Katrina & the Apocalypse Maybe

Did I miss something? It seems a lot of what I hear in the wake of Katrina is about how the government failed to respond afterwards in a timely and appropriate manner. There were very likely serious errors made, maybe even many that should lead to the firing of certain individuals or worse. But since I have heard that eventually there will be hearings into the handling of the crisis, I think it best to wait to hear what needs to be said in order to make a sound assessment of the failures, to the extent that I care to follow this in detail. After all, if someone is already guilty based on what we know now, then we don't need any hearings.

What is most puzzling, and somewhat troubling to me, are the underlying assumptions being made, or rather underlying assumptions that should have been made but have been ignored: the preparation in advance of the storm, i.e., evacuations.

I do not watch a lot of television or listen to news talk programs (and I don't have cable), but in the past year or two--and this is most important--the week before Katrina hit, I heard about the apocalyptic scenario to which New Orleans was susceptible. And not just susceptible in a fairy tale sort of way, but based on raw numbers: a category 5 hurricane, storm surge of so many feet, a city so many feet below sea level, once swamped would retain the water for days on end, producing a toxic mix, and kill many left therein.

This was repeatedly talked about lately and just before Katrina hit. Now a question: are we so used to hype in the media about potential hazards, syndromes, and doomsday scenarios that we take them all with a grain of salt? Remember the Y2K Apocalypse that was supposed to bring the global village back to the stone age--or at least play havoc with the bank accounts? Didn't happen. Are we so used to seeing Power Point graphics on scene depicting various scenarios in Virtual Reality that we can picture an onscreen Plague being reversed by a quick injection of a computer patch, wiped out just as a digital computer countdown reaches the number 1 just like the world is saved in a string of Hollywood apocalypses from Armeggedon to Sudden Impact? In other words, do we take these things seriously or have we lost of the line between reality and virtual reality that we can just exit by hitting the ESC button on our computers?

If we don't take scenarios such as the New Orleans Apocalypse seriously, then how should these warnings be communicated so that people take them seriously? For the real problem is not government response, but something prior: an avoidable catastrophic situation that could have been avoided in the first place. If this were not true, then why issue evacuation orders? The vast majority of what we saw in New Orleans would have not been there for TV cameras to film had the full population evacuated. In short, the primary problem was that the evacuation policy, procedure, and practice were abysmal and deadly. Without the failure of a life-saving evacuation, we might not be talking about the failure of the government to respond.

There still are undoutedbly many failures here: what about the sick who cannot leave? What about poor people who have no means to get out? That's where an real evacuation plan comes in: you account for all needs possible. Make round trips with the city's buses. Might it not make sense to bring in the national guard in advance of a storm when an evacuation is necessary? And I know for myself, give me two days notice and I can surely walk 50 miles.

As to government plans in the future to respond to events like Katrina (God forbid another), it seems that our excellent weather forecasting abilities should enable wise evacuations to take place. Anyone who chooses to "ride out a storm" that is deemed worthy of evacuation has simply made a deadly choice. Like a man who chooses to climb Everest, breaks a leg, then complains about how long it took for rescuers to find him.

Not everyone by any means in New Orleans was there simply to ride it out: the evacuation plan was the major failure, it seems to me. I mean, maybe I did miss it, but I never heard the folks in the know on television and in news talk about a plan for New Orleans like this: first, a category 5 hits, then a huge storm surge, levees break, all power is lost, most of the city floods with no place for the water to go, the water quickly becomes toxic with chemicals and dead animals, and then at that point the plan is to go into New Orleans and evacuate tens of thousands of people who either through their own fault or no fault of their own stayed there while the Apocalypse we said was coming, in fact came. If that was the plan, that's just crazy.

For now, the time is well upon us for simply showing mercy to the many who have suffered, regardless of the causes. The Salvation Army, the American Red Cross, and many others are accepting donations, and in some cases volunteers. Nature is not virtual reality, but a force to be respected and sometimes feared. There is no shame in fleeing its wrath.

But in asking how the government should have responded in the aftermath, we might bear in mind that the expectations of some critics might only be met in the future by founding a government agency called something like Apocalypse Management Agency. In a true prophetic moment, experts said an "apocalypse of biblical proportions" awaited New Orleans.  God forbid, we could face on our shores an unexpected catastrophe, but Katrina was expected. Why evacuation orders were so late,  why so many stayed, and died, we may never know, or understand. Lord, have mercy.

Comments

[Don Bosch]

This is undermining the radical environmental movement too. Not only is the protest industry loosing its credibility, people are starting to tune them out or turn them off.

So what? Christians have a challenge and an opportunity here.

The challenge is to stay clear of doom and gloom messages (essentially negative) on the environment, and to focus on the loving principles of godliness and stewardship (wholely positive) that should infuse all we do.

The opportunity is to declare that the real power in this message doesn't come from us, but through our faith in a risen Savior Who loves mankind and commands that we deal wisely with His creation.

[Gene Godbold]

I have a little insight into this problem because part of my job involves collecting data to evaluate potential disasters that, in general, have a low probability of occuring (though they would have a high impact). Katrina was not in this category. Everybody and his brother knew that New Orleans was living on borrowed time. A report that came out (I have heard) on September 10, 2001 noted that the three most likely disasters to strike the US were a terrorist attack on New York City, a category 4 or 5 storm hitting New Orleans, and a major earthquake hitting San Francisco. The dikes around New Orleans were only built to manage a category 3 storm. Reporters for the New Orleans paper wrote a series of articles about this several years ago. (After the fact, CNN had them on to talk about it.) Everybody in the city in a position of responsibility should have known this was coming. Not having a plan to evacuate people after due warning was given was grossly irresponsible. It seems to me that, based on the principle of subsidiarity, the blame should be apportioned from the city, to state, to the Federal level in that order. The Federal Government spends tens of millions of dollars to protect us from threats far less likely than a "Katrina" event.

[Matthias]

I agree: there was gross irresponsibility regarding evacuation preparations. The report Gene Godbold refers to was issued by FEMA. Last year when Hurricane Ivan was in the Gulf, everyone who knew anything about New Orleans was talking about exactly the scenario that actually occurred with Katrina.

So this much is beyond dispute: local, state, and federal officials have known for years that there was a strong possibility that New Orleans might have to evacuated in advance of a hurricane. But absolutely no plans were made to help even one person evacuate.

Only those who had their own means to get themselves out were given a chance. "Go the Superdome" is the "let them eat cake" of our era.

[James]

See the timeline at
http://rightwingnuthouse.com/archives/2005/09/04/katrina-response-timeline/

[Dcn. Michael D. Harmon]

I understand Mr. Kushiner's points, but wishing that people would withhold judgment until all the facts are in is functionally equivalent to wishing that it were possible to grow gossamer wings and fly to the moon.

You think the water in New Orleans is toxic? Today's political environment is 10 times as lethal. And it is only getting worse. The forces that are acting on our politics today think "rule or ruin" was the 11th Commandment. The amount of good will and patience present in American public life today would not fill a thimble.

(Note: I am not talking about the average American, who still maintains a balanced view of life. I refer to the media and what are called "the chattering classes.")