Good morning, Bill...
Bill Anderson wrote:
> On Tue, 2025-09-02 at 21:53 -0700, Frank Reichert wrote:
> How many congresscritters left their vacation? Oh yeah, only those who
> had homes there and lost their homes. And why should *any* president go
> about mugging up funerals?
<laughing dryly to myself> Yes, I did note that Trent Lott, who owns a
home in the area, hopped one of the first flights into the impact area.
>> This is a den of vipers where he sits idly by watching his
>> > butt-buddy bureaucrats intone pious-sounding phrases, moving their lips
>> > but not their hearts.
>
> Good to know you can see into the hearts of people you don't know or
> have the opportunity to be around. ;)
I just judge the people by their actions. At one point the ratio of press
conferences to on-site visits were running at 6-to-1, based upon CNN's
coverage. That is why so many of the statements being made by the
bureaucrats weren't even close to being in line with the harsh facts. As
of this morning, it is the FIRST time in six days that anyone at the FEMA
level even knew that there were thousands of starving people huddled at
the Convention Center. Yesterday was the first time that helicopter
transportation was being provided for nursing home and hospital patients,
some of whom had been without food or water for FIVE days.
>> I notice that CBS News tonight reflected on the fact that not
>> many of those who were enduring this catastrophe were white.
>> Most of the white population had either already evacuated, or
>> made arrangements early on to to avoid the worst.
>
> So what are you saying? Surely you don't suggest racism on the part of
> the hurricane? And those who chose to stay chose to stay.
NO. Most of those who stayed behind were *unable* to escape for a variety
of reasons. True, a certain percentage of those who stayed behind CHOSE
their options, but the vast majority, including hospital patients, nursing
home patients and others incapable of exercising any options, were capable
of choosing a way out. You have to remember, 24 hours BEFORE Katrina hit
New Orleans, all airlines and other methods of public transit were shut
down, there were no rental cars left to flee the area and most highways
were already closed. I was astounded when, 24 hours before Katrina hit
Biloxi, when a friend of mine was forced into hitching a ride with a
trucking company's rig heading north, and first called me from
Hattiesburg. Ultimately, going to Hattiesburg wasn't that much of an
improvement, but then their business and home in Biloxi were completely
lost.
> Well, those places are not storehouses for such items. While it is no
> great secret it is also not well know that most of our MRE and water
> resources are in fact stored at sea, not in every base in the US.
So much for the vast planning capabilities of Homeland Security.
> News flash: pretty much all of the equipment that would be useful in
> this disaster would be useless in Iraq and thus not shipped there. Iraq
> isn't exactly wet.
Granted, but then you HAVE to consider that the National Guard wasn't even
in-theater until the third day after Katrina passed through. It
sounds to me, based upon that fact, as if someone REALLY was asleep at
the switch.
> Also, while you don't hear about it on the press because they don't get
> to whine about it, guardsmen were stranded and out of communication when
> the storm and flood destroyed communication lines as well as
> transportation routes.
Well, isn't THAT one of the most-critical lessons we learned in 9/11? Yes,
one of the harshest criticisms levied about the 9/11 response was that
police and fire officials were totally unable to effectively communicate
with one another, let alone FEMA and other federal officials. The official
report on 9/11 gave the government terrible points for effective
leadership, mostly because of how communications and infrastructure were
handled. We DID NOT learn anything, it seems, from our mistakes.
>> You're right about one important thing as well. As you just
>> pointed out, this amounts to a failure on the magnitude and scale
>> of most third world countries, that even respond much more
>> quickly, and seem to have more energy to save the living than our
>> own Federal government displayed in this tragedy.
>
> So uhh how fast was the response to the Tsunami then? Oh that's right it
> took weeks.
NOT ENTIRELY TRUE. U.S. resources were on the ground within 5 days. Most
of the official shortwave radio stations in the area were brought back
online using American generators within two or three days, in most cases.
>> It was mentioned just earlier tonight on a documentary, that the
>> paltry sum appropriated by Congress for immediate aid to the
>> victims in this tragedy is about as much as it takes to float the
>> US invasion of Iraq for one week! I guess we know where the
>> hearts and minds of the current Administration lie.
>
> Sure, they knew a disaster of this magnitude was coming and chose to not
> do anything about it. Pshaw.
There have been studies done which described in GREAT detail of the losses
that a Cat-4 or Cat-5 hurricane could do in the Gulfport-to-Slidell areas.
I've been closely following most of the disaster preparedness studies for
Slidell, Louisiana since 1999 because I have intimate knowledge of the
area. Nearly every study that has ever been done about the Cat-5 scenario
hitting Slidell has specifically mentioned a wall of water 25 feet high, a
total loss of all electrical power and unprecedented wind damage. I
believe there were a total of *five* studies done since 1999. Yes, both
federal and state disaster preparedness teams *SHOULD* have been fully
aware of the scope of the disaster long before Katrina.
> Actually, the Army CoE *wanted* to build those levees to support a cat5
> hurricane but years and years and years ago (you know when they were
> built) they were told that a cat 3 build was sufficient. It would have
> cost many billions more back then. This was in the late sixties. I'm
> sure somehow though you'll blame the current administration for it.
No, I don't have blame. I have *contempt* for the entire bureaucratic
process, ranging from local, state and federal officials who either chose
to ignore the warnings, or failed to properly engineer the infrastructure.
One case in point is that, as of this morning, despite nearly total
destruction, power has been restored to much of the Port of New Orleans
and the four huge Slidell dock areas, including the pipeline. How? Why?
They were re-engineered to withstand a Cat-4 in 2001.
[Interesting, and in most cases, accurate information on the levees
snipped to save space and time, the latter of which I am short of this
morning.]
> The project (for the area where the main breach occurred) was not
> targeted for completion until 2018, it was 80% complete.
Actually, the *entire* canal sub-system was slated for completion.
> Why? Because certain countries have increased their output as a result
> of the storm, because more than the US has/is/is considering releasing
> crude from it's reserves, and because the price was artificially high
> due to speculation. Remember, oil is a commodity and is traded just like
> other commodities on the futures market. Oil has been prepped for a fall
> for a while now. Its price was/is artificially high in that it was not
> representative of the relationship between supply and demand. Germany is
> considering releasing 2 million barrels per day for the next 30 days,
> and that is just crude.
Let me summarize a few facts which I am, in particular, aware about the
vast Sunoco, Shell and Amoco refineries located along the Mississippi
Delta region. For example, by late Sunday night, the database servers for
most of the refineries will be back online, largely due to advance
planning done last year. Data was uploaded offsite before Katrina made
landfall, and nearly *everything* in Slidell is powered by underground
fiber optic cables with multiple redundancies. All they had to do to
restore functionality is restore power to a limited number of switches.
By comparison, it may take MONTHS before Bellsouth can restore service to
any of their customers, let alone other ISP's. The building that once
housed the main switches in Biloxi simply isn't there anymore, and the big
honking switch room in New Orleans is flooded. However, don't despair. Due
to their design, data for Bellsouth customers is being temporarily held
outside the area.
> I sincerely hope everyone reconsiders a lot of things. Among the the
> wisdom of building a major city in a bowl that sits below sea level on
> the hurricane coast. Not to mention living there.
Can you or I change hundreds of years of history? Of course they will
rebuild. I don't want to imagine the hue and cry that would come about if
they did not.
> difference. We don't have detailed hi-res satellite surveillance of the
> US. So we had no realistic reconnaissance of the area. It took 3 days to
> get satellite images. That said, the Army did in fact ship and deploy
> drones as best they could.
HUH? *I* had high-res satellite images of the entire area BEFORE Katrina
made landfall, courtesy of MapInfo. To their extreme credit, whoever owns
the satellites also tasked three of their five satellites with obtaining
updated high-res satellite images such as have been shown on TV by CNN
news.
> New Orleans was a city of half a million people. Moving millions of MREs
> takes a lot more time than a few hours. Between roads not being
> traversable and not knowing in advance localized ground transport comes
> to worse than a standstill. It comes down to "crap go back and find
> another route".
Conceded.
>> When talking about the US Federal government, it is an oxymoron
>> to call it 'good'.
SNORT!!!!
> Again, immediate disaster relief is necessarily in the hand of the local
> government. I'll argue against the fed taking that over too. So should
> you, IMO.
You mean we should dump FEMA?
> Another thing people need to and should take out of this (again), is
> that reliance on the government for such things is folly of monumental
> proportions. I'll say right now that if I were in Bush's shoes I'd have
> waited for the governor(s) to request the help. Hindsight be damned you
> likely would have done no different.
I have copies of both the disaster assistance statements and request for
assistance from all three state governors, each of which were dated Monday
last.
> Now, time for me to relay a little bit of media witness here. Last
> night, Bill O'Reilly had a woman from NO on. Was she complaining about a
> lack of food. No. She was complaining the food was cold. A lot. She was
> complaining about getting cold MREs. I was stunned. Absolutely stunned.
> I was not stunned that O'Reilly let it go, as he was too focused on
> attacking the response.
Omigod. That is REPULSIVE.
> The primary goal of the rescue and disaster recovery persons is to get
> people out of the danger area first. Anything less is sheer stupidity.
> It is a form of triage - determining who is worst off, who can be saved
> and going from there. For battlefield medics (for example) and doctors,
> that sometimes means turning away from the sucking mortal chest wound to
> fix a compound fracture.
I agree, to a point.
> In this case, the priority was and should be, to people trapped on
> rooftops, people trapped under rooftops (where you can determine they
> are there), and so on. It does not go to looters, it does not go to
> shipping food instead of search and rescue equipment. This hurricane hit
> a massively large area.
Let us add to your excellent list making reaching hospitals, nursing homes
and other long-term care providers, re-establishing supply lines for food,
water and medicines to them. An old familiar place, Charity Hospital, in
New Orleans on St. Charles, is a case where Lt-General Honore's impact
team of light cavalry units saved hundreds of lives. Migod, people were
dying on television until he personally redesigned the entire medivac
system to prioritize getting critically-ill patients out of Charity
Hospital to the triage center set up at New Orleans International Airport.
> At best we'd have dismissed it as political pandering, as a massive
> pork barrel project. A Bush attempt to create more government jobs to
> prop up a sagging economy for political gain for the 2006 congressional
> elections. You know it to be true.
Well, isn't Trent Lott running for re-election? <grin>
> So you see, it is a never ending struggle of (geometrically!) increasing
> intensity. Had the government not subsidized this, I seriously doubt the
> situation would have been as dire due to far less people being there, or
> people/industry being much smarter about their construction and
> preparedness.
I agree again, in part, with you. All you have to do to prove or disprove
most of what you've said is look at what once was called "an extreme
disaster preparedness posture" right there in Slidell. They had massive
damages, too, but here we are five days an counting, and major portions of
the electrical and communications infrastructure in Slidell are already
coming back online in bits and pieces. A friend who lives in Slidell
already has cellular service back and working, and local management teams
are telling him that, subject to building inspections, by the end of next
week they might have electric power restored in over 60% of the livable
homes. They were prepared; they had multiple levels of building codes.
> Incessant government subsidization of living in areas that are not only
> at risk for extreme environmental and natural disasters, but experience
> them regularly, has lead to a false belief that "it is ok" to live in
> these areas. The Earthquake State, Hurricane States (The AKA Hurricane
> Coast), and "Tornado Alley" are all places that would have far less
> people living there if it were not for the government paying to rebuild
> all the time.
Wait a minute here... You mean to suggest that people shouldn't rebuild
their homes in Tornado Alley? Now let's see here <Dave scratches his head
in frustration>, just how are we going to quantify what is and is not
tornado alley? Remember, I've lived there. <grin>
> Now I am not claiming the government should say "don't live there", I'm
> just saying it should not pay for the losses that *will* be incurred. I
> am saying that those of us in Idaho, Alaska, Montana, Texas, etc. should
> not be paying for the rebuilding of New Orleans, or the other areas hit.
That's a fair question you're raising there, but then you force people who
live there to develop a personal relationship with their insurance
company. Come to think of it, that is not such a bad idea, at that.
However, flood insurance should be *mandatory* for such places as New
Orleans. That would take responsibility for damage mitigation out of the
hands of the government, no?
> If the oil industry wants refineries there and the ports to supply them,
> they can build them. If the coffee industry wants a port there, they can
> pay for it. If Joe Six pack wants to live there, he can pay for it. If
> they can't afford it, they can go elsewhere. In fact, I hear tell from
> friends down there that a massive portion of those who left are not
> going to return.
Tongue in cheek here, but isn't this what one would call "hurricane
migration" ?
> Indeed, I'd say that outside of that most will not return. It will
> likely take a good 8 weeks to pump out the water. That is the earliest
> reconstruction could begin. Then there will be months before significant
> population needs and infrastructure can be established. By this time,
> most who evacuated or were evacuated will have found a home elsewhere.
> Texas just significantly grew in population. And remember, Hurricane
> season ain't over. While Lee and Maria are not currently threatening
> land or areas already hit, we still have much of the season left, and
> Katrina wasn't considered as dangerous as it became in it's last days.
I've been watching both of them establish their storm tracks, and Maria is
definitely "wobbling" on its axis, which is not a good thing. It would be
wildly interesting, from a demographic point of view, mind you, what would
happen to the Southwest infrastructure if it decided to take the northern
track and hit Florida head-on as a Cat-4, then march up the East Coast
toward the Carolinas.
> Did you know that only half of the homeowners in New Orleans had flood
> insurance? In condos and apartment complexes, the insurance stuff is far
> trickier and they can take years to get sorted out.
Yes, I was looking at that, and muttering beneath my breath about how much
that will cost US here in the Pacific Northwest.
> Speaking of Texas ... Texas demonstrates exactly who you should fault if
> anyone. The State of Louisiana. They failed to prepare for such an
> eventuality. Texas has planned for *years* for the total obliteration of
> the port city of Galveston, just as has happened with New Orleans. That
> is why they have been able to respond the way they have. The cots, the
> infrastructure, the whole shebang was ready to go as soon as they were
> given the word. Was LA prepared for this possibility? Nope. Not even
> close. And they had/have a higher risk factor due to New Orleans being
> below sea level.
Not only was and is Galveston prepared, you forget the massive local tax
levy that the citizens of Brownsville passed several years ago for
disaster preparedness. Both Galveston and Brownsville have shared the same
fates in the past with hurricane damages.
> [Side note: the French quarter will likely be the first rebuilt.
> Why?It's flooding was far, far less than the rest. Why? You guessed it,
> it's mainly above sea level.]
Huh? The French Quarter is *below* sea level, I believe. Maybe I'm wrong.
> On a side note, my SUV purchase is paying off even more about now. We
> run E85 in it. We are still paying $1.85 per gallon to fill it up. Last
> fill up was Tuesday. If the wholesale cost of gasoline doubles, the cost
> to drive the Suburban goes up 15%. Do I get to be a bit more smug now
> when I speak with environuts who think spending billions on the fallacy
> of Hydrogen or think that hybrids are the salvation? Yeah, I think I
> get to. :
This makes a really INTERESTING side-note. Please tell us more, speaking
strictly for myself.
BTW, I apologize for snipping your fascinating discussion so severely.
There are many good points you have made, some of which may well become
later points of discussion, but for right now, I have to limit my personal
time as I have a number of business-related technical issues which are
waving frantically at me this morning. Business may come and business may
go, but the damned networks go on forever...
Thanks for your perspectives...
Dave
--
Dave Laird ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The Used Kharma Lot / The Phoenix Project
An automatic & random thought For the Minute:
I'm not even going to *______bother* comparing C to BASIC or FORTRAN.
-- L. Zolman, creator of BDS C
_______________________________________________
Libnw mailing list
Libnw@immosys.com
List info and subscriber options: http://immosys.com/mailman/listinfo/libnw
Archives: http://immosys.com/mailman//pipermail/libnw
