Sten Gazette

We posted this last Wednesday, August 31st. The scope of the disaster was only then becoming apparent, and our editorial board decided that the article should be “suspended” because it was an emotional response to a developing situation. It seemed a little early to be laying blame. The author agreed, on the basis that the article would be republished with this caveat and with some degree of amplification. Here’s the original Katrinagate article, with the amplifications following.

We don’t know who first used the “gate” suffix to describe a scandal , but if ever a situation qualified for “gatehood” it’s this one. Associated with the natural disaster in the Gulf (of Mexico) Region, there are no less than four genuine scandals.

1. When the levee breaks…. Why was the Army Corps of Engineers denied the funds it requested to repair and upgrade the levees?

2. The Louisiana Superdome. As this is written the Louisiana Superdome’s web site is down, which is hardly surprising. Who decided it would be an appropriate place to evacuate thousands of N.O. residents?

3. Gas price gouging. If a shortage of crude oil and refinery capability was expected to result from the hurricane, why did increased prices anticipate it?

4. Disaster management. The most worrisome aspect of the situation is the degree to which people ignored the evacuation order (50-100,000 are said to have stayed in New Orleans and “hundreds, perhaps thousands,” have died). Why are National Guard and Reserve troops being called up today (Wednesday) when the problems were apparent on Monday afternoon if not earlier? Why is the president cutting short his vacation today? At this writing he is on Air Force One, on his way to Washington, to “work on his speech.”

Now is obviously not a good time to worry about any of these “issues,” but those of us who are not directly impacted by the storm or involved in recovery efforts would do well to keep these questions in mind. No doubt we will hear a long line of politicians and pundits saying “it could have been worse.” Let’s not forget that it could have been a lot better.

–SG

Four days after that was written, we are seeing the expected patterns solidifying in the national media. The papers and TV “news shows” are full of heart-warming stories of survival, rescue, and heroism. And the bad news is still being largely suppressed. Reports of corpses floating in the flood-waters in New Orleans, rape and murder in the lawless enclave that the Superdome turned into, inability to transport refugees from New Orleans to more suitable recovery facilities– all of these stories are reported but they are overshadowed by media “product” that tries to paint a different face on the situation. And still no-one has even guessed at a death-toll for Louisiana.

So far, we haven’t heard anyone saying “it could have been worse,” but the administration is already going into defensive mode. Any criticisim of federal disaster planning, or the federal relief efforts, or the administration’s slow response, is already being characterized as “political, ” at the same time that blame is being assigned to state and local officials.

The Army Corps of Engineers has responsibility for flood control around New Orleans, as they have responsibility for many dams, waterways, and flood control facilities in the US. The Corps had plans to repair and upgrade the NO levees going back to the last century, but the funding was not available simply because it was required in other areas, chiefly Iraq.

The Louisiana Superdome (the web site is back up, sort of) was probably a natural choice for emergency relocation of the thousands who found shelter there, and may have been the only choice. Structurally it was barely adequate– large parts of the roof were damaged, and a couple more gusts of wind could conceivably have brought it down. The scandal has two aspects. First, its use as a temporary refuge should have been foreseen, and it should have been provisioned accordingly, or at least there should have been plans for getting relief (food, water, blankets, medical workers) to it in a hurry. If the lack of preparation isn’t adequately scandalous, how about the handling of the disaster itself? Louisiana National Guard troops should have been arriving with equipment and supplies at the same time as the refugees. Turns out a large part of the Louisiana National Guard is in Iraq.

Gas price gouging is beginning to get some attention in the press, finally, and from state legislatures. Major corporations are contributing millions of dollars to relief efforts, but Big Oil is noticeably silent. They are unabashedly gouging billions of dollars in windfall profits, and they appear intent on hanging onto every penny of it. The federal government has released a substantial amount of crude oil from its “strategic reserves,” but says it won’t have any impact on prices. OK, that makes sense– in fact, it is further evidence that gas prices have little or nothing to do with supply and demand.

Disaster management is of course the biggest scandal in all of this– both the lack of preparation and the recovery should be investigated thoroughly. The questions we raised initially are just as valid, and we have an answer to the first one (why evacuation orders were “ignored”).

After Septermber 11th, 2001, the federal government spent literally billions of dollars to create a Department of Homeland Security and restructure all federal disaster management programs. They were scared to death that there would be another attack, and wanted to be ready for it. After all, “The Terrorists” are known to have weapons of mass destruction even if Iraq didn’t. We needed to be able to respond to a disaster in a major city, and we weren’t going to get any notice.

New Orleans has been on notice for around 200 years, and Katrina announced her intentions three or four days before striking.

To the best of our knowledge, Homeland Security and FEMA had plans only to quarantine cities, not evacuate them, because they didn’t expect to receive any advance notice. Guess what? Civil Defense had plans to evacuate American cities back in the 1950s.

Evacuation of a city requires a lot of manpower that simply wasn’t available in New Orleans. If we’ve learned one thing from this disaster it is that you cannot evacuate a city by simply telling everybody to get out. Most of those trapped in the flooding city of New Orleans would have been happy to evacuate– if they had any way at all to do it.

You need troops on the ground to enforce the evacuation, by providing transportation and making sure everybody goes, even those who are bed-ridden. That’s the first priority. If you get it right you don’t have to worry about looting and other “property crimes.” And you might have a minute to think before opening the doors of the jails.

Poor response to the disaster is another scandal that needs to be investigated thoroughly, from failure to relieve the Superdome to delayed mobilization of relief workers and poor management of emergency workers already on the ground. In New Orelans itself, two hundred police officers have resigned, and two are reported to have committed suicide. It’s probably too much to hope that the two who killed themselves were among those filmed looting a Walmart. We can argue all day over whether the NOPD was one of the most corrupt police forces in America, but there is certainly no question that, as the sole civil resource available in the city, they were very poorly managed.

Congress was relatively quick to authorize emergency funding, and should immediately begin a thorough investigation of how this happened. If we don’t understand how it happened, we have little chance of preventing it from happening again. And in the case of New Orleans, they very first item on the agenda for reopening the city should be an evacuation plan.

–SG

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This entry was posted on Sunday, September 4th, 2005 at 12:55 pm and is filed under Issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.