Wednesday, September 07, 2005
Cold Hearted
It's been a week since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. My reaction hasn't really changed much. I still blame the victims. Now before you go accusing me of being insensitive and judgmental, allow me the following disclaimer: I do not think I am better than anyone that suffered in the tragedy. I do not know if I would have made different decisions than many of those affected. And I do feel the inexplicable shock of losing a life's work overnight. But in trying to understand what went wrong in this natural disaster, there is just too much working against those who lived in the area to place the blame elsewhere. When all the questions are asked about how could this have been avoided, all the answers come back to them.
1) Your city is built below sea-level. Natural disasters can happen anywhere, with little warning. But when you invest in building a city surrounded by water, don't come crying when you have to abandon it. If a tornado hits Chicago, or a massive fire hits Boston, nobody can expect it. But if you build your city 6 feet below the adjacent lake (or if you're in California, but that's a different story) don't ask the rest of the country to absorb all of the losses for you, and pay for you to rebuild...on the same cursed spot!
2) You had ample warning to leave. All you people stranded in the city knew that a hurricane was arriving at least two days in advance. A mandatory evacuation was made 24 hours before any damage came. And yet, even today, thousands of you remain in a "city" unsafe for any habitation. I'll admit that I don't know what means of evacuation was provided to the elderly and the poor, but for those of you with a fierce determination to stay in the place you call home, don't come begging for water and food. Or some rescue team to come bail you out. Or the fire department to put out the fire you started because you don't have electricity. You're forcing a lot of people to wear themselves out because you made a poor decision.
3) Your own civil disorder prevented immediate aid from arriving. Nobody told you to hop over to your local electronics store and take whatever you saw. Within 24 hours of the storm overwhelming all basic services, locals had started looting anything they could get their hands on. Let's put aside all of the looted electronics (not like you can even turn them on). How about beer? That sounds like a basic. Or shooting at police? With all due respect to those jumping to blame the government for its inadequate response, how about looking inwards at your own shameful behavior that caused the authorities to waste significant time and resources merely securing the city against its own citizens. It was a national embarrassment when starving people in Thailand can wait in line at distribution centers after a Tsunami, while those in our own relatively wealthy society regress into animals after less than 24 hours. My house has lost power in numerous storms. Sometimes for a few days. Never did I go rob the local Walmart to pick up a new wardrobe.
Sure, I'll be accused of many things for my comments. It's not that I specifically lack compassion. But in the aftermath of any tragedy, accusations inevitably start to fly. I think it's important that emotion not blind reason. Otherwise, we may feel like we are protecting the victims, but ultimately we are only enabling them to suffer again if we aren't honest with what needs to be corrected. Oh, and to prove that I'm not out to overlook the needs of the suffering, I will donate two dollars for every Comment(*) left on this post to Chabad's Hurricane Relief Fund. And of course, all my contributions will be matched dollar for dollar by my corporate sugar daddy, Big Tobacco.
(*)$200 maximum, before Corporate Matching program. Offer excludes my own comments. Maximum three comments per Blogger ID, and excludes all Anonymous comments, non-Blogger ID comments, and comments left by anyone other than the Blogger ID account holder. Only includes comments left by midnight, September 17th, 2005. A Comment must consist of at least one noun and one verb to qualify. Chabad's Hurricane Relief Fund has not been approved for Corporate Matching as of the date of this post. Another approved organization may be substituted at any time without prior announcement at my sole discretion. The entire terms of this offer shall be considered "Bli Neder," not bound by any obligation and may be cancelled or altered, in whole or part, at any time.
1) Your city is built below sea-level. Natural disasters can happen anywhere, with little warning. But when you invest in building a city surrounded by water, don't come crying when you have to abandon it. If a tornado hits Chicago, or a massive fire hits Boston, nobody can expect it. But if you build your city 6 feet below the adjacent lake (or if you're in California, but that's a different story) don't ask the rest of the country to absorb all of the losses for you, and pay for you to rebuild...on the same cursed spot!
2) You had ample warning to leave. All you people stranded in the city knew that a hurricane was arriving at least two days in advance. A mandatory evacuation was made 24 hours before any damage came. And yet, even today, thousands of you remain in a "city" unsafe for any habitation. I'll admit that I don't know what means of evacuation was provided to the elderly and the poor, but for those of you with a fierce determination to stay in the place you call home, don't come begging for water and food. Or some rescue team to come bail you out. Or the fire department to put out the fire you started because you don't have electricity. You're forcing a lot of people to wear themselves out because you made a poor decision.
3) Your own civil disorder prevented immediate aid from arriving. Nobody told you to hop over to your local electronics store and take whatever you saw. Within 24 hours of the storm overwhelming all basic services, locals had started looting anything they could get their hands on. Let's put aside all of the looted electronics (not like you can even turn them on). How about beer? That sounds like a basic. Or shooting at police? With all due respect to those jumping to blame the government for its inadequate response, how about looking inwards at your own shameful behavior that caused the authorities to waste significant time and resources merely securing the city against its own citizens. It was a national embarrassment when starving people in Thailand can wait in line at distribution centers after a Tsunami, while those in our own relatively wealthy society regress into animals after less than 24 hours. My house has lost power in numerous storms. Sometimes for a few days. Never did I go rob the local Walmart to pick up a new wardrobe.
Sure, I'll be accused of many things for my comments. It's not that I specifically lack compassion. But in the aftermath of any tragedy, accusations inevitably start to fly. I think it's important that emotion not blind reason. Otherwise, we may feel like we are protecting the victims, but ultimately we are only enabling them to suffer again if we aren't honest with what needs to be corrected. Oh, and to prove that I'm not out to overlook the needs of the suffering, I will donate two dollars for every Comment(*) left on this post to Chabad's Hurricane Relief Fund. And of course, all my contributions will be matched dollar for dollar by my corporate sugar daddy, Big Tobacco.
(*)$200 maximum, before Corporate Matching program. Offer excludes my own comments. Maximum three comments per Blogger ID, and excludes all Anonymous comments, non-Blogger ID comments, and comments left by anyone other than the Blogger ID account holder. Only includes comments left by midnight, September 17th, 2005. A Comment must consist of at least one noun and one verb to qualify. Chabad's Hurricane Relief Fund has not been approved for Corporate Matching as of the date of this post. Another approved organization may be substituted at any time without prior announcement at my sole discretion. The entire terms of this offer shall be considered "Bli Neder," not bound by any obligation and may be cancelled or altered, in whole or part, at any time.
# posted by Josh : Wednesday, September 07, 2005
Comments:
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I'll make this a serious one.
I'm not sure I disagree with your first point, although I don't think this is a debate we need to be having now, while hundreds of thousands of people are living in an old baseball stadium.
I strongly disagree with your second criticism. From the information I've seen the evacuation was carried out extremely poorly. A report issued by the city of New Orleans concluded that evacuation time for a category 3 storm would be 72 hours. They didn't start evacuating until 48 hours before for a category 5.
Moreover, the poor and elderly were not given sufficient means to escape the oncoming storm. How exactly are people without a car or money supposed to get out of a city? Where are they supposed to go? And how can you blame those stuck in the Superdome and Convention Center? Who puts all those people into huge structures without adequate food, drink or electricity?
Lastly, how many people really believed the levees would fail? People often just don't get up and leave everything behind because of a warning. I'd say their bad decision is perfectly natural. The disaster was much worse than anyone seriously imagined.
(Note: I've made an effort not to blame anyone for this travesty until all the information comes out and my opinion can be based on more than media speculation.)
I have to agree with your third point. Shooting at cops is not the best way to go. Looting creates disorder, and disorder breeds violence. The cops can't be everywhere at once to stop it and that slows down the rescue efforts.
I'm not sure I disagree with your first point, although I don't think this is a debate we need to be having now, while hundreds of thousands of people are living in an old baseball stadium.
I strongly disagree with your second criticism. From the information I've seen the evacuation was carried out extremely poorly. A report issued by the city of New Orleans concluded that evacuation time for a category 3 storm would be 72 hours. They didn't start evacuating until 48 hours before for a category 5.
Moreover, the poor and elderly were not given sufficient means to escape the oncoming storm. How exactly are people without a car or money supposed to get out of a city? Where are they supposed to go? And how can you blame those stuck in the Superdome and Convention Center? Who puts all those people into huge structures without adequate food, drink or electricity?
Lastly, how many people really believed the levees would fail? People often just don't get up and leave everything behind because of a warning. I'd say their bad decision is perfectly natural. The disaster was much worse than anyone seriously imagined.
(Note: I've made an effort not to blame anyone for this travesty until all the information comes out and my opinion can be based on more than media speculation.)
I have to agree with your third point. Shooting at cops is not the best way to go. Looting creates disorder, and disorder breeds violence. The cops can't be everywhere at once to stop it and that slows down the rescue efforts.
With regards to the city being below sea level see http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001051313. It seems from this article that the people can't be blamed, a project was underway and was halted for reasons beyond their influence. In addition, being Jews who have lived throug the tiltul of galus and the constant relocation, identification with a specific location, barring Eretz Yisraeil, is almost impossible. Moreover, it seems that when we do make some connection to any other country it is davka at that point that HaSheim punishes us and moves us somewhere else, with many dying in the process. However, one must realize that for non-Jews, if one's grandparents lived in one place and then one's parents lived there, there is an attachment to the location; sentimental value is created. Therefore, I do not think it so easy to blame people for not having moved out beforehand. In addition, as can be seen from the multitude of photos from New Orleans that we are seeing in the aftermath, most of the refugees seem like they come from low-income households; therefore, suffice it to say that maybe not everyone had a car. And I don't know if you were following the news right before the hurricane, and if you weren't, go back and look at the highways, where teh avg. speed out was between 1-5 mph. I think many people made an important effort.
Additionally, one doesn''t want to have to make the call to evacuate a city until one is very certain that the disaster WILL strike the city directly. Hurricane's are a bit unpredictable and I believe it was only until the time that they announced the evacuation or the need to evacuate that they were really sure. It is not like we were hearing a week before that the hurricane was going to directly hit New Orleans and drown it, at least not if my memory serves me correctly, which may or may not be the case. Lastly, people tend to be optimistic when it comes to everything they have and want to live for possibly being destroyed, the idea of "riding out the storm" sounds better than "abandon everything and start over even though I'm 65". The elderly and sick could not be evacuated properly; if you were the mayor, Josh, how do you organize such an effort to provide adequate transportation for people hooked up to machines, people unable to walk, etc. etc.? ONe ambulance can't carry more than 2 stretchers to the best of my knowledge, so how do you do that? How many helicopters were available? How do you organize something like that in such a short period of time? How do you allocate manpower and vehicles; are you going to send people back even as the storm approaches so that the can get more people out? Is that ethical and/or moral (there IS a difference)? I am not saying this plan should not have been drawn out and thought through by the local government beforehand, but the bottom line is that it is extremely hard to fault the people who stayed. In addition, you are making judgments that are impossible to make seeing as, b'ezras HaSheim, none of us will ever have to face the mental anguish, physical strain, and emotional duress that these people underwent. We should be saying Tehillim for those sick and still dying, not damning them to starvation, dehydration, and possibly death for their choice. While I understood that you said sincerely (I hope) that you do not know what choices you would have made, I still don't believe that invests you with the right to criticize. Would you say it to the face of a family that lost loved ones that it was their fault? I think it might be a little difficult.
Additionally, one doesn''t want to have to make the call to evacuate a city until one is very certain that the disaster WILL strike the city directly. Hurricane's are a bit unpredictable and I believe it was only until the time that they announced the evacuation or the need to evacuate that they were really sure. It is not like we were hearing a week before that the hurricane was going to directly hit New Orleans and drown it, at least not if my memory serves me correctly, which may or may not be the case. Lastly, people tend to be optimistic when it comes to everything they have and want to live for possibly being destroyed, the idea of "riding out the storm" sounds better than "abandon everything and start over even though I'm 65". The elderly and sick could not be evacuated properly; if you were the mayor, Josh, how do you organize such an effort to provide adequate transportation for people hooked up to machines, people unable to walk, etc. etc.? ONe ambulance can't carry more than 2 stretchers to the best of my knowledge, so how do you do that? How many helicopters were available? How do you organize something like that in such a short period of time? How do you allocate manpower and vehicles; are you going to send people back even as the storm approaches so that the can get more people out? Is that ethical and/or moral (there IS a difference)? I am not saying this plan should not have been drawn out and thought through by the local government beforehand, but the bottom line is that it is extremely hard to fault the people who stayed. In addition, you are making judgments that are impossible to make seeing as, b'ezras HaSheim, none of us will ever have to face the mental anguish, physical strain, and emotional duress that these people underwent. We should be saying Tehillim for those sick and still dying, not damning them to starvation, dehydration, and possibly death for their choice. While I understood that you said sincerely (I hope) that you do not know what choices you would have made, I still don't believe that invests you with the right to criticize. Would you say it to the face of a family that lost loved ones that it was their fault? I think it might be a little difficult.
# posted by 
: September 08, 2005 5:14 PM
: September 08, 2005 5:14 PM
I agree with point 3, i think it ridiculous that they thought it was a legitimate response in any way. Forget even the shooting at police, which is something VERY hard to forget, but why would you shoot at workers trying to evacuate and give aid to others? It is a known tendency to vent hatred at officials that represent the government, and police officers are walking bullseyes for such people. But normally you at least identify with the guy that is holding the gun next to you who also hates the government for what you both believe to be an inadequate response, but does that give you the right to stop him from being evacuated? I hear echoes of Sodom and Gomorrah.
# posted by : September 08, 2005 5:20 PM
: September 08, 2005 5:20 PM
Neph 1 - I'll investigate your sentence to see if it qualifies.
Neph 2 - I fully agree with your first point. I was absolutely wrong in posting this at this time. I was reading an article that quoted the Talmud as basically saying the same point. While my words may be insensitive, I hope you will realize that they weren't meant to throw blame at people and point fingers in this tragedy, but rather to help us look forward and realize what really can be done to prevent repeats of this tragedy.
Furthermore, I did miss a few points along the lines of your next criticism. It does seem that the government didn't really put much effort into getting people out of New Orleans until after the hurricane had already left it in ruins. Buses should have been commandeered before the storm to shuttle all citizens out. Also, there was poor communication between different agencies, with nobody taking charge of the overall response. Furthermore, the Mayor of New Orleans wasn't exactly a Guliani. Swearing on TV that no help is coming doesn't exactly calm the populace.
Anonymous - You provide a good explanation as to why people have a connection to their city. I don't deny that, but I think the trick is getting them to move beyond that to realize that their life is in danger.
How do you organize such a massive effort to minimize casualties? It's not hard. In two days after the hurricane, look at the tens of thousands of troops and volunteers that were mobilized. Too bad they didn't use the 48 hours beforehand with such calculation. I would have preferred to use helicopters to transfer patients to safer hospitals than to search for floating bodies.
The bottom line is you have to understand human nature so you can overcome it. Knowing how optimistic people are that tragedy will pass them by and how attached they are to their homes is the first step in knowing how to respond to the next storm. But you don't help anyone by passing the blame elsewhere.
Erica - You did your part!
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Neph 2 - I fully agree with your first point. I was absolutely wrong in posting this at this time. I was reading an article that quoted the Talmud as basically saying the same point. While my words may be insensitive, I hope you will realize that they weren't meant to throw blame at people and point fingers in this tragedy, but rather to help us look forward and realize what really can be done to prevent repeats of this tragedy.
Furthermore, I did miss a few points along the lines of your next criticism. It does seem that the government didn't really put much effort into getting people out of New Orleans until after the hurricane had already left it in ruins. Buses should have been commandeered before the storm to shuttle all citizens out. Also, there was poor communication between different agencies, with nobody taking charge of the overall response. Furthermore, the Mayor of New Orleans wasn't exactly a Guliani. Swearing on TV that no help is coming doesn't exactly calm the populace.
Anonymous - You provide a good explanation as to why people have a connection to their city. I don't deny that, but I think the trick is getting them to move beyond that to realize that their life is in danger.
How do you organize such a massive effort to minimize casualties? It's not hard. In two days after the hurricane, look at the tens of thousands of troops and volunteers that were mobilized. Too bad they didn't use the 48 hours beforehand with such calculation. I would have preferred to use helicopters to transfer patients to safer hospitals than to search for floating bodies.
The bottom line is you have to understand human nature so you can overcome it. Knowing how optimistic people are that tragedy will pass them by and how attached they are to their homes is the first step in knowing how to respond to the next storm. But you don't help anyone by passing the blame elsewhere.
Erica - You did your part!
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