Re: OT: Advance warning about Katrina



Ken Cashion wrote: 
On Wed, 25 Jan 2006 04:15:38 GMT, Steven Bornfeld
<dentaltwinmung@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:



Ken Cashion wrote:


	Not deserved to be abused.  The quality of leadership just was
not there, nor should it have been expected to have been there for the
worst disaster to strike the U.S.  That was my point, Hans.
	Hans, does a person have any responsibility to self in their
selection of where they choose to live?

I don't think one should necessarily think the folks who lived in NO "should have known" that this could happen.


I don't see why not. TV is really cheap these days. They
have a history of pumps go down and flooding for a couple of blocks
even during a hard rain.
They have watched one hurricane after another come into the
Gulf Coasts. One would have to have a pretty heavy dose of denial to
think it could not, would not happen in New Orleans.
There are areas that might flood today that would not have
when the home was purchased...I live in one. The Corps of Engineers
really screwed up and those who live in this area knew they were doing
it when they were building the new bridge, but still, I knew it was
this was a flood plain when I bought the house and flood insurance was
required. This was before the Corp "helped."


In the end, we make many of our major life decisions (such as where to live) on a variety of criteria. Sometimes it's the only place we can make a living; sometimes we don't even know why. 


	This is very true, Steve, and I should have mentioned it. Some
people, and these were the most unfortunate ones, get caught up in a
culture and their thinking is conditioned by that culture (which
applies to all of us) and they are forced to accept the risks of their
neighborhoods -- and a "someday-hurricane" was pretty far down on
their lists of concerns.
	Bad siting decisions can be understood in times of poor
information, and then this is perpetuated and new generations are
pretty much trapped in a particular life style and place.  This is
true lots of places that may or may not flood.
	You see by my references of when someone might build a house
and this refers to those making current decisions with plenty of
information.  Those poor folks I mentioned earlier that couldn't get
out of town...their lives were tough enough before Katrina.  We can
only hope Katrina has forcibly moved many to places of more
opportunity.  This has been upsetting to the communities where they
went, as well as to themselves.  It will all be settled in time, and I
think for the betterment of both groups.


I hope so too. But I feel uncomfortable about telling grown-up people that it's for the best, or that it's "for their own good".
Everyone was a genius after the fact. Maybe everyone "knew" that the levees built for a Cat III storm were inadequate to the risk of the Cat V storm that everyone knew was coming. Maybe they did know it in NO, or in Mississippi. But living in the remote outpost of NY, I never heard of it in New York until after the storm, when EVERYONE in fact DID know it.

	You are exactly right when saying "don't even know why."  For
a single person or young married couple, New Orleans can draw you in
like a magnet.  It had a micro-culture that was invigorating to the
young, and provided life-sustaining energy to the old.  New Orleans
was one of the more unique cities in the U.S.  I could see and sense
its appeal and I am not a New Orleans type person.


I think it's doubtful to think that most natural or man-made disasters can be predicted. 


	I think it is done everyday.  The timing of the prediction is
the issue.  Twenty-four hour prediction is pretty accurate, but now
that we are going through one of many natural climate changes, it
becomes more difficult.

Yes it's done every day. How accurate it is is another story. One could easily call for an evacuation of the entire pacific rim to be safe.



Perhaps New York should be evacuated, terrorist target that it is. 


	One data point is not much data.  But man-made disasters are
not easily predicted.  Not without a ton of listening in on phone
calls and the like.
I don't think natural disasters are easy to predict either. And I don't believe "it's not a matter of IF, it's a matter of WHEN" are of much use, except perhaps in terms of construction codes--of skyscrapers, for example, or levees.

	We were talking about natural disasters.  I will, however,
predict a serious bombing in South East Asia during this year, and
there will be times when people will be advised to not mingle in large
numbers at certain sorts of businesses.
Yeah, I understand the Feds thwarted a plot against the Brooklyn Bridge this past year--a couple of guys were going up there with wire cutters.



For that matter, there is significant seismic activity in the area. Did you hear about the earthquake on Jan.9? 


	No, but you did say "most" disasters and an exception is out
side the bounds of the majority, or most.

So then the question becomes--if a disaster is in fact predictable, what is the prudent course of action? In the case of Katrina, it seems the course may include leveling the city and mass relocation, or determining whether in fact the effects of such a disaster can be mitigated to the point that further risks are acceptable.
If everything had been done right in preparing for the disaster and the preparations were for naught, one may reasonably take the position that the area is for practical purposes uninhabitable and act accordingly. But if the Army Corps really screwed up, it seems facile to say the answer is mass relocation. Either option has it's costs--just that the costs of mass relocation will be mostly visible to the people directly involved.

Steve

	I will say again that no one deserves these disasters.  I
don't think there is that sort of score keeping going on where one
group deserves peaches and cream and the other group deserves pits and
clabber.
	We, everyday, try to use good judgment to avoid risk of injury
and loss of resources.
	And then there are those who drive too fast without wearing a
seatbelt, while smoking their second pack...and with a cell phone to
their ear... (hypothetical person)   <g>

Ken 



http://tinyurl.com/7nffv

Steve


	That is a good question and it transcends any thoughts of New
Orleans.  I think there are Biblical references to this in an
analogue.
	Building a house next to a train track and then complaining
about the vibration.
	Building a house on final approach at a major airport and
complaining about the noise.
	Building a house on a slope with no vegetation in an area that
has lots of rain.
	This could go on and on, but the question does remain.
	I know of a man who bought something like 10,000 empty
55-gallon drums and then leased some dry river beds to store them.  He
was so pleased because this was arid country and the barrels wouldn't
rust.
	And then the rains came.

Ken 



.

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