Disaster

Yet again, I'd be a lot less anxious if I just turned off the television.

Living in Southeast Texas, travelling back and forth on I-10 between Beaumont and Houston, it's kind of hard to avoid the news this week. The outpouring of genuine concern and the widespread offerings of help that I've witnessed in Houston this week have been amazing. Too bad the powers that be (nameless and faceless) seem intent on mucking it up. Too bad that this disaster was foreseeable. Too bad the victims come from a city that is much loved with a population that is largely disenfranchised.

I could go on and on about the hurricane, the flooding, the looting, the television coverage (irate reporters included). I could tell you about the free meals at Ikea on Monday, which seemed unnecessary to relieved New Orleans residents who had evacuated early and thought the worst case was avoided. I could tell you about the upbeat evacuees I talked to at the Astrodome. I could tell you my thoughts on the likelihood that a fair number of the evacuees have mental health, addiction, or other significant personal issues that crisis, well, doesn't bring out the best of. On the bright side, maybe some of those people will receive some medical attention. Pessimist in me adds, in the short term. I could go on, but I won't.

Check out some of the international response .

PART TWO I wrote the following to my brother. I was sharing some things that David and I have been pondering the last few days. David's efforts meanwhile are very focused--he is working night and day to produce an open source solution to communication overlaps among the evacuees and families. He's working with a team to create in essence a clearinghouse of the message boards and listings of "I'm safe" and "Where are you?" websites, big and small. Okay, my most recent thoughts....

The New Orleans stuff is, I hope, educational overall. A total and complete lack of productive leadership at any level seems to me the key problem. I actually
really like the New Orleans mayor, as a speaker, an advocate. Unfortunately, he's not someone who keeps his head down and makes things happen. Ditto for Blanco, the governor of Louisiana. They're good people, but not crisis management sorts. I'm not sure those are even expected responsibilities for the position.

You're supposed to be able to rely on the emergency management directors and teams--city, state, and then--when things require coordination beyond local
capacity--federal. The crazy behavior was anomalous but made for excellent news. It takes a portion of overall population to go nuts to make things look absolutely horrible to the outside (and without food, water, power, news of any kind, or worse, false promises whether solicited or not, and certainly a lack of normalcy I'd go a little nuts too). Majority of people in New Orleans who did not evaucate figured
either the blow would not come (and indeed, they've been hit with strong hurricane before and survived) or they'd just be killed. It's the limbo I think no one
imagined, and the levees breaking was really the problem. See, when the storm blew by, there was widespread relief. Powers that be simply did not foresee a levee breaking after the fact like that. Then with the area inaccessible and emergency teams poorly equipped or coordinated, things fell apart. The search and rescue efforts were great but there were too many people for the crews available. People came in from all over with their airboats and duck-hunting boats to drive the city looking for people. But lots of people were trapped inside and it took a long time
to get into the open. The looters at first were the idiots--tv's, beer, DVD's. Come on. Some broke into pharmacies for the drugs--not hard to imagine who those people were. Almost immediately normal people saw (and local police could not disagree) that help was going to be a while and food/water/medicine/diapers became essential and
immediate commodities (every person for themselves, I heard again and again). People were crazed by a lack of direction and no clear signs of assistance of any
kind. It's dang hot down here recently, and with all that plus water all around people can't have been sleeping much, and certainly never cooled off.

It's not like these people volunteered for this, not military trained or necessarily mentally astute normally. These are just people, mostly poor, lots unhappy about their lot in life anyway, living in rundown houses in a very proud southern city. You've got the normal assortment of mentally ill, homeless, addicted, criminal, macho, old, infirm, and those with just a general lack of common sense.

I don't think most of these people imagined themselves ever leaving New Orleans. They're out now. I have a feeling a lot of people won't return, will be absorbed
into urban poor elsewhere. My hope is that many will receive medical/mental health assistance that otherwise would be unknown or practically/structurally unavailable to them. As I predicted, the Astrodome medical help (there's a major medical complex just up the road and those personnel are putting in very long hours) have noted presence of drug and alcohol withdrawal patients. Someone noticed. Phew.

David pointed out that the response from the federal government strikes him as exactly the sort of thing Bush wants--leave it to local government and community
organizations (some federal officials are pointing responsibility to locals who simply didn't ask for help). Fine and good that locals and community groups
are the ones who actually do the work, but coordination, crisis leadership are essential to utilizing those resources. That isn't federal responsibilitiy, or anyone else's inherently. I would have hoped, though, that someone along the chain would
possess some focused energy, some foresight. I think we're facing a perfect storm of leadership needs and everyone sank. And a massive cost, given the scrimp now (or pay for less important things needlessly)-pay later funding systems we've got in place. Not a Democrat-Republican problem--this is an American institutional problem. It's structural.

Houston actually did a great job for the most part (there have been a few significant kinks). The city faced major flooding 4 years ago with unpredictably intense tropical storm Alison and had to mobilize help back then. They learned something from it and had some plans in place, albeit still not sufficient for disaster of this magnitude, especially for out-of-staters. Anyway, the people remember what that time was like (when you look at houses, the reference point for structural history is always Alison). Help has been widespread and genuine.

Being here/there in the middle of evacuations and 24-hour local news is very interesting. I was over at the Astrodome/Reliant Park when buses and evacuees
were arriving and wandering. The response there has been fantastic, and people are rallying to help. In Beaumont, 90 miles closer to New Orleans, evacuees are
tougher to find. There's a major shelter in town (the local sports complex) and of course lots of small church shelters, plus hotels are booked. But the feel
here is different. I can drive around town and not see Louisiana license plates--definitely not the case in Houston where every other car is from Louisiana. I'm guessing though that if I went to the largely-black neighborhoods here that I might find lots of families being housed with friends and relatives. One Beaumont
station for a while broadcast its sister station's signal from New Orleans, showing slow flyover helicopter views of all the hurricane-hit areas, including Mississippi, one neighborhood after another for viewers to see if their house is standing,
flooded, etc. There are areas in Miss. that are unbelievably devastated, even the newest hurricane and surge-designed construction.

I'm sure more thoughts will come....

Okay, this Economist article on the subject says it better than I.