[extropy-chat] Getting AId to people in need

[Dan Clemmensen]

kevinfreels.com wrote:

>  
> Is it my imagination or is someone bumbling this entire rescue effort 
> in New Orleans? I cannot believe for a second that FEMA just found out 
> this morning that thousands of people were at the convention center 
> and 8 hours later the best they could do was a single Blackhawk 
> helicopter with bottled water. This is 4 days after this event. I am 
> certain there are supplies all around that area just waiting to get to 
> people. Why aren't there C130s flying out of Baton Rouge dropping 
> water and MREs? Where is the command and control center?

Indeed.

   This disaster is very different from the tsunami in the Indian Ocean. 
The Tsunami was an unpredicted event of very low probability in an area 
with a sparse logistical base. Pre-planning for such events must be 
generalized and non-specific.

By contrast, a hurricane-induced break in New Orleans' levees was 
predictable, predicted, and evaluated as the most likely major disaster 
in the US.

Humans need a gallon of drinking water a day, plus some washing water. 
Just how hard is it to commandeer all the water trucks in the towns 
along the Lower Mississippi river, place hen in barges, and send the to 
New Orleans? In my (rich) neighborhood, there are several companies that 
have such trucks. Each truck has a 7000-gallon tank. the trucks are used 
to fill swimming pools. 20 trucks a day will support 140,000 people. A 
single tow-boat per day can trivially handle enough barges to carry the 
food and water for 100,000 people.

What astounded me was the inattention the press gave to the levees. The 
press did their hurricane thing, looking at the "standard" hurricane 
damage in Biloxi and Gulfport,and they thought New Orleans was the same. 
The canal levee was breached on Monday afternoon,and the press ignored 
it until noon on Tuesday. The breach was the most important part of the 
story, and anyone with the sense god gave a grasshopper should have 
known it (with <10 minutes of research) at the time Katrina first turned 
north in the gulf. I sure did. If I knew it, the governor of Louisiana 
should have known it. When the Mayor (correctly and courageously) 
ordered the evacuation and estimated that 100,000 would be left behind, 
the governor should have commandeered the water trucks and ordered them 
filled.  Of course, someone should also have recommended that everyone 
remaining in New Orleans fill their bathtubs with double layered 
30-gallon garbage bags full of water, and everyone should have placed 
all dry food into double garbage bags, but that's too simple. I guess.