Saturday, September 03, 2005



America in a nutshell

With all the coverage of the aftermath of Katrina on TV, the fact that those left behind are poor, elderly, sick, and mostly black ought to have escaped no-one's attention. Why is this the case? Via Kevin Drum, it seems that no-one planned for their evacuation:

Brian Wolshon, an engineering professor at Louisiana State University who served as a consultant on the state's evacuation plan, said little attention was paid to moving out New Orleans's "low-mobility" population — the elderly, the infirm and the poor without cars or other means of fleeing the city, about 100,000 people.

At disaster planning meetings, he said, "the answer was often silence."

Then, having abandoned New Orleans' weakest citizens to their fate, government officials are now turning around and saying they "chose" not to leave. People in wheelchairs, people who could not afford cars or other transport, and people too old to travel all "chose" to stay behind - despite the choice of leaving not really being available.

This is America in a nutshell: a society which systematically screws its weakest members and then blames them for their predicament.

30 comments:

I was just watching CNN and one of the black caucus members announced that detriot had offered to airlift 500 families and provide them with free housing, clothes and food.

Sad to see this happen in a so called developed country.

Posted by Stephanie : 9/03/2005 12:32:00 PM

As opposed to New Zealand, which screws its weakest, then blames them?
Or as opposed to Australia which screws its weakest then blames them when they hang themselves in jail cells?

C'mon we in New Zealand havent got a huge deal to be proud of .. if the best we can do is say at least we arent as bad as the US.

Posted by Anonymous : 9/03/2005 01:05:00 PM

In this case, just for once, I have to agree with I/S. This is an atrocious country to be poor in. If Eurpoe treated its working-class population the way America does, there would be revolution within a week. I've been in downtown New York all day today, enjoying life, but still wondering at the chasm between the haves and have nots, as the homeless are out in force around the city.

Certainly in the south, the racial divide deepens the divisions. America's great achievement historically has been to take millions of poverty striken, class-oppressed people from Europe, and provide them with means of developing wealth. However, it's not a frontier country anymore, and the social structure is ossifying. Whether America can summon the collective courage to front these questions is anyone's guess, but the lunacy of both its gun 'culture' and its social Darwinism is writ large in this tragedy...

Posted by Anonymous : 9/03/2005 01:11:00 PM

I am not sure I would term black people weak. Or that their race is relevant.

Posted by Genius : 9/03/2005 01:20:00 PM

Boing Boing had a good link about Cuba and their Civil Defense response, which is apparently really good. Someone made the point that they didn't have financial capital, but they had social capital.

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/09/01/katrina_anecdote_on_.html

I guess you could say that Katrina was a laissez faire disaster. God, it's just so heart wrenching to see how classist this disaster is.

Posted by Muerk : 9/03/2005 01:56:00 PM

I suspect that if/when the central North Is volcanic zone devastates a large proportion of NZ that the response of Americans will be one of compassion and assistance.

Maybe they'll choose to lecture us on the sad state of our race relations or the incompetence of our government.

Posted by Anonymous : 9/03/2005 02:07:00 PM

It means that if you're poor, you're gonna left behind. Hhmmm... fantastically crazy.

Posted by Anymatters : 9/03/2005 02:20:00 PM

i imagine if we had such a lack of preparedness, and the people left to die/evacuated last/shot when they looted what they need to survive were predominantly of one race/class then those criticisms would be valid. nowhere does I/S suggest that we would be above it. And in fact i remember a lot of comments during the tsunami about "why did this happen" and "how can we make sure it doesn't again". In the case of Katrina we are still at the why and not up to the how yet.

Posted by Span : 9/03/2005 03:08:00 PM

Clinton on the reaction to the disaster
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/005360.php

Posted by Genius : 9/03/2005 03:14:00 PM

> such a lack of preparedness

The major error was living in a low lying area. Rather like aucklanders make an error in living on volcanies and new zealanders make an error in being within a couple hundred miles of taupo.

Some of their risks are mitigated generally and some specifically rather more prepared than the tsunami countries were - rather less prepared than ideally they should have been. Of course every one always falls short of the ideal.

Posted by Genius : 9/03/2005 03:19:00 PM

Part of the problem is the military-industrial complex consuming such a huge and ever-increasing amount of the US GDP.
The National Guard would normally play a big part in managing a big disaster, but they're starved of people as they're all in Iraq.
Reality is the terrorist that needs the biggest focus is the big weatherman in the sky..

Posted by Anonymous : 9/03/2005 07:36:00 PM

The thing is they had at least two days' warning to prepare for what they expected was going to be a direct hit by a category five. It went down to a category three and veered east, and still look what's happened. Weird laissez-faire private evacuation for those who could afford it. The army and national guard and all their equipment are all in Iraq. What went on in that superdrome thing just doesn't bear thinking about, simply because of a lack of elementary preparation. It's truly unbelievable. It actually looks like they're not a functioning civilised society, i.e. they're unable to provide these basic services to their citizens.

Of course, Wellington in particular is going to have a major earthquake at some stage. The South Island fault (the one that created the Southern Alps) is even more overdue than Wellers. I'd sincerely hope we'd be able to do better than that though - even with the erosion of civil society and growth of selfishness since the New Right revolution.

Posted by David Cauchi : 9/04/2005 11:04:00 AM

An excellent point linked on xymphora - one of the basic elements of anti-terrorism planning is surely detailed planning for the mass evacuation of people and the infrastructure (food, temporary shelter etc) to support it. How is it possible given the billions of dollars spent on homeland security that these things seem to've been handled so poorly?

Posted by Anonymous : 9/04/2005 12:54:00 PM

huskynut, hear hear, although apparently only 1/3rd of the national guard is in Iraq.

genius, relax, the Auckland volcanoes are extinct. not merely dormant, but extinct. if living near historic volcanoes was idiocy, we'd have to abandon the entire country.

Posted by dc_red : 9/04/2005 05:40:00 PM

makes one greatful to be living in New Zealand, dont you think?

Posted by Anonymous : 9/04/2005 05:51:00 PM

dc - that isn't the main risk.
the fact that there are 50 volcanoes is just an indication that the area isn't exactly the most stable spot on the planet.

Having said that - I have no idea what the statistical risk is. maybe it is low.

Posted by Genius : 9/04/2005 09:40:00 PM

I assume this event in the US was somthing like a once in hundred years sort of thing.

Posted by Genius : 9/04/2005 09:48:00 PM

Some points: The Auckland volcanic field is not extinct. The volcanoes are, because of the nature of the basaltic volcanism you find there - discrete batches of magma arrive thousands of years apart, erupt, build a cone, then stop. The next batch has to cut a new path through the crust, hence a new volcano. Auckland volcanoes are getting further apart in time, but bigger. Rangitoto, the youngest, was erupting between five and seven hundred years ago, which makes it geologically dormant - not quiet long enough for it to be called extinct. The Auckland field, although nowhere near active, is not extinct. Because of the monogenetic nature of Auckland volcanoes, the best place to live in Auckland is actually on one of the old cones, as they don't go twice. Damage wise, the auckland basaltic field is not very scary at all, due to the fluid basalt lava types having a very low explosivity index. Lots of pretty fire fountains, some explosions if they hit water, lava flows to be diverted with earth banks and bulldozers. Probably some days to weeks warning if one turned up.

Taupo volcanic zone is definitely capable of huge eruptions, but they are quite infrequent, and fairly predictable once initial indicators start popping up; you'd get days to weeks or even months of warning to start your evac. Once the eruption starts, you've got quite a while to get away before gas pressures fall sufficiently to allow big ignimbrite blasts. Even the AD 186 blast didn't get further than 80-90 km from Taupo (and until that blast, you could have safely watched the first three eruptions over about two months from the west side of the lake), and the ashfall is the worst problem, and that only directly downwind. You'd only get major trouble if the wind took the ash directly north or northwest. Auckland is fairly safe from Taupo, but the Bay of Plenty is shafted, basically.

Down south, Wellington is the major problem. Sure, the Alpine Fault could hit Canterbury/Westland with a magnitude nine point five any time it felt like it, but our population density is so low that most of the damage would be road/rail infrastructural. Most housing is woodframe, which is intrinsically earthquake resistant (bounces off its foundations and is an insurance writeoff, but unlikely to squash you flat, unlike a concrete/brick construction.)

Currently, the big volcanoes in the North Island (Taupo, Rotorua, Okataina, Maroa, Reporoa) have several thousand year return periods. The hazard is extreme when it happens, but the return period is low. The Central Volcanoes, (Ngauruhoe, Ruapehu, Tongariro) and Taranaki, are all far more likely to erupt, but are just not as dangerous, and mostly just a tourist attraction per se. (Although Taranaki is quite likely to do a serious sector collapse a-la Mt St Helens.)

Volcano wise, in NZ, you've got more chance of being hit by a number nine bus.

Earthquake wise, its a bit worse. We get sixes and sevens yearly, (to the point that they don't do much damage, for which we can thank the Napier Quake, which shook up our building regulations nicely.) We get eights every decade or so, but mostly offshore or too deep to matter (one last year, south of Stewart Island) and we get nines every two or three hundred years (usually off the Alpine Fault, but not always). I'd say our biggest uncovered civil defence hole is a nearshore tsunami from one of the Kaikoura coast faults, which would hit Christchurch in three minutes, and against which we have no defense.

With reference to Katrina, what surprises me is that that coast of the US gets about three to four of these big ones per century, and they get multiple category two to three storms per decade. Its not like they don't know these things turn up. This is like NZ being prepared for magnitude six and seven earthquakes, but being caught unprepared when an eight or nine happens. The thing that beggars me is an apparent lack of civil defence setup before the storm.

Posted by Weekend_Viking : 9/05/2005 12:23:00 AM

I just think that if Wellington experienced a disaster and the "cake tin" was full of people needing evacuating then everyone in the North Island with a truck or bus would be up for driving down there to help out.

Posted by Rich : 9/05/2005 09:03:00 AM

Weekend Viking:

When we lived in Auckland we got a cute wee mailer telling us where the lava was likely to flow and the risks of various suburbs getting "volcanoed". It also had civil defence info and about how to prepare for an emergency.

Posted by Muerk : 9/05/2005 09:15:00 AM

The underlying problem is that people expect the Government to save them from their own lack of preparedness:

An Unnatural Disaster: A Hurricane Exposes the Man-Made Disaster of the Welfare State

...

If this is just a natural disaster, the response for public officials is obvious: you bring in food, water, and doctors; you send transportation to evacuate refugees to temporary shelters; you send engineers to stop the flooding and rebuild the city's infrastructure. For journalists, natural disasters also have a familiar pattern: the heroism of ordinary people pulling together to survive; the hard work and dedication of doctors, nurses, and rescue workers; the steps being taken to clean up and rebuild.

Public officials did not expect that the first thing they would have to do is to send thousands of armed troops in armored vehicle, as if they are suppressing an enemy insurgency. And journalists--myself included--did not expect that the story would not be about rain, wind, and flooding, but about rape, murder, and looting.

...

There were many decent, innocent people trapped in New Orleans when the deluge hit--but they were trapped alongside large numbers of people from two groups: criminals--and wards of the welfare state, people selected, over decades, for their lack of initiative and self-induced helplessness. The welfare wards were a mass of sheep--on whom the incompetent administration of New Orleans unleashed a pack of wolves.

All of this is related, incidentally, to the apparent incompetence of the city government, which failed to plan for a total evacuation of the city, despite the knowledge that this might be necessary. But in a city corrupted by the welfare state, the job of city officials is to ensure the flow of handouts to welfare recipients and patronage to political supporters--not to ensure a lawful, orderly evacuation in case of emergency.

...


Posted by Duncan Bayne : 9/05/2005 10:44:00 AM

I just think that if Wellington experienced a disaster and the "cake tin" was full of people needing evacuating then everyone in the North Island with a truck or bus would be up for driving down there to help out.

Yep, and I'd be one of them (admittedly handicapped by the number of people I could take in a Civic hatchback).

However, I wouldn't if Wellington happened to be full of gangs of armed thugs looting, raping and pillaging.

Posted by Duncan Bayne : 9/05/2005 11:01:00 AM

Duncan, it wasn't the welfare state that caused the breakdown in New Orleans. Here, go read this: Sullivan on Katrina

Posted by Weekend_Viking : 9/05/2005 11:49:00 AM

weekend_viking, you're failing to address the point that the primary issue in New Orleans isn't the hurricane, it's the 'civil disorder', the roaming gangs of murderers, rapists, and looters.

This isn't the fault of the hurricane, it's the fault of the society that was struck by the hurricane.

Why were there so many people living in a hurricane zone so totally unprepared for this eventuality?

Where was the money that should have been spent on disaster preparation - what was it spent on?

Why was the result of Katrina not a community pitching in to support its members, but a shootout between Marines and looters?

Posted by Duncan Bayne : 9/05/2005 12:08:00 PM

It's the _welfare state's_ fault? Puhleaze. I can't see Finland or Norway being like this. And they have welfare all the way up the wazoo. We know Cuba is excellently prepared and they are frickin communist.

If America had a less individualistic culture and had a greater emphasis on caring for the whole of society, even the "lazy" poor, maybe there would be less violence.

Posted by Muerk : 9/05/2005 02:09:00 PM

I'll note this for evidence of why individualism in the extreme creates violence. I want to throttle him already... But then maybe that's my welfare mentality coming through.

"But what about criminals and welfare parasites? ... living off of stolen wealth is a way of life for them."

(that's from The Intellectual Activist - The Unnatual Disaster)

Stolen wealth is when an elite group of people make their vast amounts of money out of the low wages of the majority and then _blame_ them for it.

Posted by Muerk : 9/05/2005 02:36:00 PM

Nice dodge; the author was talking about welfare dependants and criminals, not those on low incomes.

Posted by Duncan Bayne : 9/05/2005 02:52:00 PM

This dependency "theory" is just away of ducking any responsibility that the government might feel it should rightfully have to its' citizens. Is it feasible that all those people, who have lived through variously sized hurricanes every year would have though "I shall do nothing, the feds will protect me!"? Or were they overwhelmed by the size of this thing? You know, people are pretty complex critters, there might be a whole raft of reasons.
Possibly the looters felt so disconnected from the power elite in their country that they felt that they had nothing to lose.After all it probably did seem to them like they had been abandoned.

Posted by Anonymous : 9/05/2005 04:59:00 PM

there is a difference between the facts of a statement and the connotations.

The facts are laid out and then each side will place their connotations on it talking about greedy welfare dependant criminals or greedy elites and trational discussion falls into the background.

Posted by Genius : 9/05/2005 06:54:00 PM

So Duncan, you seem to be recommending that instead of waiting for a natural disaster so that the Bush government can ignore the poorfolk and let them die, they should just make ignoring them and letting them die a matter of standard public policy, on the grounds that this would encourage them to compete a little harder for those minimum wage jobs?

Sadly, the reality is there aren't enough minimum wage jobs to go around. A recent Walmart opening had 11,000 applicants for 400 jobs.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/08/17/MNGDPE91AH1.DTL

This is, I'm sure, the sort of environment Brash and his BRT pals would love to see in NZ - the last thing they want is full employment, they'd much rather the taxpayer was forced to spend money on welfare than their companies were forced to pay an extra 50c/hour on wages due to a tight labour market.

This is why you never see them applauding the govt for getting unemployment down to the lowest in the OECD.

Amazingly, they instead complain that welfarism is the bane of NZ at the moment and it's all Labour's fault.

Ah dear, it all gets a bit much at times...

Posted by Anonymous : 9/05/2005 07:15:00 PM