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Anyone notice how much we've learned from Katrina?

X Factor said:
I'm sure we all have our opinions on Katrina and the aftermath and who was to blame for what, but how about we try to leave the partisanship out of this ONE thread?
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Why not try this?

Remove the blame factor.

As a reporter I have covered more disasters than I would have like, more fires than I should have. And as we see in post #12, you can lay the best of plans and still have things go terribly wrong.

I covered the post mortum on a float plane crash that killed five. There was no "fault", the pilot and his second did everything in the book, but Nature had other ideas and created a severe wind sheer amid heavy rains and poor visibility as the pilot was trying to land on a rough sea.

That plane came apart like a match box....in the end, it was found that there simply had been no alternative and the cross wind sheer could not have been foreseen.

When I hear complaints about first responders I cringe. Many times those firemen or police are laying their life on the line because of their stupidity. I seen too many take risks for the sake of others to tolerate bitching

I'm with the OP on this, this is a time for America to stand proud...

Give yourselves a pat on the back. It could have been much, much worse
 
MaggieD said:
Nonsense.
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Sense...however you are right about the storm response has been better, however New Orleans and LA have long been so dysfunctional that that is not hard to manage.
 
Ikari said:
In the immortal words of Bender Bending Rodriguez,

Tear it down and try again. But this time don't embarrass yourselves.
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Cities tend to die after repeated floodings, New Orleans is down almost 20% in population from Katrina....next time will be worse.

Houston and TX have a big problem on their hands, and they cant count on the kids and grandkids credit card to bail them out.
 
Federal response certainly learned from Katrina, that was a big deal at the time and it had a big ripple effect.
Houston I think is a fairly prosperous city, I'm assuming that helped too.

I'm glad to see it's not *too* politicized.

I remember during Katrina, everything went to hell and one the news from day one you saw coast guard choppers resucing people..no fanfair, no blame game, coast guard just out there hustling.
Now it seems, we have all sorts of people hustling even from day one, including regular people who just volunteer. Big difference I think too.

These massive floods I don't see how the size of the U.S. you can plan for a 500 year flood. Same with Louisiana last year with flooding, you can go a lifetime and never see it.
But people think we should spend billions to essentially over-engineer every city? I don't think that's the best approach.

Although infrastructure spending is good, I can't imagine spending that much on 500 year flodo prevention, when it could instead be spent on say, building roads, bridges, hospitals, etc.
 
Ikari said:
Maybe, so long as all their guns and ammo aren't underwater. Though an abandoned store is an abandoned store, regardless of number of guns.

Still it's good to see that it doesn't seem to be as bad as during Katrina.
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Just a pun, Ikari. But yes, I'm sure those the most impacted are truly grateful. And that applies to both those whose homes were significantly damaged - along with businesses.

Organized responders and those from the worst hit areas have done an incredible job of keeping looting at a minimum.
 
Ikari said:
You'd think we'd learn how to engineer our cities better to help lower the risks of extreme flooding.

There does seem to be some bettthresponse in Texas, perhaps less looting (or less looting reported). I hope we can learn a lesson from THIS storm too.
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I'm from Houston and know it intimately, especially the north side, and downtown and neartown.
First, we did figure out how to design a city better. It's called The Woodlands. Look it up on YouTube. It's rated as the sixth best master planned community in America. But, just like other cities, it's not master planned.
Second, the reason we responded so well to this disaster is because we had a hurricane two weeks after Katrina called Rita. Rita was a cat 5 while in the gulf and was aiming right for us. It did weaken immediately before it made landfal

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Ikari said:
Amsterdam is an old ass city that sits like 7 feet below sea level. They seemed to figure it out.

I mean, a good hunk of change to engineer a solution, or a bigger hunk of change when the inevitable hits. Don't know which is the better path....
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Amsterdam doesn't get hit by 13' storm surges and 50 inches of rain either.
 
RetiredUSN said:
Amsterdam doesn't get hit by 13' storm surges and 50 inches of rain either.
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Certainly not, but if it does it also certainly will not see the same level of devastation.
 
Great thread and great posts. This is the DP I remember from when I joined and really miss.
 
MaggieD said:
I am so impressed with our country's response to Harvey. Federal resources were pre-staged... the convention centers' photos appear to show immense organization... they're now using drones to find people in need of rescue. Recruiting volunteers to fly their own and provided an app to coordinate efforts. They already have over a million meals available... our country should be very proud.

Your thoughts?
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I think they did as much as they could at that point in time. Of course, they didn't HAVE drones back in 2005, and the head fo Fema now at least has some disaster relief experience..
 
Ikari said:
You'd think we'd learn how to engineer our cities better to help lower the risks of extreme flooding.

There does seem to be some better response in Texas, perhaps less looting (or less looting reported). I hope we can learn a lesson from THIS storm too.
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There is plenty of looting going on, but far from hurricance katrina levels. For one houston has a curfiew now that is enforced to keep looters from using night as a cover, and there is strong presence of police national guard etc.

Also keep in mind new orleans had one of the highest crime rates in the country,it follows that crime would not stop but rather intensify in the chaos. Houston is one of the highest crime cities in texas, even though it was lower than new orleans, I would imagine it would crime and looting would have skyrocketed had it not been for a swift govt response.
 
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