h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Ok, I am going to say some nasty flamey things here but my tongue is sore with biting.

It seems to me that the US is reaping a number of whirlwinds, and these include:

Crazy gun laws - New Orleans appears to be descending into Mad Max-like anarchy because of the huge number of guns around, even more than normal if you take into account the guns which have been looted from WalMart. I don't even know where to start with this one, so I won't.

Building a city between the sea and a lake and below the level of both of them - How frigging dumb is that? There are other places below sea level, most of the Netherlands for example, but most of them aren't on hurricane coasts.

Concentrating so much of the oil industry in such a vulnerable place - "Katrina has cost the US a fifth of its production and more than a tenth of its refining capacity" - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-1761274,00.html Once again, when all the oil is going to run out in 30 or so years' time, how frigging stupid is that?

Lack of disaster planning - easy to be wise after the event, and I doubt that British disaster planning is much better, but even so - if I lived on the San Andreas fault, I'd be asking to see the disaster plans right now.

I could go on, but the final straw was seeing that the richest nation on the planet is asking for donations to relieve what was actually a man made disaster.

Sri Lanka has contributed $25,000 to the relief of New Orleans.

I am sorry, but I am most definitely not.

Comments?

B
PS - the actual horrors facing the poor and defenceless in New Orleans are - just that - horrific. These are the disenfranchised, the disabled, the most vulnerable in society. They most certainly do not deserve the suffering they are experiencing. But it is my contention that much of this suffering was avoidable, but Bush just flew on by....

I think the gun laws could prove to be potentially the most interesting of those - just standing back from it all for a second - because... well disaster planning and urban construction interesting and important though they are, neither has quiet the same prevalence or impact on American society as the Second Ammendment.

I think long after New Orleans is either dry or abandonned this issue will continue to reappear. It won't get rid of the mindset in America that welcomes guns (the NRA will see to that) but it will time and again provide a pertinant example of what happens when guns are so easy to access, particularly when the normal checks in a society (which in this case is close to collapse) are missing.

You can contribute to the American Red Cross. They seem to be doing most of the work anyway.

Where is the government? I knew Bush et al were incompetant, but f*cking hell...

Ste

I'm uncertain on the gun issue in this case, despite personal feelings that serious gun control is a good idea.

If things get to the level of mob rule, a mob with sticks facing a few policemen with sticks seems in many ways to be on the same level as a mob with guns facing a few policemen with guns. It is easier for things to escalate, but possibly it's only a matter of degree, and in some circumstances, the difference in degree could be small in practice. Even if it comes to people with weapons of opportunity versus armed police, the circumstances in which the police can keep control can be limited unless they are happy to shoot into crowds, and the people aren't desperate.

I'd have thought that a large part of the violence problem is basically down to support not being provided quickly enough for the people left in the city - a few days with little or no food or water, and uncertainty when any supplies may turn up, and violence and/or people looking out only for themselves is a fairly likely conclusion.

While the idea of getting many of the people who couldn't/wouldn't leave in one place does make sense, in a place where flooding without the prospect of rapid natural drainage was not only possible, but was expected in advance, one does wonder what kinds of plans there were for subsequent law enforcement, food/water supply or evacuation when there was a significant chance that *all* the people who stayed in the city would need evacuating after a disaster.

>>While the idea of getting many of the people who couldn't/wouldn't leave in one place does make sense, in a place where flooding without the prospect of rapid natural drainage was not only possible, but was expected in advance, one does wonder what kinds of plans there were for subsequent law enforcement, food/water supply or evacuation when there was a significant chance that *all* the people who stayed in the city would need evacuating after a disaster.<<

If anything it's this that points to the paucity in the disaster planning of recent days. I expect this will generate a lot of question about how to handle large scale disasters in the future.

A sub-debate (and I don't want to linger on this) that's proving interesting in the media are the comments about how

a)The Homeland Security budget for fighting terror has robbed funds from disaster planning for, for instance, repairing and maintaining levvies.

b)The number of national guard called to serve in Iraq meant that the numbers are reduced at home to cope with an emergency like this one. This does not mean that national guard numbers on display now are insignificant just less than they might perhaps otherwise have been.


In these two ways, The US Government's foreign and domestic policies are also lingering in the wings, threatening to come to fore, when those who have lost loved one and homes and livlihoods finally escape from those areas affected and start looking for someone to blame.

It's the otherwise that will prove troublesome. What would it be like if we'd handled things differently? Bill or Reilly was boasting of Fox News how Katrina had knocked Cindy Sheehan off the headlines. True enough for now but his enjoyment may be short lived if those connections start having more of an impact on the debate.

Sorry to be so dissacociated from this tragedy unfolding - but mid term elections aren't far away for congress and the senate, they'll be getting jittery and lets us not forget another presidential election is not an inconsiderable distance away either. The effects of Katrina or any other hurricaine yet to arrive on American shores may do more than change the local landscape it may change the political landscape too.

The government should have been stock piling supllies at a safe distance away airport, from the first moment the people were told to leave.

The state knows 30 percent of their people live below the proverty line and half of those are children. It is dispicable to tell all to evacuate and not "know" and prepare ahead for those with no way to do so.

Payday was later in the week, so many live paycheck to paycheck.

The pawn shops were raided for guns right away.
Walmart sounded like it *was well stocked with guns
There is no need to make them that easy to get at Walmart disaster or not!

Sitting here in North Wales it is a little hard to appreciate the shear scale of things (to be flippant - is the affected area the size of Wales or Belgium?).

What troubles me the most is the comparisons being drawn between Katrina and the Indian Ocean Tsunami. The people in the path of the hurricane had some warning that it was coming and either chose not to evacuate for whatever reasons (best known only to themselves) or were in some way unable to evacuate. The rights and wrongs of this are not for me to question in my cosy North Wales position.

The points made about inadequate disaster planning and the decent into anarchy/mob rule are well made and whilst I am neither a Dubya fan nor an apologist for the Federal administration I get the impression that he is in a 'damned if you do and damned if you don't' situation. I might add though, that flying over the devastation in AF1 could be considered misguided and possibly a little crass. (Tony liar (Freudian typo!! - Blair, I meant. Honest) came in for quite a bit of stick for not recalling parliament after July 7th I seem to recall.)

I really feel for those affected by this disaster, one of the most powerful storms to hit that coast in living memory if not on record. That the richest and most powerful nation on Earth appears to have been caught out by this and is struggling to mobilise disaster relief I find breathtaking!

Guns and Americans - tsk, tsk... What more can I say?

Lastly, "Sri Lanka has contributed $25,000 to the relief of New Orleans." The irony is almost too much to bear.

turvy

1st, the people who are in New Orleans now, for the most part, had no way of fleeing Katrina, whether they new about it or not - they're the impoverished - they don't own cars. As you probably all well know, public transportation in the US is abysmal/non-existent.

More details about Bush's failure

1) The problem isn't really Katrina, or building below sea-level. It was the decrepit state of the levees which hold back the water. They were well known to be decrepit. The army corps of engineers was working on repairing them in 2003, but it's budget kept getting slashed. The head of the corps was fired after complaining about the budget cuts.

2) FEMA is the Federal Emergency Management agency. They're the number one go-to people when disasters like this strike. They did the lead work when hurricane Andrew destroyed Florida during Bush I's presidency. But they're not anymore. Their powers have been hamstrung by Bush, in addition to having their budget slashed.

The title of the thread is incredibly ironic. Karl Rove, on meet the press, after the 2004 election, said the same thing. He asked they Bush and Co. remain without pride...

ps. The analogy to the netherlands is in this Haikue:

live below sea height
don't bother maintaining dikes
disaster will strike

That hits a bit too close to home. Here in the UK many of the houses built in recent times are located on river flood plains. We're close to the point where insurance companies will refuse to provide cover, I suspect....

And I wonder what contribution to the severity of the hurricane is down to pollution leading to global warming? America has less than 400 million people (a fifteenth of the world's population), but generates 25% of the world's pollution.

I really think it's time we (the whole world) took our environment seriously, and started doing something really significant to try to improve things. Of course it may already be too late. But it may not be ... yet. Let's do it now!

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

I know its current at the moment and therefore interesting, but it does strike me as being a little hasty. As in everyone's going to have ideas of what might've gone on, but we're all a bit isolated from the evidence as it stands.

I also dispute that any sort of talk of pollution's 'contribution' to a hurricane is meaningful:
Sea levels have risen
Change is generally likely to upset weather systems a bit
BUT
In another thread someone dug up some statistics showing that hurricanes in the area were more frequent in the first half of the 20th century than the second half.
The US's average temperature has not been affected that much by global warming, unlike the Earth as a whole.
Warmer periods in our history saw fewer examples of extreme weather.

Just caught a snippet of BBC America on News 24 - A debate between two people (didn't catch the names or the affiliations) but who appeared to represent essentially the two sides of partisanism in American politics.

The one said: The government is at fault.

The other saught refuge in details and accused the first of playing politics with tragedy.

Example (from memory transcript not exact):


"This administrations priorities are totally wrong. They were warned about floods, they were warned about the environment about global warming how this would - "

"global warming? "

"Yeah makes the hurricaines worse."

"Where's the proof this tragedy has anything to do with - "

"Global warming will warm the oceans, warmer oceans means bigger and worse hurricaines now and in the future. And there's the national guard in Iraq."

"Now you well know there are no Louisianna guardsmen in Iraq."

"Yes they are."

"And it takes up to 72 hours to mobilise National Guard units. In fact you know also that it's not the President's responsibility to call out the national gurard that rests with the Federal level. Where's the calls on the Govenor's job or the mayors? They should have been putting out the Call for troops, they are responsible for keeping law and order - not The president!"

"The president does have responsibility. His budgetary cuts resulted in the levvy failures, back in 2003 he sashed the budget of the engineers."

"Levies built in 1960!"

"And in need of repair. Exactly!"

"Yeah but back when they built the through New Orleans the Govenor caled it a great thing for the city. Why didn't we spend that money on repairing the levvys or on maintaining the marshland? Why isn't her head on the block over this? I tell you why. Just 'cos she's a Democrat we don't hear a peep! You should stop scoring partsian points over this and work together to find a solution."

"I'm not point scoring - this goes the the heart of the matter. This administrations focus and priorities are totally wrong and this is the result!"

Thank you both. Back to london...



----------------


A flavour of the debate as it's brewing in Washington. Expect mroe of this kind of accusation and counter accusation. The attitude from the republican side seems to be defensive in the extreme. If I'm going down you're all going down with me.

>>Crazy gun laws - New Orleans appears to be descending into Mad Max-like anarchy because of the huge number of guns around, even more than normal if you take into account the guns which have been looted from WalMart. I don't even know where to start with this one, so I won't.<<

Agreed. COuldn't put it better myself.

>>Building a city between the sea and a lake and below the level of both of them - How frigging dumb is that? There are other places below sea level, most of the Netherlands for example, but most of them aren't on hurricane coasts. <<

Well not sure there. How many cities are on active volcanoes, fault lines, by the sea vulnerable to tsunamis? New Orleans has hardly been built recently. Surely its been around for at least 300 years so I don't think it's really the fault of anyone living now. You don't just up sticks and leave when a city has been around for that long.

>>Concentrating so much of the oil industry in such a vulnerable place - "Katrina has cost the US a fifth of its production and more than a tenth of its refining capacity" - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-1761274,00.html Once again, when all the oil is going to run out in 30 or so years' time, how frigging stupid is that?<<

Well maybe in hindsight but they tend to stick this sort of stuff near coasts so transport is easy. Again this sort of damage is so rare that I hardly think it's appropriate to call it *that* stupid. They will recover too so this is only a temporary set back.

>>Lack of disaster planning - easy to be wise after the event, and I doubt that British disaster planning is much better, but even so - if I lived on the San Andreas fault, I'd be asking to see the disaster plans right now.<<

Agreed... slightly. I suspect people expect a little much from governments sometime. I don't really think it's really possible to entirely prepare for a disaster of this magnitude. However it does seem that the authorities in this case have been a little.... slow.

>>I could go on, but the final straw was seeing that the richest nation on the planet is asking for donations to relieve what was actually a man made disaster.

Sri Lanka has contributed $25,000 to the relief of New Orleans.

I am sorry, but I am most definitely not.<<

Again agreed.



From what I've read and heard on TV, the whole continent of North America is a disaster waiting to happen. Only a large dam/sluice gate type thing is holding the whole southern Mississippi from changing course entirely as it's not flowing the lowest path it can to the sea anymore. New Orleans would be hundreds of miles from the mouth if they allowed this but how much of a disaster would *that* be.
What are the logistics and plans for when Yellowstone blows.

I agree with someone elsewhere who said this shows our impotence in the face of nature at its most brutal. Shit happens and there's not a lot we can do when it really hits the fan

"I agree with someone elsewhere who said this shows our impotence in the face of nature at its most brutal. Shit happens and there's not a lot we can do when it really hits the fan"

But that's the point, the reason why New Orleans is utterly screwed was because of human failings. They failed to maintain the levees, they built on natural areas that protected the city, and the response to the ensuing disaster was virtually non-existant.

Not sure I agree, even with the extra money spent on Levee protection, would it have worked? who knows?

Agreed. However, they were trying to shore up the levees to protect against this very situation. They didn't, it happened...

Yeah. Too true.

I can't understand why people, especially the bl**dy Americans keep denying that their gross polluting ways are doing irreparable harm to the planet.

'We're gonna get that confounded oil out from under those damned Eye-raquis and we're gonna f*ck up the planet with it'

They are not 'Walking on Sunshine' in New Orleans now, are they!

Malus

"even with the extra money spent on Levee protection, would it have worked? who knows?"

As the people of Bangladesh can tell you probably not.

Large sums of money were spent on dykes to keep out waters which regularly flood the country. The dykes were complet3ed and the water flowed in and became trapped there. People drowned, homes and farmland were inundated and it all took many times longer to restore the areas hardest hit because they had no fast way of pumping out water that wouldn't have gotten trapped there without the dykes.

The water is trapped in New Orleans because of it's built in a bowl under sea-level on a river delta. The levees are there to stop this happening. I don't see what the Bangladesh example is trying to say...

I think it's an unimaginable scientific stretch to relate global warming to Katrina. Apparently, based on the posts here, it's not an unimaginable political/diatribe one.

As far as levees go, it is well established that they were for sh*t. How long are we going to keep arguing about the arrogance of man in living in places below sea level? Shouldn't we instead be arguing about the stupidity/laziness of man?

Hasn't there been a natural disaster of some kind or another, at some point or another, in the entire history of mankind, at every known habitable location of man? So by the logic used here, since there have been disasters at all these locations, aren't we all stupid for living where we live now?