Alan Sullivan has posted an update on Tropical Storm Gustav, which Sullivan now believes may disintegrate over land, or take a far different course than currently envisioned by the National Hurricane Center. “The possibilities are many,” he writes, “but among the least plausible is a violent landfall at New Orleans.”A violent landfall at or near New Orleans, however, remains the official NHC forecast, so until that changes, I’m going to keep blogging about the possibility. Apropos of which, New Orleans Mayor (and Democratic superdelegate) Ray Nagin was interviewed on CNN this evening in Denver, shortly after Barack Obama’s official nomination. You can view a small portion of the interview on YouTube.Nagin is now headed back to his city to prepare for a possible encounter with Gustav, but he stopped first to chat with Wolf Blitzer & co. about the Big Easy’s preparations and evacuation plans. Among the points he made:
- New Orleans is “ready to evacuate. The big question is, what shape are our levees in?” Nagin said he’s “cautiously optimistic” they can withstand the currently forecasted scenario — that is, a direct hit from a low-end Category 3 hurricane.
- Asked what he would tell New Orleans residents who were watching, Nagin said “make sure you have your evacuation plans in order,” that you’re in contact with your friends & loved ones and coordinate with them, and that you make sure your elderly neighbors have a means of evacuating as well.
- As suggested by the above, the city’s focus is now entirely on evacuation. There will be no “shelters of last resort,” as in 2005. Instead, the city will — if necessary — evacuate those who cannot get themselves out of town, starting 72 hours before any expected landfall.
- Mandatory evacuation will be ordered “if it’s higher than a Category 2″ — by which he presumably means, if the 72-hour forecast calls for a landfalling storm above Cat. 2 — and/or if the storm surge is expected to be “higher than the levees.”
- As you can see in the YouTube clip, he said: “We have an evacuation plan that goes out into the neighborhoods and picks people up. We also have been registering people on our website, and calling into our 3-1-1 number, so we know where you are, and we can go out and get you.” When Anderson Cooper pointed out that only 7,000 people have registered, while as many as 30,000 may need help, Nagin said, “That’s part of the challenge going forward, but even the ones we have not identified, we will still go out into the communities, with the police officers, with their bullhorns, and alert everybody, and try and bring them in.” Asked whether there are buses and drivers to handle the evacuation this time around, Nagin said, “There’s buses. There’s drivers. There’s trains. There’s planes. There’s a whole different strategy for getting people out.”
As someone who has been (and remains) harshly critical of Nagin’s handling of the preparations for Hurricane Katrina three years ago, I’m impressed with his response to the threat of Gustav thus far. He and his administration appear to be much more “on the ball” this time around. Asked what he learned from Katrina, he said, “I’ve learned that it takes some effort to evacuate an entire city,” which suggests an unbelievable degree of criminally negligent stupidity on his part before Katrina — but hey, better late than never!(After the jump, some more gratuitous Nagin-bashing with regard to Katrina, because he made a couple of comments in his CNN interview that I can’t let go without a response.)I must say, it was galling to hear Mayor Nagin state that his biggest mistake in the run-up to Katrina was trusting the federal government to help out. Nagin pointed out that 1.3 million people evacuated New Orleans in 2005, and “only” 50,000 people were left behind; he said his mistake was assuming the government would come help those 50,000 stranded folks in a timely fashion after the storm. It is, of course, true that the feds screwed that up. But what’s galling is, Nagin appears not to recognize his own, even more indefensible screw-up.By failing to order a mandatory evacuation in a timely manner, and by failing to implement precisely the sort of aided-evacuation plans he is now talking about, Nagin played Russian roulette with those 50,000 citizens’ lives. If Katrina hadn’t weakened at the last minute and made a right-hand turn — neither of which were pre-ordained — a much, much higher percentage of those folks would have been killed in the storm. The flood would have been swifter, more severe, and accompanied by far stronger winds and waves. Those rooftops from which tens of thousands of people were rescued would have been fully underwater. Countless Katrina survivors would instead have drowned. As a result, there would have been no opportunity to blame the federal government for their subsequent hardships. They would already have been dead, because Nagin didn’t do his job in implementing the city’s evacuation plans.And make no mistake, there were evacuation plans. They just weren’t implemented, for some utterly mystifying reason. (In one of the more baffling episodes, Nagin admitted he had been reluctant to order a mandatory evacuation because he wasn’t sure if he had the legal authority to do so. Apparently, despite being the mayor of a city that’s below sea level and has always faced the ever-present danger of destruction by flood, and despite all the simulations and studies that had been done, Nagin had never bothered to ask his lawyers to look up this simple question, until the Saturday evening before landfall.) This isn’t something they only figured out after Katrina. It was clear back in 2005 what needed to happen. Nagin and his administration just didn’t do it.The implementation of a full-fledged evacuation plan as Katrina approached was obviously necessary, and this was clear in the moment — not just in hindsight — such that I, for one, was excoriating Nagin at the time on my blog for his failure to do his job. So, while it’s fantastic that he’s learned his lesson, it’s incredibly maddening to see him continuing to play the martyr, blaming the federal government while refusing to acknowledge that he himself put tens of thousands of lives at risk by failing to implement the plans that were contemporaneously, obviously necessary.[/rant]
Hype. Hype. Hype.
I remember Bush telling Nagin to order a mandatory evacuation before Katrina hit. Nagin refused and then did it too late. He left the damn buses there without drivers and let his people survive on their own. The worst was the police who were just as bad as the looters.
Then the police looted the gun owners and stole peoples sole means of defense against the other criminal thugs and looters.
Those gun owners still have not got their guns back from police since the police refused to give receipts when they stole them at gunpoint.
At least this time they have a decent governor.
Katrina was like 9/11 in that it’s breadth and scope were unimagined until after it happened. As a New Orleans native who lost family in Katrina, I’m personally very upset that the focus of dealing with large storms like this is focusing on evacuation because the real lesson of Katrina is that evacuating a city or cities of any appreciable size in a 48-72 hour window is too complex and disruptive an undertaking to be practical. There will always be thousands or tens of thousands left behind. This is a lesson that we appear poised to learn again if not in New Orleans, then in Miami, or Tampa, or Mobile.
If we can build a 2000+ mile fence at the Mexican border capable of keeping illegals out, then we can shore up the 300 miles of levees that can keep category 5 storm surges out of New Orleans. We can reconfigure New Orleans’ pumping system to pump storm water out of the outfall canals into Lake Pontchartrain instead of the old way of pumping storm water into the outfall canals and hoping that it doesn’t take a detour before it gets to the lake. And it’s far easier to get residents from vulnerable low-laying areas to higher ground within and around the city, and to care for them there, than it is to try to move the entire population to Baton Rouge and Jackson.
It is true that Ray Nagin was overwhelmed by Katrina. But it’s also true that we all were overwhelmed, from the Army Corp of Engineers right on up to the President. We are men, and at times nature overwhelms us. Get over it and put your blame finger back where it came from.
yours/
peter.
Katrina was…unimagined until after it happened
This is absolutely, totally, utterly, 100% false.
I don’t even know where to begin in explaining how false it is.
There are just so many examples of reports, studies, models, projections, articles, statements, etc. etc. etc. etc., days and months and years and decades before Katrina, that completely contradict this statement.
Utterly untrue.
P.S. You’re speaking to the blogger who got his “15 minutes of fame” from doing exactly what you claim no one did: “imagining” the devastation Katrina could cause, before it happened.
Of course, really, I didn’t imagine it myself. I merely did my homework, by reading what other people had imagined (or rather, had discovered through research), then repeated it on my blog days before the storm hit, in hopes of convincing people to run the hell away from the clear and present catastrophic danger that was approaching their city. After the fact, because of those “prescient” posts, I ended up all over the media, in a Spike Lee movie, and, indirectly, I landed this Pajamas Media blog gig.
But the point is, you will never be able to convince me that Katrina was “unimagined,” because I know from personal experience that that is completely untrue.
P.P.S. I do agree, as I’ve said countless times, that there was a TON of blame to go around: not just Nagin, but all up and down the chain — local, state, federal. I’m focusing on Nagin here because he’s the guy I’m quoting from, but he is by no means the sole culprit, and I’ve never suggested that.
Also, you do make a fair philosophical point that “we are men, and at times nature overwhelms us.” However, I would counter that we expect great things — especially in times of crisis — from men (and women) in positions of leadership, and when they fail to perform, we are right to criticize them. Indeed, we must do so; otherwise, there will be no incentive for leaders to, well, lead, because there will be no accountability for their failures.
Taking a step back from the philosophical realm, the nuts-and-bolts reality is very simple. Every study, every report, every simulation, every model, EVERYTHING — including the city’s own hurricane plans — said that you needed to order mandatory evacuations 72 hours before the storm, and institute procedures at that time that help people without transportation get out of the city. Nagin waited until 24 hours before the storm, and did not help anyone get out of the city, in clear contravention of the plan. This behavior is completely inexplicable, unacceptable, and indefensible. Add in the additional absurdities, like the drowned buses, the refusal of evacuation aid from Amtrak, his admission that he had lawyers checking on basic fundamental questions of evacuation authority barely a day before the storm, etc. etc. — and then throw in his martyr complex, his insistence upon blaming the feds at every opportunity while refusing to acknowledge his own culpability — and you have a truly infuriating figure. It’s beyond comprehension to me that he was re-elected; at that point, voters are simply declaring that accountability is dead.
As for your argument about building a wall around the entirety of southeastern Louisiana, I’m not sure that’s practical, particularly because I think it would tend to cause massive subsistence, just as what’s happened in New Orleans. Also, the analogy to the Mexican border fence is obviously flawed, since a Great Wall of Louisiana would be a much, much, much more taxing construction project. But regardless, that whole thing is really a separate question, because even if we were to do that, it would take years, so in the mean time, the basic question of how to handle evacuations remains. And while you’re right that evacuation is never going to be a perfect solution, your fatalistic attitude seems odd. The fact that evacuating is hard, doesn’t mean people who royally screw it up, like Nagin in ’05, shouldn’t be excoriated for it. It’s one thing to try your best and run into trouble (I’d put the Rita evacuation in that category). It’s another thing to not even try, to not even follow the plans, to just basically sit on your hands and play roulette with people’s lives. I can’t forget or forgive that. Nagin earned my everlasting ire for his unbelievable abdication of the most basic responsibilities of a “leader.”
>I do agree, as I’ve said countless times, that there was a TON of blame to go around: not just Nagin, but all up and down the chain — local, state, federal.
You’re forgetting part of the chain – the citizens.
I take personal responsibility for the survival of my family.
Unimaginable? I saw an hour long documentary on German television shortly after the Elbe flood of 2002 with maps & other graphics showing what a direct hurricane hit would do to New Orleans (including animation of downtown flooded to sea level). The possibility of the levies (Deiche) breaking was also specifically addressed as well as the possible fate of the small towns out on the delta that are practically 6″ above high tide on a good day.
Comparisons to the great Dutch flood in 1953 (1,800 dead) and the Hamburg flood 1962 flood (which engulfed a 6th of the city and killed over 300 people) when storm surges pushed the tide up and over the levies were made. Then “police senator” Helmut Schmidt’s heroic handling of that emergency started him on the path to the Chancellorship.
If I were mayor of a coastal city, shouldn’t I have been more aware of recent history of similar situated cities?
Brenden Loy is, of course, correct here, and Ray Nagin (also known as “peter jackson” is the imbicile in the room).
New Orleans had an evacuation plan. So, people were able to envision the breadth and scope of what might happen if a hurricane hit the city. In fact, they specifically spent billions of dollars trying to prevent what was envisioned; and had a plan to evacuate the city in any case.
The fact of the matter is that when you elect MORONS, then you get people killed. Ray Nagin shouldn’t be the mayor of his own house, much less a city, but the MORONS of New Orleans re-elected him.
I hope they all drown this time and will not be sending my donation to the Red Cross this time around, since the people there seem to be happy with their incompetent mayor.
Brendon, does the current New Orleans Hurricane plan have a reasonable way for property owners to quickly get back into the city to protect property after a Hurricane? Seems to me that lots of water and crime damage can be prevented if property owners can put tarps on roofs, repair doors and windows, etc. Politically incorrect, but I would guess that renters, not home owners, cause most of the crime.
Of course, we imagined that New Orleans could be completely inundated by a hurricane. The Times Picayune had run a story with graphics showing water to the second floor of buildings in French Quarter. The scenario always was as low as a slow moving Cat 2 or higher coming in at the wrong side for NO. Everytime I had to drive up to over one of the outfall canals, I knew what could happen. Imagining the possibility is the reason 400,000 got out of Dodge when storms threatened.
The new 311 system has been a joke and the blame lies solely with Mayor Nagin and his indifferent personnel selections and policies.
I think Brendan identified the crucial issue here: because it takes so long to evacuate, someone will have to make the that decision long before we will know where landfall will be.
Ivan in 2004 is a good example. We had to evacuate for a storm that came in over Pansacola.
BTW – the Nagin administration’s management of the rebuild has been as useless and fundamentally flawed as anything else he had done since August 2005.
I will offer one partial defense of Nagin: when he had his news conference and did NOT order a mandatory evacuation, he did say (paraphrase) “The City attorneys say I cannot order a mandatory evacuation at this time, but IF I COULD I WOULD.” The message of ‘get out, now’ was crystal clear. (I suspect the administration hesitation to making it mandatory was a concern over liability for various losses if the storm did not come and for inability to provide evacuation for those who were unable to get themselves out. The played, as you say, Russian Roullette and lost.)
Glenmore, that’s not a defense at all. It’s an indictment. As I said, how the hell could he, and his lawyers, still have been unclear on the legality of mandatory evacuation, on the eve of the hurricane?? How the F*** hadn’t they figured that basic legal issue out in advance?? That is criminal incompetence of the highest order.
Nagin has a rare opportunity here, to learn from his mistake and get it right, and maybe come out a champ instead of a chump. The way I see it, he has three choices:
1. Do as he did in Katrina–a really stupid option and I’d be shocked if he did that.
2. Over-react (in fear of under-reacting), still without good judgment but at least not making the same mistake twice–likely, I think.
3. Exercise good judgment, carefully watch the storm track while having everything ready to go/planned out, and when it looks likely enough that the storm is coming his way, push the button and start the pre-plan in motion quickly–I wish and I hope….
P.S. And in the event of real damage, I hope the Governor won’t refuse admission to FEMA and then try to blame Bush.
Let’s hope the city is prepared similar to St. Bernard. I heard their director of emergency preparedness talking this morning.
Essentially, they have a series of objectives triggers that warrant action. If this happens, then that happens. For example, if it is a 2, evacuations outside the levees but not inside. A 3 means evacuations both, and, of course, where that storm cone is makes a difference. The triggers have specific deadlines.
Now, this does not mean that all decision making is taken out of the hands of humans. What if the storm is on the cusp in strength or direction?
This should mean that Nagin has fewer choices to make given the forecast. I can only assume he will err on the side of caustion, if he errs.
As for the governor, I think he has shown if he errs it will be on the side of caution.
The track reminds me now of where Lily came in. It was only a tropical storm but still closed down the city and put four feet of water into some parts of Mandeville and Slidell.
Okay, I did not say the scenario was unimagined, I said the SCOPE and BREADTH of the devastation was unimagined, and it was. Tom Clancy wrote a book about terrorist flying planes into the Capitol, but even his fictionalized account didn’t anticipate the SCOPE and BREADTH of 9/11.
And Brendon, as interesting as your “fifteen minutes” was, you didn’t foresee what actually happened either. All of the scenarios predicting a drowning New Orleans predicted a category 5 storm surge overtopping the Pontchartrain levees, which didn’t happen with Katrina. The vast majority of Katrina’s flooding was entirely man-made, courtesy of the Army Corp of Engineers. Don’t try to defend them, they’ve already accepted responsibility. Paul over at Wizbang has a devastating post in the archives including video showing the breach of the 17th Street Canal pouring water into Lakeview with the canal itself having a water level maybe two feet above the normal high tide mark.
Also, I’m not talking about building a “wall” around south Louisiana. The 300 miles of levees I’m talking about are already there, they just need to be fortified to withstand a category 5 storm surge. The mouths of the outfall canals need to be fortified to keep storm surge out of the canals, and pumping locations added to pump water OUT of the outfall canals instead of just INTO them. Plus, most of the damage of Katrina could have been avoided with a handful of intelligently placed floodgates in the canals, including the Intercostal Canal.
The largest part of the “breadth and scope” I’m talking about wasn’t the thousand people who died, it was the hundreds of thousands who were permanently displaced by the flooding and the damage it caused. School busses or no, even if every citizen had managed to get out of the city and it’s surrounding area, Katrina would have still been Katrina, with many elderly dying in the evacuation and not one dollar less of flood damage.
In short, when it comes to managing hurricanes and their aftermath,
IT’S THE WATER, STUPID.
(And Brendan, please don’t take this as a comment I’m directing at you, your intelligence and conscientiousness are self-evident, it’s just a cultural reference slogan aimed toward raising the consciousness surrounding hurricane preparedness.)
yours/
peter.
And I’m sorry I misspelled your name above.
Peter-
I said the SCOPE and BREADTH of the devastation was unimagined
You’re right — what was “imagined” was WORSE than the scope and breadth of Katrina’s devastation. What was imagined was 100,000 dead. What was imagined was a city underwater for 4-6 months. What was imagined was this:
Admittedly, the specific circumstances leading to Katrina’s devastation were unanticipated, because nobody thought the levees would fail so catastrophically in a weakening storm on the track Katrina took. But the “scope and breadth” certainly were not unanticipated. On the contrary, everyone with a modicum of knowledge about this topic feared, in the hours and days before landfall, a “scope and breadth” EVEN WORSE than what occurred. We thought Katrina would be the Category Five “nightmare” storm. She wasn’t — and yet she still managed to flood the city, albeit with a scope and breadth LESS than what was feared.
The vast majority of Katrina’s flooding was entirely man-made, courtesy of the Army Corp of Engineers. Don’t try to defend them, they’ve already accepted responsibility.
I completely agree with this statement, have acknowledged it countless times, and can’t imagine why you think I would “try to defend” the Army Corps. You seem to completely misunderstand my position on this, and I have no idea where your misperceptions are coming from. I am very much well aware of the fact that, given Katrina’s last-minute weakening and right turn, the devastation should not have have happened, and would not have happened if the Army Corps had done its job. That’s all undeniable. But none of that validates your incorrect statement that the scope of the devastation was “unimagined,” since a FAR WORSE scenario was both imagined and predicted:
To which I added, “Barring a last-minute change of intensity or track, which grows more unlikely with each passing moment, this will be the worst hurricane in American history, in terms of the extent of death and destruction that it will cause. There is no use comparing it to previous hurricanes.”
That memorable NWS advisory relates mostly to wind damage, of course. But a complete and immediate and catastrophic flood of the entire city was also fully anticipated. See, for example, the AP article quoted above, as well as my post on the Friday before landfall:
Tell me how, exactly, that suggests LESS “scope and breadth” than what occurred??
Unimagined? I don’t freakin’ think so. You will NEVER convince on this point, Peter, EVER, because you are just 100% dead wrong.
they just need to be fortified to withstand a category 5 storm surge
Oh, “just” that? Heh.
When Katrina disaster was all about money. The mayor didn’t want to pay for the evacuation. He wanted the state or federal govt to pay for it. He tried to get the governor to declare a disaster, which would trigger state funding, but she said the city had to pay for the evacuation and the state would only declare a disaster, and pay for it, if a disaster happened. The governor then tried to get the federal govt to agree to pay for the evacuation, but they said the same thing. If the mayor ordered an evacuation, and no disaster happened, then the city would be stuck with the evacuation bill. So he didn’t order it.
P.S. to Peter: With regard to your sanguine assertion that the 300 miles of levees “just” need to be fortified so they can withstand 200 mph winds and a 30-foot storm surge… I just want to return for a moment to your earlier if/then statement on this point:
If we can build a 2000+ mile fence at the Mexican border capable of keeping illegals out, then we can shore up the 300 miles of levees that can keep category 5 storm surges out of New Orleans.
I’m going to go out on a limb here, and say that, contrary to what Lou Dobbs might tell us, “keeping illegals out” is a little easier than KEEPING THE OCEAN OUT when it’s surging in a Category 5 storm.
Furthermore, while the border fence will be deemed a success if it keeps 90% of the illegals out, your Great Wall of Louisiana would be an abject failure if it lets even 1% of the water in, because this would undermine the whole system and lead to further breaches. Furthermore, while the border fence can be shored up here and there if it has problems, the Great Wall of Louisiana will be tested only very rarely, and it must always pass every test, every single time.
Bottom line, what you’re suggesting is unbelievably difficult, maybe even impossible. It’s staggering that you don’t recognize that, and seem to think it would be easy, like it can just be done with a wave of the hand. “Oh, let’s just wall off 300 miles of ocean against the most intense storms imaginable. Piece of cake!”
Maybe we should do it — or maybe we should “write off” some areas and do a less extreme version of it — or maybe we should just build a smallish, impenetrable fortress in the heart of the city, and evacuate everyone there when necessary — but whatever we’re going to do, we need to be realistic about the difficulties and costs involved, and you aren’t doing that.
P.S. We should probably rate it up to 225 mph winds and a 40-foot storm surge, huh. Maybe even 50. Wouldn’t want to go to the trouble of building the Wall That Cannot Be Breached, and then have it breached by the record-breaking 201-mph, 31-foot surge Super-Camille/Katrina.
I completely agree with this statement, have acknowledged it countless times, and can’t imagine why you think I would “try to defend” the Army Corps.
Sorry for not being clear, but this was aimed more at your commenters than you. The fact that the Army Corp took responsibility for the flooding is a fact that wasn’t widely reported outside of Louisiana and every time I mention it on threads like these I get called a lot of names by a lot of people who haven’t heard about it. And many who have heard about it mistakenly think that they accepted responsibility as some kind of act of noblesse oblige, as opposed to admitting massive faulty engineering, which, to their credit, they admitted.
The Ponchartrain and river levees performed just fine during Katrina, unlike Betsy and Audry before her. The pumping system already in place is awesome, capable of removing several inches of storm water per hour. Many don’t realize that many of the pumps that keep the Netherlands dry were actually built in New Orleans. Most of Mid City that was flooded would have remained dry during Katrina if more of the pumps had been kept online. It’s not about one magic solution to keep the city dry, it’s about augmenting the multi-level defenses against water incursion, systems that already exist and have existed for decades—and that already work most of the time.
You’re right — what was “imagined” was WORSE than the scope and breadth of Katrina’s devastation.
Abstract conjecture is scary for sure, but it’s just not very helpful in anticipating and avoiding real world failures and the outcomes that result. Little things, such as the implications of dead police radios, or big things, such as the actual results of the failure of the insurance system, or what the hell you do with hundreds of thousands of people who’s homes and livelihoods, indeed everything except their very lives, are destroyed in one fell swoop.
yours/
peter.
PS: Regarding my comparison of a border fence with the levee system around New Orleans, I disagree with your take on their comparative advantages and weaknesses. In a storm surge, water rises, and then shortly thereafter falls again. Its behavior is undirected by anything other than the laws of physics, and thus it is predictable. These surges will be relatively few and far between, once a generation maybe, for a duration of a few hours, tops. That’s all the levees have to do, keep out a large force of water from these occasional storms for a few hours. And again, they don’t have to do this for 24 hours a day, they merely need to be ready to do it 24 hours a day; there’s a big difference. And furthermore, they don’t have to keep out 100% of the water, they simply need to keep out the margin of water beyond what the pumping system can remove, in an amount sufficient to flood the city.
A border fence on the other hand would have to resist attempted breaches every minute of every day somewhere along its 2000 mile length, indeed, some ten thousand times a day. And these breaches will all be from thinking, reacting human beings with their own goals, rather than an inanimate substance like water. Beings with ladders, or shovels, or bribe money…or plane tickets to Canada.
There may be no such thing as a hurricane proof city, but then again there is no such thing as an earthquake proof city either, nor even an earthquake-proof building in Los Angeles. But yet we still build and live and work in buildings there. Why? Because by building structures to a higher earthquake spec, the risk of them not surviving is brought within an acceptable limit. Likewise, by bringing the levee and canal systems in New Orleans up to category 5 resistance levels, we would protect New Orleans from all but 500 year storms. Such a project certainly wouldn’t be cheap, but I’m willing to bet it would be a lot cheaper AND effective than paying to rebuild the city every 20 or so years.