Mary Landrieu : 'this is our tsunami.' Is the world doing enough to help then?

[minionofmidas]

The US' disaster plans certainly were as woefully inadequate as Indonesia's and Sri Lanka's.
Btw, the German Red Cross has offered logistical help. No reply yet at the time of printing of my newspaper.

[Platypus]

Lewis, I reckon you need to stop posting for twenty fours hours. Just...calm down a little, k? Have a holiday for a bit.

[minionofmidas]

Sorry, that one about no reply yet is sounding all wrong (and is not even accurate anymore, apparently. They wil be doing stuff.)

[minionofmidas]

Okay, just one little comparison and then I will go have a break. Go to the pool or something...

Obviously, the Tsunami killed way more people. 180K against the ...say... 2 or 3K we should expect here.

Obviously, it affected a much larger area.

Obviously, the warning period was far shorter. Even a tsunami warning system like they're installing now wouldn't have helped all that much in Aceh and the Nicobars, as there simply wasn't enough time to do sh!t. (India and Sril Lanka is a different matter.) While in this case, there were several days of forewarning. There was a chance to evacuate the several million people living in and between the New orleans and Mobile areas. People are recommending the fact that an evacuation was done, and obviously this saved countless lives, and it's a very good thing it was done...although I think more might have been done on this front. After all, if a hurricane hits right on New Orleans, and the NE side of a hurricane's center is hit far worse than the NW side, it doesn't exactly require much forethought to know that Biloxi should be evacuated too.
Of course, many people thought, yeah well, the worst case won't happen. Can't blame em, in a way. After all, if you prepare for the every minute of your life, you won't exactly have a nice and carefree and eventful life.

Still, it's worth pointing out that it's been known for a long while to the experts that New Orleans is sinking, that the country bellow New Orleans is sinking, that the coastal islands are being destroyed, that all this is the fault of medieval flood control concepts (heck, we've had that discussion over here in Germany for ages. It just doesn't make any sense whatsoever to try and prevent flooding everywhere.) I've read warnings that the levees might break and New Orleans be lost, perhaps for ever, before the hurricane (damn, I was actually going to write "tsunami") hit. Yet when it happened, there doesn't seem to have been enough personnel or enough coordination or whatever to stop or prevent the breach while there was time.

One question that keeps getting asked over here whenever people see hurricane-season footage on the news (almost a cliche, really) is why do you guys keep rebuilding in wood? I can wholly understand why houses keep getting rebuilt in light materials in Bangladesh. That way, it's not as big a deal if it's destroyed. It's a poverty-bred, least-effort-strategy reaction. So why is the same thing done in one of the world's richest countries?

One more, and then I'm off, I promise.
The structure of the American power grid is pretty disaster-prone as well. (Localized blackouts are far more common in the US than in Western Europe, even when no disaster has hit.) Which horribly exacerbates (sp?) problems like the one now. Everything in the western world's dependent on electricity. And now drinking water is getting scarce all across southern louisiana, mississippi and alabama.

Yeah, it's horrible and unbelievable.

[MODU]

One question that keeps getting asked over here whenever people see hurricane-season footage on the news (almost a cliche, really) is why do you guys keep rebuilding in wood? I can wholly understand why houses keep getting rebuilt in light materials in Bangladesh. That way, it's not as big a deal if it's destroyed. It's a poverty-bred, least-effort-strategy reaction. So why is the same thing done in one of the world's richest countries?

Wood is cheaper and easier to use than metal and cement.  While some houses are made out of concrete (I had one in Guam that was made out of concrete to defend against the typhoons), it's not common.  They aren't attractive, they take a lot to maintain, and they hard to modify over time (and more expensive).  Wood homes, on the other hand, can be built quickly and easily, easier to maintain, can be updated over time, and by far are more attractive (and cheaper). 

Of course, even concrete and steel gives way under the right conditions, and would not have helped against the flooding in this case.  This is why I don't feel as sorry for those who live in New Orleans that have lost their homes as I did for those in Sumatra.  We know where our flood planes are in the US and which regions are subject to severe weather.  If people wish to live in those areas, they have to accept the fact that they might lose everything.  Even the poor can move out of these regions if they wanted to, so that's not an excuse either.

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The difference is the size of our grid compared to European countries.  Our grid stretches from coast to coast, with most power plants tied in to provide power to all.  We could easily privatize our grid and make it regional, protecting against large failures as well as brownouts (since it's easier to manage local power demands than on a larger scale).  But, at the same time, a lot of the technology involved in our power grid is out of date.  It is time to upgrade the whole system and incorporate more loops to ensure that if a break in one line does not shut down the who Northeast (like last time).  Additionally, we need to have a few more nuke plants online to ensure constant power, even if a plant somewhere in the grid has to go down.  Better to have too much power being produced than not enough.

[John Dibble]

Which is why the Red Cross, Salvation Army, and countless other groups are pouring millions into the poorest areas of the deep south.

Charity is offensive, as well as frequently tainted with religion. 

Wait, charity is offensive, but government handouts to the poor aren't? Seems to me they are entirely the same thing. Oh, and let me remind you - you live off of your parent's charity, so are you going to tell them you are offended next time they give you something?

[MODU]

Which is why the Red Cross, Salvation Army, and countless other groups are pouring millions into the poorest areas of the deep south.

Charity is offensive, as well as frequently tainted with religion. 

Wait, charity is offensive, but government handouts to the poor aren't? Seems to me they are entirely the same thing. Oh, and let me remind you - you live off of your parent's charity, so are you going to tell them you are offended next time they give you something?

He should just give him inherritance to the Red Cross, claim it's not charity but rather an investment, and then he'll be free of his burdens. 

[minionofmidas]

Wood is cheaper and easier to use than metal and cement.  While some houses are made out of concrete (I had one in Guam that was made out of concrete to defend against the typhoons), it's not common.  They aren't attractive, they take a lot to maintain, and they hard to modify over time (and more expensive).  Wood homes, on the other hand, can be built quickly and easily, easier to maintain, can be updated over time, and by far are more attractive (and cheaper). 

More attractive? They don't look attractive to me...anyways, ever heard of stone? Brick?

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Not in New Orleans...but in (a larger percentage of cases) anywhere to the north and east of Lake Pontchartrain, and last year in Florida, and...

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That last bit does indeed seem to be the largest difference.At least that's what I read in the papers just after that Northeastern blackout. Although just maybe (not sure about this) there's still a larger amount of overground electricity lines at least in the area affected now, than we're used to in Europe.
Of course, I used to live in India for half-a-year and small blackouts are daily occurences there. But far fewer things are in fact dependent on electricity, and those tend to own a generator to use during brownouts. About half the internet cafes I attended in Bangalore had one, for example.

[MissCatholic]

Countries that have offered help

Germany
Sweden
Denmark
Great Britain
Australia
Russia
Japan
Australia
New Zealand
France
South Africa
Venezuela
Mexico
Chile

[Middle-aged Europe]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina#International_response

[minionofmidas]

Nothing all that unique about major Western countries needing foreign aid after a natural disaster. Last time I can remember was the earthquake in Kobe in the early nineties, but maybe I'm forgetting something in between.

[Middle-aged Europe]

I don´t know what drugs the guys are taking who are modifying the site to which I posted a url earlier here, but the content gets stranger and stranger there. Now you can find sentences like "Still others recognized the storm as the punishment for the consumption of pastas in the area, for which the Flying spaghetti monster was duely enraged" under "International Response".

An (still) incomplete, but much better and more serious list of international aid efforts can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_response_to_the_2005_Hurricane_Katrina

[Jake]

The response so far is amazing to say the least. Miss Catholic seriously over reacted here.

[??????????]

The response so far is amazing to say the least. Miss Catholic seriously over reacted here.

I can't blame her as I was expecting the same thing. But I must applaud the efforts that are going on now.

[Huckleberry Finn]

Also Fidel Castro has offered to send help. I think US should welcome all aid regardless of where the aid comes. Humanitarian aid shouldn't be linked to politics. US helped Iran after Bam's earthquake in 2003, for exaple.