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Katrina was when I realized how silly it is to think our government would ever deal effectively with a major disaster and how vulnerable we are.

pdonis 7y ago
By "our government" do you just mean the Federal government? Or do you mean all levels of government? The mayor of New Orleans had parking lots full of empty school buses and claimed he had no way to evacuate citizens. The governor of Louisiana whined and wrung her hands instead of doing anything. The Federal response was far from perfect but it was much more effective than the state or local response.
- ausjke 7y ago
  exactly, USA is _united_ states, crisis like Katrina really should be dealt by the local governments first-hand, with federal help on its way. it's very different from China's system, where everyone has to get approvals from the central government.
  - afarrell 7y ago
    > really should be dealt by the local governments first-hand, with federal help on its way Add "And some overarching flexible framework for regular coordination-practice and preparation-funding" and this seems quite clear.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    It’s not just the federal system, but the basic nature of disaster response. Even if the EU had jurisdiction over levees in the Netherlands, it would be ridiculous to expect an EU agency to be the front line response to flooding in Amsterdam. It’s the local government that actually knows where the risks and the resources to deal with those are. The federal government can help with money, say ensuring that poor cities have the financial resources to prepare a disaster response. But the actual response has to be local.
  - ausjke 7y ago
    for those downvoters, please educate me about your thoughts, just want to learn some other perspectives.
- typicalhn 7y ago
  Still better than peurto Rico where they hid aid to malign trump.
- Rapzid 7y ago
  > parking lots full of empty school buses and claimed he had no way to evacuate citizens That just sounds like a sensational headline lacking in context and details. For example, with Hurricane Harvey in Houston they had to weigh calling mass evacuation against the ability of the road system to handle that much traffic. It doesn't matter how many buses you have in a parking lot if they can't leave the city. I'm not saying that was the case in New Orleans, but I'm certainly not going to assume the worst from "parking lots full of empty school buses". Honestly, is there even a known good example of how the response to Katrina should have been? Most people's complaints about it seem so shallow in their analysis as to appear a projection of their distaste for the Bush administration or the local politicians; nearly 15 years later. Edit: Could you imagine an NTSB report on an airplane crash: "Air traffic control had three empty runways but said they had no way to land the plane! If they hadn't just whined and wrung their hands, perhaps everybody would have survived that flight.."
  - Mountain_Skies 7y ago
    A teenager stole one of those buses, drove it around his neighborhood, picking up people who had no way to evacuate, and then drove them out of town. He was legally in the wrong on many accounts but from a practical point of view, he did what needed to be done to save at least one bus load of people. The federal response should have been just that, a response afterwards. The efforts before Katrina hit should have been mostly the responsibility of the local and state governments with the feds helping out with the logistics of the evacuees once they were out of the path of the storm.
  - pdonis 7y ago
    > That just sounds like a sensational headline lacking in context and details. It was well documented by multiple investigations after the fact.
    - stevehawk 7y ago
      That they had a bunch of school buses sitting around? Did they also have a bunch of bus drivers, or other qualified people with CDLs, sitting around on call? Because most of them are usually part time employees with second or third jobs and probably also had their own families and problems to solve.
- JohnJamesRambo 7y ago
  I’m specifically talking about when it was obvious that state and local authorities had failed/were overwhelmed, the days and days and weeks before a useful federal response came. I’m imagining how it would go down if not one city but dozens to hundreds were affected by an asteroid or nuclear attack. I imagine total chaos.
- mattrp 7y ago
  Don’t forget William “cold cash” Jefferson, who commandeered national guard time take him back in the flood zone to get $90,0000 he had hidden in his freezer.
- fqye 7y ago
  Intesting. Hubei provincial and Wuhan city governments are being bashed hard for covering up and ineffectiveness in handling the crisis and China’s central government is being praised.
  - Proven 7y ago
    Being praised by whom? By media and censors controlled by China's central government? The small guys go down first (local, followed by provincial). In communist China you don't replace the central government. The central government replaces you.
reaperducer 7y ago
Katrina was when I realized how silly it is to think our government would ever deal effectively with a major disaster and how vulnerable we are. Having been through three major hurricanes and 9/11, I'm not as skeptical as you. Everything is local. If the local authorities are prepared, things will go better. The feds are backup for when things get too big to handle. Looking back, after the initial shock wore off, the on-the-street response in the hours after 9/11 was very interesting. It was clear that NYC and its neighbors have many layers of plans for major emergencies. Do they have everything covered? Probably not, which is only logical since you can't plan for the unknown. But a good deal of faith was earned that day.
jariel 7y ago
"Katrina was when I realized how silly it is to think our government would ever deal effectively with a major disaster" It's funny because the very idea that 'the government will save us from a big disaster' is a fairly new concept. Some governments are 'kind of' prepared for some kinds of problems - i.e. the Swiss are prepared for some kinds of invasions, surely the Dutch have preparations for floods. But for unforeseen disasters (the levy breach in New Orleans), it's harder and we're mostly on our own. New Orleans is also very poor and is socially dysfunctional along a whole other set of vectors, I'll bet $100 it's pretty correlated with dealing with disaster. If it were some well run mid-sized city in New England it would have been another story. (Plus the possibility of racism which is to vague to consider in a paragraph).
- unishark 7y ago
  In fact the levees were designed to survive a Katrina-sized storm, but of course never had to prove they could, until they failed. What's also funny is for a bunch of engineers and software developers to expect the govt to enact a system that is impossible to really test, and just have it work smoothly when needed. Rich cities in california were also a dysfunctional mess dealing with fires. It was only when the same problem happened in the same places in subsequent years that they had a reasonably solid plan together and working.
  - btilly 7y ago
    In fact the levees were designed to survive a Katrina-sized storm, but of course never had to prove they could, until they failed. They were not, and the fact was well-known in advance. Their limit was a category 3 hurricane and there had been years of passing the buck about upgrading the levees to give the city a shot. Then Katrina happened and everyone who had passed the buck claimed that it wasn't their fault.
    - unishark 7y ago
      Katrina was actually weakened to category 3 when it hit new Orleans. They should have lucked out (yet again) if the levees performed as they were supposed to.
malandrew 7y ago
It's pretty silly to think any government can deal effectively with a major disaster. At the end of the day, the best way to address a major disaster is with both a government response and a prepared citizenry. Centralized support to a decentralized response is way more effective. There isn't much centralized support can do when it is overwhelmed and the citizens at a local level are helpless/useless. Learn first aid skills. Learn amateur radio for communication. Have backup water, food and fuel.

pdonis 7y ago

By "our government" do you just mean the Federal government? Or do you mean all levels of government? The mayor of New Orleans had parking lots full of empty school buses and claimed he had no way to evacuate citizens. The governor of Louisiana whined and wrung her hands instead of doing anything. The Federal response was far from perfect but it was much more effective than the state or local response.

ausjke 7y ago
exactly, USA is _united_ states, crisis like Katrina really should be dealt by the local governments first-hand, with federal help on its way. it's very different from China's system, where everyone has to get approvals from the central government.
- afarrell 7y ago
  > really should be dealt by the local governments first-hand, with federal help on its way Add "And some overarching flexible framework for regular coordination-practice and preparation-funding" and this seems quite clear.
- rayiner 7y ago
  It’s not just the federal system, but the basic nature of disaster response. Even if the EU had jurisdiction over levees in the Netherlands, it would be ridiculous to expect an EU agency to be the front line response to flooding in Amsterdam. It’s the local government that actually knows where the risks and the resources to deal with those are. The federal government can help with money, say ensuring that poor cities have the financial resources to prepare a disaster response. But the actual response has to be local.
- ausjke 7y ago
  for those downvoters, please educate me about your thoughts, just want to learn some other perspectives.
typicalhn 7y ago
Still better than peurto Rico where they hid aid to malign trump.
Rapzid 7y ago
> parking lots full of empty school buses and claimed he had no way to evacuate citizens That just sounds like a sensational headline lacking in context and details. For example, with Hurricane Harvey in Houston they had to weigh calling mass evacuation against the ability of the road system to handle that much traffic. It doesn't matter how many buses you have in a parking lot if they can't leave the city. I'm not saying that was the case in New Orleans, but I'm certainly not going to assume the worst from "parking lots full of empty school buses". Honestly, is there even a known good example of how the response to Katrina should have been? Most people's complaints about it seem so shallow in their analysis as to appear a projection of their distaste for the Bush administration or the local politicians; nearly 15 years later. Edit: Could you imagine an NTSB report on an airplane crash: "Air traffic control had three empty runways but said they had no way to land the plane! If they hadn't just whined and wrung their hands, perhaps everybody would have survived that flight.."
- Mountain_Skies 7y ago
  A teenager stole one of those buses, drove it around his neighborhood, picking up people who had no way to evacuate, and then drove them out of town. He was legally in the wrong on many accounts but from a practical point of view, he did what needed to be done to save at least one bus load of people. The federal response should have been just that, a response afterwards. The efforts before Katrina hit should have been mostly the responsibility of the local and state governments with the feds helping out with the logistics of the evacuees once they were out of the path of the storm.
- pdonis 7y ago
  > That just sounds like a sensational headline lacking in context and details. It was well documented by multiple investigations after the fact.
  - stevehawk 7y ago
    That they had a bunch of school buses sitting around? Did they also have a bunch of bus drivers, or other qualified people with CDLs, sitting around on call? Because most of them are usually part time employees with second or third jobs and probably also had their own families and problems to solve.
JohnJamesRambo 7y ago
I’m specifically talking about when it was obvious that state and local authorities had failed/were overwhelmed, the days and days and weeks before a useful federal response came. I’m imagining how it would go down if not one city but dozens to hundreds were affected by an asteroid or nuclear attack. I imagine total chaos.
mattrp 7y ago
Don’t forget William “cold cash” Jefferson, who commandeered national guard time take him back in the flood zone to get $90,0000 he had hidden in his freezer.
fqye 7y ago
Intesting. Hubei provincial and Wuhan city governments are being bashed hard for covering up and ineffectiveness in handling the crisis and China’s central government is being praised.
- Proven 7y ago
  Being praised by whom? By media and censors controlled by China's central government? The small guys go down first (local, followed by provincial). In communist China you don't replace the central government. The central government replaces you.

reaperducer 7y ago

Katrina was when I realized how silly it is to think our government would ever deal effectively with a major disaster and how vulnerable we are. Having been through three major hurricanes and 9/11, I'm not as skeptical as you. Everything is local. If the local authorities are prepared, things will go better. The feds are backup for when things get too big to handle. Looking back, after the initial shock wore off, the on-the-street response in the hours after 9/11 was very interesting. It was clear that NYC and its neighbors have many layers of plans for major emergencies. Do they have everything covered? Probably not, which is only logical since you can't plan for the unknown. But a good deal of faith was earned that day.

jariel 7y ago

"Katrina was when I realized how silly it is to think our government would ever deal effectively with a major disaster" It's funny because the very idea that 'the government will save us from a big disaster' is a fairly new concept. Some governments are 'kind of' prepared for some kinds of problems - i.e. the Swiss are prepared for some kinds of invasions, surely the Dutch have preparations for floods. But for unforeseen disasters (the levy breach in New Orleans), it's harder and we're mostly on our own. New Orleans is also very poor and is socially dysfunctional along a whole other set of vectors, I'll bet $100 it's pretty correlated with dealing with disaster. If it were some well run mid-sized city in New England it would have been another story. (Plus the possibility of racism which is to vague to consider in a paragraph).

unishark 7y ago
In fact the levees were designed to survive a Katrina-sized storm, but of course never had to prove they could, until they failed. What's also funny is for a bunch of engineers and software developers to expect the govt to enact a system that is impossible to really test, and just have it work smoothly when needed. Rich cities in california were also a dysfunctional mess dealing with fires. It was only when the same problem happened in the same places in subsequent years that they had a reasonably solid plan together and working.
- btilly 7y ago
  In fact the levees were designed to survive a Katrina-sized storm, but of course never had to prove they could, until they failed. They were not, and the fact was well-known in advance. Their limit was a category 3 hurricane and there had been years of passing the buck about upgrading the levees to give the city a shot. Then Katrina happened and everyone who had passed the buck claimed that it wasn't their fault.
  - unishark 7y ago
    Katrina was actually weakened to category 3 when it hit new Orleans. They should have lucked out (yet again) if the levees performed as they were supposed to.

malandrew 7y ago

It's pretty silly to think any government can deal effectively with a major disaster. At the end of the day, the best way to address a major disaster is with both a government response and a prepared citizenry. Centralized support to a decentralized response is way more effective. There isn't much centralized support can do when it is overwhelmed and the citizens at a local level are helpless/useless. Learn first aid skills. Learn amateur radio for communication. Have backup water, food and fuel.