanzara.livejournal.com]

On the first, the evacuation plan, see:

http://junkyardblog.net/archives/week_2005_08_28.html#004751

Sadly, I think it's a case of the people in charge making a plan, because they know they needed to, but not being familiar with it, or doing what was needed to implement.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

Once again, a link to a post that I simply cannot read. While there may be some information buried between the angry outbursts, I find it difficult to sort out. The facts the blogger cites actually contradict his generalizations. He accuses the city first of having a plan but failing to follow it, then of "planning to fail," then of "complete catastrophic failure." But the portion of the plan he cites clearly states that the primary means of evacuation would be private vehicles. Buses are mentioned as a possibility, but if there is a portion of the plan that spells out how and when the buses might be used, the poster doesn't quote it.

The primary evacuation plan actually seemed to be planned and carried through quite successfully. Getting 400,000 people out of the city in that time frame is no small feat. The plan did not fail. It was, however, massively inadequate. That's why it is #1 on my list.

[wombat-socho.livejournal.com]

The plan worked great for the people with their own cars, but for the sixth of the city that relied on public transport it pretty much fell over and went "clunk", with ugly effects. I feel bad for Mayor Nagin - after a successful couple of years fighting corruption, he got whacked by a threat that he apparently didn't spend a lot of time worrying about. I don't blame him for that: you only have so much time to do your job, and if you're constantly worrying about low-order possibilities you'll never get anything substantive accomplished. Governor Blanco, not so much - it was her call to order mandatory evacuation, and she had to be pushed into it. It's all Monday morning quarterbacking at this point, really.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Yeah. What you said. Plenty of blame to go around amongst the various government entities, white and black and other, Dem and Rep and other. Now: how do we fix what can be fixed?

[wombat-socho.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of it can't really be fixed, as I said in my reply to David Wilford above - banks and insurance agencies are going to take a hard look at the terrain and say "Rebuild somewhere else - above sea level." Whether Congress is going to be swayed by emotion into blowing billions of tax dollars on rebuilding the city is another question; they do that kind of stupidity all the time by providing flood insurance to people who build in flood plains. I guess we'll see. Personally, I hope they don't, but after seeing the amount of pork in this year's budget I don't have much hope that they'll act with any sense whatsoever.

[joelrosenberg.livejournal.com]

In terms of the immediate damage, I think that's going on. In terms of next time, see http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/006707.html#006707 for a very good summary of how the system ought to work. Key point, IMHO: there is one and only one person in command, during the incident. It can, in theory, scale up from something as small as a traffic accident all the way to a national disaster. Authority gets delegated down to where it's needed, but there is a clear chain of authority, so that if, say, Governer Smith and FEMA Director Jones are giving contrary orders to the same people, everybody knows whose decision counts, and who is just talking. (This includes both Smith and Jones, btw.)

It means, in effect, that if Federal troops come in, either the whole disaster is under Federal command, or they're coming in under control of the State or even possibly local authorities.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

Part of the problem, which is getting more comment as time goes on, is that NO is simply in the wrong place. As the guy in charge of such things pointed out on 60 Minutes, technically speaking the "levees" in the city didn't break, it was the "flood walls". They were built to withstand a Category 3 hurricane. You are incorrect when you say "Nobody really knew how big a hurricane it would take to rupture the walls" because the walls were only built to a certain spec. Category 4 and higher hurricanes are expensive to guard against... if your city is below sea level.

The New York Times has a really nice graphic on The Impact of Hurricane Katrina. Especially instructive is the "Day By Day" tab. Scroll over the dates to see how the flood took over the city.

The hurricane was one problem. The rising floodwaters created another, larger, set of problems that were predicted in the general sense but not well planned for. New Orleans is an unliveable city (as Aaron Brown just said on CNN), and yet a third problem is the refugees.

Putting things back is yet another set of problems. Assuming they want to rebuild to the same boundaries (which I think is unlikely), they'll have to a) rebuild the flood walls to a higher spec and then b) pump out the water and then c) go house-to-house and clean up.

The General you liked so much, Honore, made most of these points on 60 Minutes.

So... how to coordinate for such a disaster? FEMA (now part of Homeland Security) would be the logical coordinating body. There's little difference, in terms of logistics, between a terrorist attack and a hurricane (or an earthquake), though all situations have their unique aspects. (How would Homeland Security have reacted if Al Queda had bombed the flood walls in several places?)

Still, this was a potential situation that had been anticipated for a long time. But little was done and less was planned for. Sorry the politics turn you off but this is why we have goverment: "to ensure domestic tranquility" and such. When our leaders fail us, we need to hold them accountable so it doesn't happen again.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

"They were built to withstand a Category 3 hurricane. You are incorrect when you say 'Nobody really knew how big a hurricane it would take to rupture the walls' because the walls were only built to a certain spec."

"will withstand a Category 3 hurricane" is not exactly a spec. It's a very broad, and as far as I can see unsubstantiated, prediction. Hurricane category is based on wind speed. It doesn't tell you how big the hurricane is, how long it takes to pass through, what angle it hits at, or how large a volume of water it moves into the lake that the levy is holding back. Actually, it doesn't tell you much of anything with regard to whether the floodwalls will hold. It wasn't the wind that breached the walls; it was the lake, two days after the wind had died down.

Not only that, the storm walls DID survive Hurricane Camille (Cat 5, direct hit) in 1969.

So I stand by my statement that nobody really knows. I think it's fair to say that EVERYBODY knew that a storm could come along that was strong enough to breach the walls. But nobody knew it was going to be this storm until it happened.

Thanks for the map link, btw.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I think it's fair to say that EVERYBODY knew that a storm could come along that was strong enough to breach the walls. But nobody knew it was going to be this storm until it happened.

Very clearly said, and I think you're right.

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

"In the best of all possible worlds, where planning had been prescient, and not a single mistake was made by the agencies and humans responding to the disaster, there still would have been death, despair and destruction."

A very good point, and kudos on keeping an objective viewpoint. In the face of this sort of disaster the first priority has to be dealing with the immediate damage, human and otherwise, and mitigating it as much as possible. Understanding what went wrong with planning and preparations can help with future planning and preparations, but that's a step down the road.