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The Times of London
America
Catastrophic mistakes by the planners who forgot city's poor From Tim Reid in Washington DISASTER experts said yesterday that the anarchy that engulfed New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina was in large part caused by an absence of plans to evacuate the poor. Officials say that about 100,000 of the 500,000 residents of New Orleans live on or below the poverty line, or are elderly and sick, mostly in African-American neighbourhoods. But after years of anticipating a hurricane, officials in effect ignored that this low-mobility population would have neither the money nor the transport to flee. Brian Wolshon, a former consultant on the states evacuation plan, told The New York Times that at disaster planning meetings, whenever the question was raised about how to evacuate the poor and infirm, the answer was often silence. Experts also listed other crucial errors made before Hurricane Katrina hit and expressed bafflement over how the most anticipated natural disaster in US history brought such a slow and chaotic response. Despite dozens of plans and models over decades predicting a big hurricane hit, including one last year that predicted 10ft to 15ft of water in New Orleans and the evacuation of one million people, local, state and federal officials have been overwhelmed by the disaster. Several experts said yesterday that a crucial error may have been the failure to predict that the levees holding back Lake Pontchartrain would be breached. It was an omission that appeared extraordinary given the parlous state of the defensive walls and the near certain belief among federal and state officials for years that in the aftermath of a hurricane, New Orleans would be flooded.Eric Tolbert, a former senior official in the Federal Emer-gency Management Agency (Fema), said that after the Asian tsunami last year: New Orleans was the No 1 disaster we were talking about. We were obsessed with New Orleans because of the risk. Martha Madden, a former secretary of the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, said that it was incomprehensible that immediate federal help, particularly troops on the ground, had not been provided. She said: They cant drop some food on Canal Street in New Orleans right now? Its mind-boggling.In 2000 and last year, disaster plans were prepared for a significant hurricane hit, but officials say that nobody thought that the levees would be holed. Greg Breerwood, of the US Army Corps of Engineers, which is responsible for maintaining the levee system, said: We knew . . . some levees and flood walls would be overtopped. We never did think they would be breached. Budget cuts to the citys defences by successive administrations in Washington compounded the problem. Last year the army engineers sought $105 million (£57 million) for hurricane and flood programmes in New Orleans. The White House slashed the request to $40 million and Congress approved $42.5 million. Mr Tolbert said that funding dried up after the hurricane exercise last year, leading to the shelving of plans to shelter survivors. Last year Al Naomi, the head of the army engineers in New Orleans, complained that federal budget cuts had halted work on the citys east-bank levees for the first time in 37 years.Analysts expressed amazement that despite Hurricane Katrinas slow approach from the Gulf of Mexico, large numbers of National Guardsmen were not in place before it made landfall, and that it took until yesterday, four days after the disaster, for troops to arrive. Charles Boustany Jr, a Republican Louisiana congressman, said that he spent 48 hours after the hurricane calling the White House to impress upon Mr Bush the scale of the crisis. Terry Ebbert, the chief Homeland Security official in New Orleans, said: This is a national disgrace. Fema has been here three days, and we have no command and control. We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we cant bail out the city of New Orleans.
The Sunday Times September 04, 2005 Focus: Bloggers diary: Its the law of the jungle down here A New Orleans blogger and Gulf war veteran claims that the local police have been looting banks, car showrooms and gun shops. Calling himself the Interdictor, the blogger is holed up in an office from where he surveys the streets from webcams, listening in on police and National Guard radio traffic and occasionally setting out to gather more intelligence on the collapse of his city.He calls his eyrie Outpost Crystal, after his Californian girlfriend, and writes an hourly blog: They have taken dozens of SUVs from dealerships ostensibly for official use, he writes of the New Orleans police department (NOPD). They also have looted gun stores and pawn shops for all the small arms, supposedly to prevent criminals from doing so. But who knows their true intentions. Reliable sources, he claims, have seen officers breaking into cash machines and safes. We have an inside source in the NOPD who says that command and control is in chaos. NOPD already had a reputation for corruption, but I am telling you now that the people weve been talking to say they are not recognising the NOPD as a legitimate authority any more, since cops have been seen looting in Wal-Marts and forcing people out of stores so they could back up SUVs and loot them. Dont shoot the messenger . . . The Interdictor says his blog is fighting for the preservation of civilisation against the barbarian hordes. He does not reveal his identity, but claims that he provides crisis management for Intercosmos, a New Orleans media group.The National Guard hardly emerges with any more credit than the police. Its officers, he says, are just shoving water off the backs of trucks. Theyre just pushing it off without stopping, people dont even know its there. Sometimes the Interdictors grim mood is tempered by a change in the weather. Its raining now and I guess thats a relief from the heat. Its hot as hell down there in the sun. Crime is absolutely rampant: rapes, murders, rape-murder combinations.With the police and army so hopelessly inadequate, he makes a direct appeal to President George W Bush. Mr President, we are losing this city. I dont care what youre hearing on the news. The city is being lost. It is the law of the jungle down here. The command and control structure here is barely functioning. The hospitals are in dire straits. The police barely have any capabilities at this point. Please get the military here to maintain order before this city is lost. His emotions spill over as the Interdictor reminds his audience that there will be a final reckoning. One day it is going to be over, and people are going to have to live with themselves and the knowledge of how they behaved the cowards, the thieves, the murderers. Were getting a guy on cam now, right now, stealing tyres from one car and putting them in his. What a bunch of monkeys. Like I said, one day this is going to be over, and I hope the shame overwhelms these bastards.The Interdictor says he implies no racial slurs: There are white people, black people and Hispanic people looting. Its interesting to note that I see no Asians looting, but Ill leave that observation to the sociologists to explain. It is a zoo out there though, make no mistake. Its the wild kingdom. While suspicious of the NOPD, Interdictor has some friends in the force: Hes only hearing bits and pieces, he writes after talking to one officer. The people in the city are shooting at the police. The firemen keep calling because theyre under fire. He doesnt understand why the people are shooting at the rescuers. Here it is: five days ago the mayor said get out of town and nobody went, and now theyre pissed. One policeman tells the Interdictor that his colleagues have simply disappeared. Over 30 officers have quit over the last three days. Out of 160 officers in his district, maybe 55 or 60 are working. He hasnt seen several since Sunday. HQ is closed, evacuated.When not roving over his system of webcams, the blogger is preparing fuel drops across the city. Ive been moving and dumping 55 gallon drums all day. Its back-breaking work, but its a good thing Ive got a strong back. I havent fooled with that much diesel since I was on shit-burning detail in the first Gulf war. Never been much of a garrison soldier. I was always a field soldier. So here at Outpost Crystal were set pretty good. Even on his errands, the blogger feels as threatened by the rescuers as by the floods: Bunch of stressed out, trigger-happy police and military types driving by suspicious as all hell. Its not safe standing out on the street even if you look as though you belong here.Guest contributors September 03, 2005London watches - with trepidation Paul Simons THE NIGHTMARE
unfolding in New Orleans may look like a Hollywood disaster movie, but the
carnage of Hurricane Katrina is a warning to city-dwellers across the globe.
Many of the worlds greatest cities, from Shanghai to London, are also at risk
from storm surges, and the threat is growing worse.
The reason is frighteningly simple great cities are often great seaports, so they lie at sea level. And sea levels are rising. As the world grows warmer, the oceans expand with all the extra heat, just like a saucepan of water on a hot cooker. Added to that, freshwater is surging into the seas from all the glaciers melting around the polar caps and mountains. And there is another problem. Many of the big cities are sinking deeper into the ground. New Orleans has been sinking 3ft per century, whilst Shanghai sank 9ft in only 50 years in the last century. There have been plenty of close calls already. Only last week, Miami got drenched by Katrina before it blew up into a monster hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. But Miami was not so lucky in September 1926, when a hurricane as powerful as Katrina gutted the city. The total damage came to $98 billion in todays costs, and ranks as the costliest hurricane in US history, even though Miami was quite small in those days. A similar storm today would be catastrophic.Of course, Britain is far from the reach of hurricanes, so why worry about a disaster on the scale of New Orleans? That was probably similar to what many people thought in January 1953, when a storm in the North Sea unleashed a huge bulge of water that surged down the neck of the Channel, flooding East Anglia and the Thames Estuary. More than 300 people drowned and 24,000 houses were flooded; in todays costs the damage would have totalled more than £7 billion. But it was on the verge of turning into a far bigger catastrophe: the Thames came to within an inch of bursting its bank in London. The capital was saved only because flood defences on the East Coast were so poor that they collapsed and eased much of the floodwaters. The chances of a similar storm surge happening again are increasing each year: by the 2080s the risk will be 17 times greater than in 1953. That is why the Thames Flood Barrier was built, despite the politicians dragging their feet over costs. Yet without that barrier Westminster would have been under water years ago. The capital is also protected by 185 miles of flood walls and embankments as well as eight tidal barriers and hundreds of smaller flood gates on tributaries of the Thames. It is a truly monumental piece of engineering keeping London safe but then that is what New Orleans was led to believe with its defences. Yet each year the seas inch higher and London sinks lower. Many of the Thames flood walls need raising, with bigger foundations, and that eats up more land. This wont be cheap, costing an estimated £4 billion. Then there is the barrier itself. This was designed to have a refit and higher flood gates within the next 25 years, but after that it may become redundant well before the end of the century. Of course, that may seem a long way off, but it takes around 30 years to plan and build a huge civil engineering project on the scale required to deal with the threat to London, so the problem has already become urgent.The Environment Agency is looking at the options. One idea is a vast new outer barrier across the mouth of the Thames Estuary, something like the enormous Dutch sea defences. One proposal unveiled this January was for a barrier stretching ten miles from Southend in Essex to Sheerness in Kent, costing £20 billion. The defences become even more urgent when you consider the need to protect the Thames Gateway development, which will see tens of thousands of new homes built on the floodplain of the Thames, beyond the protection of the barrier. One extreme idea being proposed is raising these new houses on stilts like Bangladesh-style cyclone homes above the flood level. Or large areas of Kent and Essex farmland could be sacrificed to flood waters during a tidal surge to prevent Londons defences being overwhelmed. The consequences of inadequate flood protection have come into terrifying focus in New Orleans. For London, if the citys defences were to be breached, Westminster and much of central London could be 6ft deep in water. Chelsea, and many other rich and powerful addresses, would be more than head-high in water. The further out to the east, the worse it gets: Lambeth, Bermondsey, Docklands, Poplar, West Ham, Dagenham would all be awash. Some 38 Underground stations would fill with water, eight power stations, 16 hospitals and 400 schools, plus 500,000 properties. Thamesmead, a former marsh, with its 45,000 residents, would be a dozen feet under water. The Isle of Dogs, containing some of Britains most expensive real estate, would be swamped. Given that 1.25 million people live and work in the Thames flood plain, the casualties could be immense. The Tube, trains and roads becoming jammed with evacuees is almost un- imaginable. The financial costs of a big London flood would be staggering, with an estimated value of property within the 48 sq mile flood risk area assessed at £125 billion. Add on another £50 billion or so for the knock-on effects of disrupted business and the total bill would far exceed the damage of Katrina, which is why we need to heed the lessons of the disaster unfolding around the Gulf of Mexico.Paul Simons writes the Weather Eye column for The Times. Mukefor |
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