On Sep 29, 2005, at 2:48, susan wrote:
[...] how often do you see 2.5 million people leaving all
at the same time from one area of the u.s.? it is not likely.
Very unlikely. And, that evacuation - from Houston, before Rita - later
updated to 3 million, went relatively smoothly, with not much loss of
life. And, although there were some "messes" connected to it, and even
though it was a bit slow (and, dubtless, grating on the patience of
those who were trying to evacuate), I'd consider it to be basically
successful. But you have to remember that it happened less than 4 weeks
after the Katrina/New Orleans fiasco, when people were *very much
aware* what a really bad hurricane could do; they were still "hosting"
some evacuees from N.O. (and those, too, had to be evacuated, on top of
the "regular inhabitants". It was N.O. evacuation - with fewer people
to shift - that came "unglued".
Unlike Houston, N.O. had had no recent "lessons" in taking control of
situation, and neither had the people on top (compare the President's
"performance" in the two events)
I found the following snippet, from today's NYTimes (World Briefing)
rather thought provoking:
ASIA
Typhoon deaths reach 71.
A typhoon that cut a swath of destruction in a weeklong sweep through
East Asia was downgraded to a tropical depression as it crossed into
Laos after killing at least 71 people. The storm killed 36 people in
Vietnam, 16 in the Philippines, 16 in southern China and 3 in
Thailand, where it caused widespread flooding in the north. Five
people have been reported missing there. About 300 000 people were
evacuated from Vietnam's coastal regions, where extensive networks of
dikes were breached. (Agence France-Presse)
So, we have a similiar situation: a natural disaster
(hurricane/typhoon) against the man-made defences (levees/dikes), and
nature wins.
We have Vietnam evacuating 300 000 people, while losing 36. Vietnam is
hardly a well-developed superpower, and the people in the coastal
regions are unlikely in the extreme to be able to shift, fast and far
enough on their own. Not many of them are likely to own cars or
anything else that moves swiftly and is capable of carrying extra
burden, so they'd be dependent on the "powers that be" to move them.
Like the poor of New Orleans, I'd say. And probably in similiar
numbers.
And then we have New Orleans, where most of those who moved in time,
moved on their own, while those who were dependent on others, were left
behind for the longest time. Which is why the number of dead in N.O. -
a big city in a super-power country - is now over 1100, and growing, as
people are beginning to move back and discovering new corpses...
It is posssible to "live in the edge of a volcano" and survive, even in
a "shoe-string" country with not too many resources. But not if those
in charge are "compassionate conservatives"; by comparison, even a
communist system looks sweeter....
--
Tamara P Duvall http://t-n-lace.net/
Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland)
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