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Bertram31.com General Bulletin Board
Handwriting on the wall... *LINK* *PIC*
Posted By: Capt Patrick McCrary
Date: Saturday, 3 September 2005, at 1:52 p.m.
I've been virtually glued to the Internet for the past 8 days... Probably suffering from Adult ADDS. Hmmmm?
*WAP* *WAP* - The sound you just heard was a couple of self inflicted slaps to my face. FOCUS UP, Cap!
But, before wrenching myself back into a productive mode & attending to "Shop Production", I have a few comments to make in the wake of Katrina.
First, I know that most of my posts and comments have centered around New Orleans & Louisiana. My apologies to the rest of the Gulf Coast and those who have been just as crushed by Katrina. I and the rest of the nation acutely feel your pain and loss every bit as much as those in Louisiana.
I've viewed and read a vast amount of reporting, from just about every major Internet Resource, from individual bulletin boards to NASA, NOAH, NY Times, NOLA, CNN, and scores of other sources.
I'm sure many, if not most of you have too... I feel over saturated.
But what's bugging me more than anything is the stupid Finger Pointing that started, (as is usually the case), almost immediately after the storm passed.
Most of it has been purely political. Some of it may be pointing squarely at the correct target.
Much of it isn't, and much of it is to shift blame away from the rightful owner...
The bottom line is that EVERYONE involved is at fault, to greater or lessor degrees, from the President to the guy standing on the beach at ground zero 'cause he wants to watch a storm come ashore.
No blame can be assigned to any citizen without the means to get the hell out of the way. Most of them were just born on location, into the system & had no recourse. It's the nature of all societies through the world.
The least degree of blame has to be placed on the National Hurricane Center. Predicting the actual track, intensity, & forecasting pinpoint landfalls of tropical storms is not, and perhaps never will be, an exacting science.
The NHC with the assistance of Space Age Technologies, (Thank You, NASA!), does an admirable job of keeping us all informed about approaching storm systems. Everyone with an Internet hookup can readily access just about every piece of NHC data available.
But it's what is done with that information is where the break down start to occur...
Let's regress to New Orleans historically:
Shortly after being founded in 1718 by Jean Baptiste Le Moyne, New Orleans little more than a marsh on the banks of the Mississippi River. Like a pre-cursor to South Pass Marina & Port Eads. The first levee to completely surround New Orleans was completed in 1727.
Fast-forwarding a couple of centuries to 1969, Hurricane Camille, with winds over of 200 mph, smashed into Mississippi. Until last Monday, Camille was thought to be the worst hurricane to hit the United State. (Article linked below the image.)
A little later the TIMES-PICAYUNE published a special newspaper article entitled: "The Big One", meant to make the reader aware of the impending threat New Orleans had faced for many years prior.
It wasn't so much as a matter of "IF", but a matter of "WHEN". Every resident of Louisiana, (over the age of 12), has been waiting for Katrina to hit...
Well it happened Monday, and was anybody really ready? Hell No! The Picayune's article reads like a script for last week's event.
So where does the blame get laid?
Who's to blame for those that stayed and are now homeless? Who's to blame for not upgrading the levees to Cat5 status? Who's to blame for not starting evacuations sooner? Who's to blame for the failure in communication systems? Who's to blame for the slow response time of the emergency managers? And a few dozen other "Who's to blame for" questions...
I feel that most of the immediate blame is laid at the feet of the State Governor, New Orleans Mayor, and New York City Planners & Emergency Planners. These are the folks that had the responsibility of implementing ALL of the First Response Plans for New Orleans. Obviously they all had prior knowledge to what would happen when "The Big One" came to pass.
Were those plans made and executed? It sure doesn't look like it...
Is the blame to be hung around the Federal Government's neck?
Some of it surely belongs to Congress for not approving funds to the Army Core of Engineers to strengthen and better maintain the levee system. OK, let's spread this around to every Senator who voted "NO" any time the subject came to the floor. What does a Republican Senator from some remote state give a crap about New Orleans?
How about blame for the slow response by the Feds?
Well gee folks, let's look at the battle ground:
80% of the city flooded, no electricity, no phones, & cellular systems heavily damaged & barely working.
FEMA & the Red Cross were already staged & ready to deploy. But how do they get into city? Flooding cut off just about every route into New Orleans.
Now, to the Bush Level:
Once the apparent disaster level was seen, Bush had the ball rolling, but getting the Government into a higher gear is like a semi-truck on a steep up-grade. It just doesn't happen over night...
How long does it take to load cargo aircraft with supplies? How fast can Reserve & National Guard troops be called up & away from their jobs? How fast can heavy convoys drive down the highway from as much as a thousand miles away?
The finger pointing and blame game will continue for probably months, maybe years. The future of New Orleans and it's residents will not fully unfold for years. Katrina has witten a woeful chapter in this country's history. We will continue to feel the effects for a very long time.
Estimates of insurable losses already exceeds $50 billion, count in un-insurable losses & the figure probably exceeds $100 billion.
Loss of life by the end of the month may rival, or even exceed, that of the World Trade Center.
But, as in the wake of New York & the Twin Towers, we WILL heal, but not without life long scars. None of us will be left un-touched in some way.
Well, it turned out to be more than "A Few Comments", but with all that off my chest, I'll now try to pry myself away from the computer and get back to making parts for our favorite boat...
Best regards,
Patrick
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