Funmurphys: the Blog

Katrina Ramblings

I still haven't seen an explanation as good as Carl's in his comment to an earlier post of mine (Dutch Uncle) as to why the levees failed where and when they did. Putting it into my own words, since a hurricane's winds blow counter-clockwise, they cause a counter-clockwise movement of water -- the storm surge. This surge moved from the Gulf of Mexico into Lake Pontchartrain (which is connected to the ocean both by open water and low lying marsh) as part of the counter clockwise movement - and was concentrated in Lake Pontchartrain (thus raising its level) because inlets concentrate storm surges. As Katrina passed, the winds shifted and blew out of the north, thus piling the water in the Lake up against the levees on the south side of the lake -- the north side of New Orleans, and ultimately overtopped some which led to their failure. I doubt any level can withstand being overtopped for very long becuase of the enourmous erosion power generated by the flowing water, and the higher the levee, the greater the erosion. Geography as destiny. Because hurricanes rotate counter-clockwise, and New Orleans is south of large "lake" (inlet really) that opens to the ocean to the east, was the site inherently prone to being swamped by a storm surge? What if the geography was mirror imaged east-west, with the ocean and the inlet to Lake Ponchartrain to the west, would that site see much lower storm surges?

I suppose the only solace to take in the vast destruction is that this represents a worst case combination of catastrophes - hurricane and flooding (which contra Chertoff in the case of New Orleans are not just linked but expected in a storm the magnitude of Katrina). Typically when you have flooding, that's the only damage, or if you have a hurricane, thats all the damage, and the same goes for earthquakes, tornados, mudslides, etc. But New Orleans put a gun to it's head and then let any hurricane of sufficient strength pull the trigger. Normally evacuations don't occur with the surrounding area out of commision. Still, I'm considering keeping a one week supply of necessities on hand in case of a local emergency.

There is no comparison between Hurricane Katrina (or more properly, the devastation caused by Katrina) and 9-11 (or more properly, the devastation caused by al-Qaide on 9-11). Well, you can compare the death tolls, and you can compare the response both here in America and around the world, but the devastation of Katrina far outstrips 9-11. Katrina devasted a large regions that covers multiple states and includes several medium sized cities; 9-11 devastated several square blocks in a giant city and damaged a huge office building. For Katrina lives hung in the balance for days, possibly even a couple of weeks; 9-11 was all over by nightfall of the first day. Katrina was a natural disaster or heroic proportions; 9-11 was a mass murder carried out on a scale rarely seen outside government. So trying to compare the governmental response to the two simply doesn't make sense because responding to 9-11 was piece of cake compared to Katrina.

My church will be helping out with some 300 families from New Orleans that will be housed in the old prison in Gumbo Flats (now known as Chesterfield Valley). Why yes, the prison was under water during the '93 flood. It's expected that most of the people will try to restart their lives here in St. Louis and so will move out when able. They should be arriving today.

I'm weary of all the people making claims about what should have been done, how much faster it could have been done, etc. Some claims are simply disgusting and absurd, like Bush wasn't interested in helping poor black people. Many claims are simply grasping at straws, and bear the earmarks of blind partisan carping. Frankly, what I've read so far makes the best case that the worst failures -- and of a very long standing nature -- were at the local level and the most dithering at the state level. But FEMA may have to be renamed Federal Emergency Mismanagement Agency after their performance, which has only been made worse by the poor TV performance of it's head, coupled with the poor TV performance of the head of Homeland Security, both of whom I wouldn't trust to get me out of a tree with a ladder in their hands after watching them. And quite frankly I'm a little tired of any organizaiton in New Orleans complaining about how outsiders are to blame for not rescuing them from there folly fast enough.

The New Orleans police department has taken a lot of heat over its performance in Katrina. I'd like to ask for a little understanding, since the only difference between the people who were sitting on their butts saying I need to be taken care of and the police on duty who were expected to take care of them is that the police were members of the police force. Other than that, they were the same. They'd been through the same devastation, lost everything, had access to the same information and supplies, yet they were expected to keep on going. Many did and deserve our praise. Many didn't, but I don't see that they deserve our scorn. Could they have performed better - absolutely, and if they had been better prepared (just like everybody else), they probably would have.

In summation, can we all work together on the task at hand, work on recovering from the damage, work on insuring every town and state is ready for the next natural or manmade disaster, and remove partisan politics from the inquiry into what went wrong and what went right. Because if all we want to do is blame particular individuals because of their political affiliation, we are not going to be ready for the next challange, and for all those who so want to fix the blame the blame on a polical basis, the blame will belong to you.