Re: My Hurricane Katrina Predictions

In article <slrndhh4pi.8qj.mightymartianca@xxxxxxxxxxx>,
AC <mightymartianca@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>On Fri, 2 Sep 2005 10:07:33 +0000 (UTC),
>Bobby D. Bryant <bdbryant@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> On Fri, 02 Sep 2005, "VoiceOfReason" <papa_fox@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>>> IT WILL TAKE A MASSIVE EFFORT FROM EMERGENCY SERVICES AND THE
>>> MILITARY TO REACH A VERY LARGE NUMBER PEOPLE AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE
>>> TO KEEP POST-STORM DEATHS TO A MINIMUM.
>>
>> I shudder to think how many people may have died trapped in attics
>> over the past three days.
>
>We're now also at the point where healthy people are going to start
>suffering the effects of dehydration. Small children are going to start
>dying, and then their parents. If the situation cannot be stabilized in the
>areas directly effected by the storm, disease and dehydration are going to
>be enormous killers.
>
>Having watched this and read it over the last few days, it's just very hard
>to fathom. You can understand how people might be left to their own devices
>in some small or poor country where the resources are so much harder to find
>and marshall, but this is the United States, richest and most powerful
>country on the planet. I think it's too simple to blame Bush or the
>governments of Mississippi and Louisianna, but there has clearly been a
>major failure in the system, and I think that not just the US, but other
>major industrialized powers better look at the situation and then look at
>how they could deal any better.
>
>A few months ago we briefly thought there was a tsunami coming our way. It
>frightens the *** out of me (to be blunt) that my family might be faced
>with anarchy of this kind.

Not to add to your joy, but every major US city is 12-36 hours away
from it. (Ditto, in this case, any other major city in the 'advanced'
world.) That's about the limit of food stocks in the cities. Anything
that disrupts flow of food in, or people out, for longer than that is
the disaster waiting to happen.

The major cities in the US, aside from a few that were simply lucky,
are particularly badly placed w.r.t. natural disasters compared to,
say, 'old europe'. Not, in this case, that the US folks were particularly
stupid (initially). The thing is, the large old european cities are
all built in places where they don't regularly face this kind of problem.
If the had, the city would have been erased 500 years ago, or 1000
years ago, and the rebuiling would have been elsewhere. The US was
rich enough to have the ability to rebuild poorly-sited cities, and
had too short a history to think that the disaster would ever repeat.
Now, though, we know that hurricanes do occur, do hit the coasts, etc.
We're past the time for excuses of being surprised.

There's also a degree, imho, that Bush reflects (he didn't originate
it, but his election was abetted by it) that the US is not a rich country
any more. There are rich people inside the borders, certainly.
Say, Pat Robertson -- whose money is in a corporation quartered
outside the US and for which the US receives no revenue. Iterate.
If we were a rich _country_ we could afford to spend on national
infrastructure. Our public educational system would be first rate, our
public health system would be first rate, our train/road/bridge
system would be first rate, mass transit (i.e., a system to move
a whole lot of people out of a city, quickly) would be first rate,
etc. Then take a look at what, consistently, the US has voted for,
and done over the last 25 years.

Poverty is up, not down. The next 20+% not in poverty are doing worse.
The middle class is becoming a figment -- there will always be a median,
but close to the median is now one of the emptier parts of the distribution.
Poorer people don't have money for plane tickets out of town, nor
cars that run well in bad weather, quite possibly no cars at all,
and where would they _go_?

Decade old observation is that infant mortality in any of the
major cities* now looks like 3rd world statistics. For all the
wealth that is in the country, much of the country is working
towards 3rd world status.

*perhaps only the hospitals in poor areas.

Then take a look at the Republican party -- those folks who hold the
government, have had the house -- point of origin for spending -- for
a decade plus -- and their sentiments about large cities, and, more
importantly, what they've done to projects that would do constructive
things (anything) inside large cities. It's 25 years since the 'Reagan
revolution', are the cities better off (and, therefore, more capable of
coping with disasters) or not? (See too HUD with Reagan and the
indictment rate.)

It isn't strictly party, but Bush reflects the ruling strain of his
party, it's the party in power, and they have done nothing that would
have done any good for this disaster. We're now finding out on some
specifics, they have been actively bringing harm to what would have
helped.


As we've been talking about in a different part of the US,
the entire Gulf coast, and entire east coast up to at least
Connecticut, can have hurricanes. What has happened to hurricane
preparedness over the last 25 years? Any reason to think that
New Orleans was particularly hit by budget cuts?

--
Robert Grumbine http://www.radix.net/~bobg/ Science faqs and amateur activities notes and links.
Sagredo (Galileo Galilei) "You present these recondite matters with too much
evidence and ease; this great facility makes them less appreciated than they
would be had they been presented in a more abstruse manner." Two New Sciences

.