Asymmetrical Information

That is a great idea.

What would it take for it to happen.

Bush could activate a reserve intelligence unit.

Or, the SECDEF could say, forget foreign affairs for an hour or two. What can we do to help the victems of our domestic disaster?

Opps, for this to happen someone in the Bush administration would have to make a good decision.

Oh, well it was a good idea while it lasted.

But it is all allright.

The Bush people has arranged for a hospital ship to leave from the east coast in another few days.

Americans can't seem to do resilient power supplies very easily, can they?

Anyone else think New Orleans is begining to look like the end of Atlas Shrugged?

Jane you thinking about building some retreat in the rocky mountins? I don't think any scenario in my entire life, has ever made me lose more faith in humanity.

PS. just moved to a new blog, and it's still under construction. So if you click on my name, please forgive the mess.

The Bush people has arranged for a hospital ship to leave from the east coast in another few days

The ships are already on their way. "Another few days" is when they'll arrive. It's 3100 miles.

Wait, let me guess: the Evil Bushitler's War in Iraq (tm) is to blame for the Navy's failure to install the new Magical Teleportation Device Technology (MTDT for short) in all of its ships?

Anyway, people whining that Bush didn't immediately dispatch the US military on Monday should try to remember that Louisiana didn't *ask* for military help until yesterday. In Governor Blanco's defense, it was not immediately obvious that New Orleans was going to turn into a warzone -- other disaster areas in America have managed to escape that fate. The US Armed Forces aren't supposed to be called out to resolve domestic disorder problems until after the other systems -- civil society, police, and national guard -- have already failed.

Spencer:
Bush could activate a reserve intelligence unit.

Or, the SECDEF could say, forget foreign affairs for an hour or two. What can we do to help the victems of our domestic disaster?

Opps, for this to happen someone in the Bush administration would have to make a good decision.

Oh, well it was a good idea while it lasted.

Did you actually read the article at the link? Bush *cannot* "activate a reserve intelligence unit" since it is against the law for PSYOPS units to communicate information to Americans. The proposal was for a civilian organization to do this.

This is part of the whole "why isn't the military air dropping supplies, restoring order, etc. etc. etc.???

Air dropping anything without a coordinated group on the ground to recover, guard, and distribute material is a waste of time and resources.

The military cannot "restore order" without a formal declaration of martial law from the civilan authorities in the affected areas and is severely restricted in what it can legally do even then (Posse Comittatus, anyone?). Last I heard, martial law still hadn't been declared.

From what I've read and seen, most of the problems with evacuation, looting, and communications seem to be a result of poor planning and execution at the local level. I saw a History channel special on the potential threat of New Orleans vs Cat 5 hurricanes several years ago. No one can claim ignorance on this one. Stockpiled comm gear? Pre-designated all lane exit routes? Planning with nearby states/cities for handling massive evacuations? Small boats/dinghys stored on high ground? Maybe an annual "what if" practice drill to see if the contingency plans made sense?

It seems to me that all of the above should have been in the "no brainer" category for any competent state and local government.

New Orleans has an incompetent and corrupt government. The whole state of Louisiana is paying the price for long ago electing Huey “Kingfish” Long. Nobody forced their citizens to embrace populist economic and social policies. God bless them---but a lot of their troubles are of their own making. They have no one to blame but themselves.

This has been reminding me of a different part of Atlas Shrugged--the tunnel disaster. A bunch of irresponsible decisions build on each other until something snaps.

"competent...government" what an oxymoron.

Nancy,

So true you are right.

I think the most powerful aspect of the book, was when the engineer is about to make the call, to tell the train to go through the tunnel, realizing he is ordering people to their death... Then changes his mind.

"Wait, let me guess: the Evil Bushitler's War in Iraq (tm) is to blame for the Navy's failure to install the new Magical Teleportation Device Technology (MTDT for short) in all of its ships?"

Dan, it's called prepositioning. But it might have required actually anticipating how bad the damage from Katrina might have been and preparing for it. But since you have already oh so ably defended Bush's "who knew this could have happenned" idiocy (sorry, I mean "tact") by insulting anyone who was stupid enough to live in New Orleans, I'll just shut up and pay my taxes.

The ships are already on their way. "Another few days" is when they'll arrive. It's 3100 miles.

The ships?
http://www.klfy.com/Global/story.asp?S=3799331
WASHINGTON A second Navy hospital ship, the U-S-N-S Mercy, is preparing to respond to the Gulf Coast today, as the Pentagon continues to send resources to the battered region.

The Mercy, which is based in San Diego, will be ready to depart Wednesday. It will take about two weeks to complete the trip.

Oh, wait, that's the second ship. The first ship must be underway, yes?

http://www.news.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=19867
Comfort, one of the largest trauma facilities in the United States, is being readied quickly for her mission and is expected to get underway for the Gulf Coast by September 3.

It will take the 894-foot hospital ship about seven days to reach the U.S. Gulf Coast region, with a stop in Mayport, Fla.

Peter: Oh, so whenever any hurricane of any size is coming, they should have a ship in the water nearby waiting, in case it's needed for something?

Nevermind that the hurricane didn't look like it was going to be "that bad" until right before it hit.

Nevermind that in the path of a hurricane is the last place you want your hospital ship.

Nevermind that whenever the ship is deployed, it needs to be in port for a while afterward to restock and all that; I suppose if another hurricane comes or there's some other disaster, Bush'd get a pass on it being unavailable for that because a hurricane was going to hit somewhere and you wanted the ship to be pre-positioned Just In Case?

It sure is easy to say that "they should have had everything ready" after the fact, and when you don't have to worry about those real-world trade-offs, isn't it?

"Bush should have known"? Over a week in advance, to get a ship there? When nobody knew it was going to smash N.O. or be that large, that long in advance?

I understand the desire to blame someone for disasters, but your flailing to blame this on Bush is the exact mirror image of what you accuse others of doing. And I submit that the others at least have reasonable interpretations of actual facts on their side. For one thing, their position doesn't require that anyone have psychic powers.

As someone else said on one of the many blogs, if Bush has any blame to bear for this, he's at the tail end of a very long list, and there won't be much blame left by the time it gets to him.

Dan, it's called prepositioning.

No, it's called "desperate to blame Bush for something that is in no way his fault".

The US military are not first responders for national disasters. You want to talk about "prepositioning"? Talk about how the city of New Orleans and state of Louisiana didn't bother making any preparations for the hurricane, the evacuation, or the care of refugees. Because, you see, it's their job to take care of New Orleans, not the federal government's.

The people of New Orleans and Louisiana chose to behave in an irresponsible and thoughtless manner. A lot of them are now paying the price for their lack of foresight and wisdom. It's that simple. Obviously we should feel compassion for them, but we shouldn't let our feelings of compassion blind us to the fact they are responsible for their situation.

Actually, Bush declared a disaster before the hurricane first hit the Gulf Coast and FEMA did preposition supplies. It's just hard to move the supplies when there's been a catastrophic hurricane.

Guys, even Bill Clinton thinks criticizing Bush is unjustified. Get a grip, wouldja?

"Dan, it's called prepositioning. But it might have required actually anticipating how bad the damage from Katrina might have been and preparing for it."

No one came close to anticipating how bad the damage from Katrina was. The known worst-case scenario wouldn't have called for any hospital ships because there wouldn't have been enough survivors to justify it. The best-case scenario wouldn't have called for any hospital ships, either, because the damage would have been pretty much like any other part of the country hit by a big hurricane. Only the case where the hurricane hits the city just hard enough to cause the levees to fail a day later and trap hundreds of thousands of survivors in city-wide flooding would have called for such extreme measures from the Feds. But I don't recall hearing anyone, in or out of government at any level, envisioning the scenario that actually occured and recognizing the scope of the response that it would call for until the levees actually failed a day after the city supposedly dodged a bullet.

"As someone else said on one of the many blogs, if Bush has any blame to bear for this, he's at the tail end of a very long list, and there won't be much blame left by the time it gets to him."

Who else is on this list? Hurricane Katrina. The Governor of Louisiana. The Mayor of New Orleans. Then, I do think a president who has gutted a once well-respected FEMA and whose response has been lackadaisical up to this point should come in for some censure. Has it been the worst response ever? No. But on the federal, and as everyone points out, local levels the response not merely could but most certainly should have been a lot better. A list of four, one of which is a hurricane, does not strike me as that long.

Regarding prepositioning, yes, my proposal was that whenever a hurricane of any size threatened the US that we scramble hospital ships to put them right in the path of the hurricane. Umnnn, sorry sigivald... no.

What do I mean, well... let's see:

"For example, in the 1990s, in planning for a New Orleans nightmare scenario, the federal government figured it would pre-deploy nearby ships with pumps to remove water from the below-sea-level city and have hospital ships nearby, said James Lee Witt, who was FEMA director under President Clinton. "

"Federal officials said a hospital ship would leave from Baltimore on Friday. "

"These things need to be planned and prepared for; it just doesn't look like it was," said Witt, a former Arkansas disaster chief who won bipartisan praise on Capitol Hill during his tenure. "

"FEMA said some of its response teams were prepared."
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/12528233.htm

So yes. You can stop your "your a dumbsh#t" posts. Was there enought time and warning to predeploy? Obviously not completely. The question is, what can we reasonably expected to have happened?

"In 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency concluded that a catastrophic hurricane in New Orleans was "among the three likeliest … disasters facing this country." On Saturday everyone knew that this catastropic scenario had become a strong possiblity, because there was a category 4/5 hurricane bearing down on New Orleans!!!!!! One of the three worst foreseeable natural disasters had soared to having a probability over 50%. Hell yes you start revving up then. And I mean really mobilizing, not just declaring the generic "state of emergency."

When we knew that the hurricane had the potential to swamp New Orleans... yes, things should have been cranked to the max at that very moment. That would have been a reasonable and responsible response. The catastrophe would still have been enormous, but at least the response would have seemed commensurate to the magnitude of the destruction.

And I'm glad to see the President responding to criticism, disagreeing with the "don't blame the Feds crowd" and agreeing that the effort has been unacceptably poor. "The results are not acceptable," President Bush said on the White House lawn. "I'm looking forward to talking to the people on the ground. I want to assure the people of the affected areas and this country that we'll deploy the assets necessary to get the situation under control."

Oh, and Dan, you might want to tell the President that "it's their (the people of New Orleans) job to take care of New Orleans, not the federal government's." Apparently he didn't get the memo, because he seems to be getting the Federal government involved to the tune of a $10.7 billion dollar down payment to help those in New Orleans and elsewise hammered by Katrina. And in the realm of hyperbole, New Orleans authorities "didn't bother making any preparations for the hurricane, the evacuation, or the care of refugees." Really? Any preparations? Obviously the preparations were inadequate. But so was the Fed's preparations.

I'm not a Bush hater. I voted for the guy less than a year ago. But his performance this past year, especially this response to Katrina, is making me regret it. I hope he begins to help turning things around in New Orleans and in Iraq. But if he doesn't, there should be a political price to pay. Indeed, given his mismanagement thus far, there should be a price to pay.

Ken,

"No one came close to anticipating how bad the damage from Katrina was."

Well the National Weather Service had this in their "Zone Forecast" for South Eastern LA Sunday Aug 28:

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

So I guess you're right, "no one" could have known, and there was no sense in getting ready, the storm COULD have just evaporated, and the President COULD have acted like he was actually interested in GOVERNING...

c.

If the storm had gone where it was predicted to, and Lake Ponchatrain had come rushing into the city along with the fierce winds, there wouldn't have been very many survivors needing police, water, and food.

What wasn't expected was the levee breaking a full day after the storm passed. Everyone thought the city had dodged a bullet. Instead, it wound up with an unexpectedly large number of survivors cut off from civilization.

So I guess you're right, "no one" could have known, and there was no sense in getting ready, the storm COULD have just evaporated, and the President COULD have acted like he was actually interested in GOVERNING

The President is not responsible for doing the jobs of every incompetent government official in the United States of America. The responsibility to order the evacuation of New Orleans and see that it was carried out fell to the Mayor of New Orleans and the government of Louisiana.

From the weblog of the objectivistly-named Jane Galt, here is the worst of American reaction to the New Orleans disaster in a nutshell. Below find samplings of statements that reveal a seemingly bottomless capacity for churlish, selfish, callous, racist cruelty by self-congratulatory blog barnacles who coolly watch the NOLA tragedy play out from the comforts of their dry, food-filled, proudly right-wing homes. I believe many of them may fancy themselves a tad intellectual, and hard-nosedly so. The poverty of their arguments demonstrates otherwise. And as none of them lay claim to any sort of humanitarian compassion, you won't be surprised to find it absent here. Hold on to your lunch:

What, again? Bored much?

Dan: I usually agree with most of what you say, but it is unreasonable to blame the New Orleans city government for incompetence in failing to successfully evacuate the city. If the levees had not broken, evacuation would not have been necessary. The levees having broken, fast evacuation became impracticable. I think this falls into the "sh*t happens" category.

Then, too, even if N.O. had been run by the Zurich city council or its analog, a fast and comprehensive evacuation might have been simply impossible. You're talking about moving 200,000-300,000 people, on a sunday, during a hurricane. Added to which many/most are reluctant to go, suspicious of the police, short of ready cash, and ill-equipped for travel.

So, let's say it was your job to figure it all out, starting no earlier than Friday night before the Monday when the levees gave way. How many buses do you have at your command? How many drivers for those buses? How many hotel/shelter rooms out of harm's way can you line up? How long will it take to do a round trip with a city bus, given that the roads are jammed with escapees in cars. And how do you propose to feed, water and toilet 200,000-3000,000 people for whom you are now responsible and who are now scattered over a three-state area or beyond?

So there you are, trying to be a competent, responsible government official, trying to sell your evacuation to a skeptical audience--assuming you have instant communication with them, which you don't. Do you have the transport? No. Do you have the drivers? No. Can you tell them where they're going? No. Can you promise to feed them? No. Can you promise to protect their homes while they're gone? No. Can you assure them that they really are about to be flooded out? No. and if people en masses are reluctant to go, do you have an extra 20,000 or so constables at your command to force them out, and would the constables have the means in any event? I don't think so.

This tragedy was not the mayor's fault, and not the governor's fault, and God knows it wasn't Bush's fault. And the rough going of the last few day's is not the politicians' fault and not FEMA's fault either. From what I've heard/read about large scale rescue/relief/resettlement efforts elsewhere (Kurdistan in '91, Bosnia in '95, Sudan over the last two years, et al.), this is about as good as it gets, as horrible as it looks.

Any USNS Hospital ship would have had to been deployed when Katrina was a CAT 1 heading towards Florida. I don't feel like being deployed whenever a tropical storm threatens. While the Hosptal ships are not in the area, they really are not needed. The problem isn't the lack of beds its the lack of supplies, the BATTAAN with her group has been down there and operating for several days.

If the levees had not broken, evacuation would not have been necessary.

Well, true. But the city officials knew that the levees weren't built to handle more than a Category 3 (not even that, in some places). As of the 26th it was clear that New Orleans was very likely to be hit by a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. In other words, the best information available to city officials at that time said "there is a strong possibility that those levees are going to break".

Now, it is true that the levees didn't break for the reasons they were expected to break. But still, they were expected to break, so city officials should have busted their asses getting the people out.

You're talking about moving 200,000-300,000 people, on a sunday, during a hurricane

My understanding is that the city's disaster plan called for an evacuation to begin 72 hours before hurricane landfall. Also, it's easier to evacuate people on a weekend, because most of them are home already.

So, let's say it was your job to figure it all out, starting no earlier than Friday night before the Monday when the levees gave way

Whoa, hold on a second. Three days was how long they had to *implement* the plan. They had decades to "figure it all out" and make prior arrangements for transportation and housing.

How long will it take to do a round trip with a city bus, given that the roads are jammed with escapees in cars

Just a suggestion, but they could have turned the southbound lanes into a dedicated two-way transportation loop for buses and government vehicles while leaving the northbound lanes dedicated to cars. Figure 25mph average speed over 100 miles each way (the dedicated, car-free road shouldn't be jammed) and a bus could make three rounds trips each day. That's 50,000 people a day with the city's existing bus fleet, or 150,000 over the course of the three-day evacuation period.

But yes, it is true that some people would refuse to leave. I think of this as "autoeugenics".

Dan: "Autoeugenics" -- now you're talking about the way folks drive in New Jersey. (:-))

My understanding is that Louisiana officialdom did what you suggest: Convert two-way highways into one-way, North only. Average speed, according to radio interviewee, was 15 mph tops, and often just stopped.

Agree that officials had years to "figure it all out." What I was referring to was the situation officals found themselves in by the weekend, when the hurricane track was clear but the levey longevity was not. Recall that the first news reports on Monday a.m. were that New Orleans had "dodged a bullet, once again."

A mass evacuation plan -- if one existed -- still would have required thousands of buses, thousands of drivers, a willing population, and the means to run the the thousands of rescuers down roads that were already one-way the wrong way.

I have heard that there had been "planning" for the prospect of breached levees -- but that the conclusion was along the lines of "you can't get there from here." In other words, they were stumped about how to grapple with the big one, and planned for more minor catastrophes because that's what they were capable of doing. Needless to say, they were overwhelmed by events.

My larger point is that there are some disasters that simply can't be helped and that it is unreasonable to blame the government or anyone else for the outcomes.

Something that bears more analysis: Why was the levee structure built to withstand only Force 3 hurricanes? Sub-question: Was shoddy work involved (not exactly a news maker in Louisiana)?
My understanding is that the leveees are an Army Corps of Engineers responsbility, so the city's economic decline over the years should not have made any difference to the design of the system's capacity--it wasn't the city's declining tax base that was at fault.

What to do now? To the degree that the Port of New Orleans is one of the country's most vital, I expect that a more secure flood control system will become a major federal priority. We really have no choice. The French Quarter tourist mecca will also obviously receive a great deal of attention. As to the wrecked residential neighborhoods--especially the vast tracts that housed the city's less succesful inhabitants--the only word that comes to mind is "daunting."

I shudder to imaginen how many mouths are slavering at the prospect of huge government rebuilding contracts. Corruption -- I'm shcocked, shocked do you hear?

IMHO, the city needs to bring back the middle class that fled the crime and crumby schools. Now might be an opportune moment to fix the school system -- if you did that, most of the other problems would tend to fade away. How you do that is something else.

My understanding is that Louisiana officialdom did what you suggest

Actually my suggestion was to dedicate one set of lanes to mass-transportation traffic and government vehicles. Speed would presumably have been much greater than 15mph, since the number of vehicles using it would be far less. Also recall that this all assumes that the evacuation started when it *should* have under the existing plan -- i.e., two days earlier than it actually did.

Why was the levee structure built to withstand only Force 3 hurricanes?

Ultimately the answer is "nobody wanted to pay for it". I've also hear the head of the Corps of Engineers say that it wouldn't have been cost-effective to build and maintain. A levee is only cost effective if the area it is protecting generates enough money to pay for it.

To the degree that the Port of New Orleans is one of the country's most vital, I expect that a more secure flood control system will become a major federal priority

Was the actual port area significantly damaged by the flooding? I haven't checked, but I'd have thought the, pretty much by definition, ports wouldn't be below sea level. My understanding is that it was primarily residential and commercial areas that got flooded.

Anyway, I imagine we'll rebuild the place, because we're Americans and we really, really hate admitting when nature has us licked. But my gut feeling is that rebuilding the city as it was before -- below sea level -- would be manifestly stupid, because this IS going to happen again.

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