I watched some footage of looting this morning. I have to say that I understand why it happens. It is very hard on the store owners, but the store owners and clerks aren’t there to take money and people NEED supplies. Most of the people I saw in one clip were adults carrying large packages of diapers or food. I have no arguement with those people. Anything they can do to keep their loved ones alive and healthy while waiting for evacuation is okay with me. That flavor of looting will voluntarily cease to exist if emergency teams can provide other sources for essential supplies. Unfortunately in this case some of those people won’t get help for days. If I were in their position, I would loot too. I would also try to provide restitution when survival was no longer at stake. Many of these people will do the same.
I DO have an arguement with the healthy young men who were filmed running off with bags of dry cleaning. I suppose it is possible that they needed the clothes for survival, but I doubt it. Their faces and body language were too gleeful.
Oh, and I’m also mad at the New Orleans mayor who thinks that choppers should have been pulled off of rescue efforts in order to plug the levee and prevent property damage. People first Mr. Mayor.
The levee…
I would tend to agree with the mayor’s choice to focus on the levee…
People trapped on their houses won’t be trapped there much longer if the waters aren’t stopped…
It takes less time to fix the levee and stop the water than to rescue everyone. You buy time by fixing the levee…
It’s about number now. They can not possibly save everyone, so it’ sbuying time to save those they can…
Besides, the coast guard and other agencies still have choppers and countless boats doing search and rescue…
Re: The levee…
I was under the impression that he was mostly bemoaning the flooding of the downtown area where there aren’t many people, but lots of property. I’m no expert, so I probably shouldn’t be shooting my mouth off about issues I don’t fully understand.
Bah…
Comment away.. I was just giving another possible side to why it was done.
Heaven knows I’m no expert either. It is, however, what I would have done were I him…
Please, don’t take my reply as mean-spirited… It wasn’t intended to be. Honest…
Re: The levee…
Yeah, I am inclined to think this, too. I was reading an article in the Wall Street Journal giving examples of people rescued — several of them had to be broken out of their attics. One woman was standing up to her neck in water in her own attic.
The government knows exactly where the break in the levee is, and has a fairly reasonable idea of how to fix it. Finding the people who are about to drown in their own attics is easier done with boats than helicopters, I’d expect. So pulling helicopters from search-and-rescue to fixing the levee could quite possibly be the best way to save the survivors, by keeping their houses from being completely submerged.
Re: Bah…
No worries. You actually presented an angle I hadn’t considered before feeling angry and posting about it.
Re: The levee…
I lived in New Orleans for 2 years (1989-1991).
New Orleans has somemassive water pumping stations (they have to to take care of rain runoff or they’d be flooded every year). If they can get the levee repaired, they might actually make some headway against the flood waters and get things back to a closer semblance of normal in a fairly short period of time.
Re: The levee…
I heard the pumping stations had all been knocked out by lack of electricity. It seems odd because accounts I’ve heard stated that there were backup generators at the pumps.
Yup, they do.
The backup generators ran out of gas less than a day in, I believe.
Re: Yup, they do.
Well, that was some planning there. I guess they don’t expect the pumps to need to run on their own for that long. My company has generators with enough gas to run for almost a week here. They were designed to run for weeks straight though rather than just as a backup power source.
Re: The levee…
I heard the army corp of engineers had planned on taking a barge to the location of the breach and sinking it there to serve as a temporary barrier. I’m not sure if this is better or worse than trying to do it with a helicopter.
Re: Yup, they do.
I understand pumps are fairly energy-intensive items, especially when running continuously (as these obviously are). It’s also possible that they didn’t figure that not only would the backup generators have to run for several continuous days at maximum capacity, but that it would also be impossible to refuel them.
Re: Yup, they do.
I wonder how many watts they use? Some of the generators I’ve seen are of the 80+ Kilowatt variety and sometimes they use them to run electric air compressors for drilling.
It would make sense that they didn’t think they’d need them that long though. It’s still not the best planning I’ve seen.
Re: Yup, they do.
There is going to be a whole lot of “We should have known better” before all is said and done.
There are a great many civil engineers that have known better. Unfortunately, they’re usually up against a cost-benefit analysis that explains the odds, and a policy maker that can afford to gamble with other people’s money, irreplaceables, and lives.
Those civil engineers are WHY everyone else should have known better.
Yeah, but it costs money to do things right – money the taxpayers aren’t willing to pay, and that the city isn’t willing to invest in the ‘just in case’ scenario… so you let a few thousand people die, and THEN say ‘oops’.
Sorta like how they waited till all of the evacuation routes had been shut off (Amtrak, airports, buses) before telling everyone to evacuate – those who didn’t have a car or money for gas.. well, some of those people are trying to kill cops and helicopter crews now for not picking them up first, or picking up other people as well.
Re: Yup, they do.
On the flipside, with a broken levee, all the pumps would have done is bought some time, and not all that much at that. Once they get that repaired then they’ll probably need to fly some fuel in until they can get basic power service back.
I thought they had told everyone to evacuate a day before they made it a Mandatory evacuation. They’ve also just yesterday reiterated the mandatory evacuation of everyone remaining. They’d also setup a number of shelters on the high grounds nearby so that people didn’t need cars, trains, buses, or airplanes to get to them. The Superdome was just one example of one of these evacuation areas.
Water pumps
I have a friend who lives in New Orleans. She left when evacuation was recommended and is currently housed at an aunt’s house in Houston, Texas. Her brother-in-law works for the Sheriff’s dept. New Orleans is like a bowl with a large part of it below sea level. Many of the pumps are currently under water and can’t be used. Secondary flooding has occurred as levees broke after Katrina had gone.
As to looting, how do we know what we would do if we were left to fend for ourselves in an area where you couldn’t get support help and had no way to leave? We haven’t walked in those wet shoes or lived through those conditions. The most we can do is contribute money to the relief effort, pray for those thousands of people who are in such dreadful circumstances and be willing to help in any way that we can.