President Appealed for Mandatory Evacuation Before Katrina Struck

That would be pro-active.Where were the police? Were they knocking on doors to get the peop;e out?Who was looking for the disabled people? That should have been done locally.

 

POB

They would have been unable to mobilize the peorsonell to knock on 100,000+ doors and still get to safety ...

I would reckon, that some of the folks stranded (probably including the local government did not really believe the order.

We always had people that would remain on the island saying, "It won't be that bad".

 

They kinda sounded like this:

"That sun is shining too bright for this to be happening," said Joyce Tillis, manager of the Holiday Inn Select at the airport in the suburbs as she called the more than 140 guests to tell them the hotel was under a mandatory evacuation. "It's too nice a day."

Some folks do not reckognize the power of God's earth until it is too late.

 

carpro,

I'm sorry but I'm not sure what the point of your post is. That the President had no authority to make such a suggestion or to ask why state/local authorities didn't heed the suggestion sooner.

 

Carpro

I got (get) it ...

 

I'm not sure either? I don't hear people criticizing the president for people not evacuating everyone before the storm. People are criticizing the LA state and local government for not doing that. The president and FEMA are being criticized for the slow response of aid. Which, frankly, IMO, is neither here nor there because all the government branches involved are responsible for this chaotic mess.

If the NOLA humane society could make sure that thousands of pets and animals were moved to safer areas and out of the state; then the local, state, and federal government could have been more equipped to make sure aid was immediately sent to those stranded.

 

El Guero,

Please share with the class. I wasn't being argumentative, I just didn't get it.

 

According to carpro's article, yes.

If you're really poor and don't have a car, as many city folk do not (I didn't even learn to drive until I was thirty), how do you get out of town? If you have no money or credit cards, where do you go if you do get on a bus heading out?

 

Thanks, carpro, and I absolutely agree! But I will say, and I don't mean to derail the thread, that one thing that nags at me is that someone, somewhere was terribly delinquent, at the Army Corps of Engineers or whoever made the decision, in building levees to deal with a Level III hurricane. I certainly don't believe it was President Bush's fault, as the decision probably preceded him. Do I think someone should be punished? No, as I suspect the decision was made with some care, but it seems terribly shortsighted to have planned for a Level III when there is a history of Level V's in the Gulf and when the consquences have turned out to be so disastrous.

 

I have been through a real hurricane. Beulah (Cat 4)

Boots cost money, and levees cost a lot of boots ... The only way to protect against a Cat 5 is to fill in most of New Orleans that is below sea level. Guess what? We can now.

Shortsighted? The difference between a 3 and a 4 is BIG. A five? EVACUATE ... in English - GET OUT. It is like the difference between a 7 and a 9.5 on the Richter scale for Earthquakes. 7 is bad. 9.5 just keep running until you cannot. The same is true for a Cat 5 hurricane. Just look at what happened where the full force hit in Mississippi. Concrete bunkers above ground (or get out).

Had that hit New Orleans ... Had Allison hit N.O. Had Beulah hit N.O.

Everyone that has lived on the Gulf knows that N.O. is long over due for that direct hit. I hate to say it, but this WAS NOT A DIRECT HIT.

Ironically, the same forces that protect the keys also seem to protect the New Orleans area... But, every now and then ... a real one gets through.

We need to force Government to elevate the city.

 

And that inability to protect against a Cat 5 is why the President asked that the city be evacuated.

 

El Guero,

You may be right, and I certainly don't have any expertise or experience on this subject, but it seems to me that the present problem, and the reason for the disastrous proportion we have, is that the levees failed. It just seems to me that there is engineering available that would have prevented that failure. I agree with you that the city should have been evacuated but that would not have prevented the disaster, it just would have reduced the human scale we see but not the destruction.

 

FTR

The expense was prohibative. Now that the houses are gone, the government needs to mandate a minimum altitude standard.

 

EG,

Maybe I'm wrong but it seems to me it would be less expensive and much easier to do to appropriately fortify the levees than raising the altitude of an entire city. You're certainly right that it would reduce the destruction (and loss of life for those unable or unwilling to evacuate), but building up the levees just seems more practical.

 

FTR

The "SMALLER" huricane I went through cut through padre island in 25 places if I remember right. Two mile+ island with an average altitude of 2.5 to 10 feet. Just cut right through ... when a hurricane moves water, the water is like one BIG GORILLA. That hurricane spawned over 150 tornadoes ... I forget how many hiroshima sized bombs to make the equivelant comparison. But a hurricane is like 1,000 nuclear bombs.

To take the levees from a Cat 3 (actually a small hurricane) to a cat 5, this engineering would require a major overhaul of the layout of the entire city. The best method would be to raise at LEAST half of the city to above sea level. Then people would have safer places to move to.

 

Thanks, EG. I hope you made it through Beulah okay.

 

Lots of people did, and a lot of snow birds did not. They tho't the storm was over.