I would really like to think that the BBC

[mandragora]

is exaggerating how horrific conditions are in New Orleans right now to make a better news story.

Seeing person after person on the Ten O'Clock News begging and pleading for help, crying that there's no food and no water and that women and children are being raped following the breakdown of law and order, is one of the worst things I've seen. Not because - sadly - I haven't seen similar incidents on TV before. I have. And all too many of them. But these were in poor countries, often following civil war and the breakdown of the infrastructure, and where there just aren't the resources to help.

Not in the world's richest country. Not in the country that has more resources than anyone else.

Why was it too little, too late? And who made the decision to leave the poorest residents of New Orleans - perhaps as many as 100,000 people - behind to die. Why the fuck wasn't there at least some sort of effort to get those people out?

Yes, I appreciate the problems in the logistics of moving over a million people. But why wasn't there at least some effort made to evacuate at least some of the people without their own transport, who were effectively trapped there?

Why?

Comments

[raincitygirl.livejournal.com]

From what I'm hearing from people actually nearby, or with relatives nearby, the BBC is most defniitely not exaggerating.

[mandragora1.livejournal.com]

No, I never actually thought that they were. I just wish that they had been, you know.

It's rare that I'm in tears when I watch the news but I was tonight. I think it's because it should never have come to this and it could have been prevented. That makes it that much worse, somehow.

[raincitygirl.livejournal.com]

As you said in your main post, this is the world's richest country. This isn't Bangladesh or Kosovo or Uganda or El Salvador. How can this kind of thing be happening in the world's richest country?

[mandragora1.livejournal.com]

I know. To any Western country with a well-developed social system, where government really is accountable to the people, it seems unbelievable. But the US is a very special country in many ways and is very different from the other Western countries - Western Europe, Canada, Australia and NZ etc.

Its principle of self-sufficiency, coupled with the idea that 'anyone can make it here' are part of what helped make it the richest and most powerful nation on Earth, I think.

The trouble is that self-sufficiency doesn't work in circumstances of natural disaster on this scale and the days when anyone really *could* make it there are long since gone. The US now has *less* social mobility than the UK. That's right, less than possibly the most class-obsessed culture on the planet.

Now in the UK we recognise that not everyone can 'make it' that there are factors beyond your control that affect your life, and we have taken steps to try and even out those social inequalities. God knows it's not perfect but no one should ever be without medical assistance or enough money to at least buy enough food to live etc. But in the US the myth persists that those who are poor are that way because they're 'lazy' and if they'd just get off their butts then they too could have that nice 5 bedroomed house and the SUV and plenty of money to send the kids to college etc.

Many Americans realise that the myth is just that - a myth. But many have not.

And I think this attitude may begin explain the inexplainable to those of us who are sitting watching it in horror. I include Americans on my flist in that category, because I know that many of them are as stunned and shocked as everyone else.

[cyberducks.livejournal.com]

It's unfortunately not an excageration, from what I am hearing it's actually worse from what's been seen in the news.

New Orleons is a city with a population of a majority of poor people and a minority of the wealthy - the rich all got out, the poor, old and infirm had nowhere to go and got left behind.

[raincitygirl.livejournal.com]

But should there not have been some sort of disaster plan in place for the city/county/state/federal government to evacuate the poor people and get them to safety? I mean, hire buses and take them to school gymnasiums in towns above the flood plain or something?

Maybe it's because my roots are in the Netherlands, where the fact that most of the entire COUNTRY is below sea level means that dikes and levees are taken extremely seriously, and detailed disaster plans are drawn up for every eventuality (and used, too, generally with a fair degree of efficiency. But that's the Dutch for ya!). Or maybe it's because I work in a hospital and we have detailed disaster plans for every possible type of disaster. Or maybe it's because when the Red River flooded catastrophically a few years back there a massive governmental effort to try and protect the city of Winnipeg, and to evacuate the people in the surrounding areas which ended up swamped. Or because here in BC there are forest fires nearly every summer which result in reasonably orderly evacuations from at-risk towns, whether people can evacuate themselves and find a place to stay elsewhere on their own or not.

I mean, come on, New Orleans is BELOW SEA LEVEL. Knowing that, and having known it for many years, how can it be that not one layer of government had drawn up a detailed disaster plan which allowed for the fact that there is always a significant minority of people who *can't* leave, need to be got out, and need to be housed until it's safe for them to return?

It's not just incompetence, it's wilful blindness to reality. It stuns me.

[cyberducks.livejournal.com]

The United States is not like The Netherlands, there is not much support or sympathy from the federal government for disadvantaged people - especially under this current administration.

There was a disaster plan, but obviously it was as overwhelmed by the sheer scope of the disaster as the levees and dikes were. From what I understand the mayor of New Orleons had been saying for years that the levees wouldn't hold up during a hurricane like Katrina, but there was no money to improve them.

[clanwilliam.livejournal.com]

We are, after all, talking about a country where the President announces some Federal aid for the area and in the next breath announces that he's asked his predecessor and his dad to start fundraising because the private sector must pay.

He'd have been lynched over here.

[mandragora1.livejournal.com]

Yes. I think it safe to say that if the Government response in the UK had been as inadequate and slow as that of the US in the run up to the hurricane and the five days subsequently, the Government would have fallen.

[claritylit.livejournal.com]

how can it be that not one layer of government had drawn up a detailed disaster plan

I don't know if you have thestickywicket on your friends list, but she has listed several links (http://www.livejournal.com/users/thestickywicket/204949.html) on budget cuts that prevented planning and building for this sort of disaster.

[mandragora1.livejournal.com]

I know. It breaks the heart. I mean, this is what government is *for*, to help those who can't help themselves.

[elistaire.livejournal.com]

You aren't the only one asking those sorts of questions.

[mandragora1.livejournal.com]

It will be very interesting to see what - if anything - comes out of this. This may be the moment when the US begins to address its vast social inequalities. If nothing else will bestir the millions of decent, caring, compassionate Americans out there, then this should.

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

And who made the decision to leave the poorest residents of New Orleans - perhaps as many as 100,000 people - behind to die.

Apparently (according to this (http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2005/09/oh_dear_god.html#comment-9020628)) it was one of those decisions no one exactly made. The Mayor, the local Red Cross Executive Director, and the City Council President all knew back in July that they didn't have the resources to get 134,000 people out of harm's way, and therefore (it appears) decided not to bother planning how they might be able to get even a fraction of that number out.

"Decided" may be too firm a word; I think this decision just oozed.

[mandragora1.livejournal.com]

Oh God. It was actually 134,000? Jesus.

Muddle is a good explanation, and I can see that here in the UK we could perfectly well cock something up because of muddle.

What I can't see, though, is us in the UK not even making the attempt to get the vulnerable out and evacuating those who didn't have their own transport. Nor not doing anywhere *near* enough for 5 days afterwards.

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

No, nor can I.

The reaction-time has been horrifyingly slow.

[filenotch.livejournal.com]

It amazes me how I can sit here up in New England and spend my evening with a glass of wine alternating between a project and a piece of fic.

[begin viscious irony laced with truth]

I've given my hundred bucks to the Red Cross, and I'm off in my sheltered life. I have a hybrid car, and sufficient income to absorb the increase in all prices that is heading our way. May have to cut back on the Morbier, and use the wood stove more this winter, but my waistline would benefit from that.

The US is one of the richest countries, yes, but it also has one of the biggest divides between have and have not. One of our unspoken assumptions, left over from the Puritans who exported themselves from Britain, is that God will be sure you prosper if you're a good person. If you're poor, then it's your fault. Either you are not favored by God, or too damn lazy to follow that Horatio Alger American Dream and pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Plan for saving these people? Please.

And New Orleans? It has the thinnest veneer of civilization, the biggest wealth divide. Even before this disaster it was closer to a third world country than almost any other place on the North American continent. Terrible schools (because the rich sent theirs to private school and gutted funding for public education), corrupt civil servants and police (because they're so underpaid/that's the way it's always worked), and a lot of people with no hope. Is anyone surprised it went Lord of the Flies so quickly?

[end viscious irony laced with truth]


A friend of mine, former resident, always said that New Orleans is a bitch goddess, and perhaps even she had had enough.

[mandragora1.livejournal.com]

It will be very interesting, as I said in a comment above, whether this provides an impetus for the US to address the vast inequality in the US between rich and poor.

I also commented above to raincitygirl that I think the 'can do' attitude helped the US become the richest and most powerful nation. But I now think that the myth (for that's what it is, maybe what it always was) that anyone can make it if they just work hard enough is actively hurting the US' development.

At least now help finally is getting in. That's something. But not for those who died waiting.

[filenotch.livejournal.com]

It will be very interesting, as I said in a comment above, whether this provides an impetus for the US to address the vast inequality in the US between rich and poor.

Not a fucking chance.

"There will be poor always," said Jesus, which when added to the Puritan notion that material success is equated with holiness in some way, makes Horatio Alger story a necessary myth.

But I now think that the myth (for that's what it is, maybe what it always was) that anyone can make it if they just work hard enough is actively hurting the US' development.

Well, now that's food for loaded conversations. We have to import our 'untouchables,' the people who do the unskilled, necessary (and luxury-providing) labor. They come mostly from Mexico. Asians get cleaner jobs in general, like manicurists. But, "Every one can move up. Your children will do better than you." And who will we import to take over the shit jobs after the latest immigrant waves progress to middle-classdom? Who will bone my chicken breasts and wrap them in plastic, I ask you?!

I have blond hair and blue eyes, and a WASP background, with over 10 generations traced on both sides and descended from players in the Revolution (and yes, dear Brit, in a country just over 200 years old, that's nearly as good as still having a part of your ancestral pre-Norman lands). I am, by birth, appearance, etc., operating at an advantage to general society. My only negatives, other than my grumpy personality, are that I'm short and queer. (Conclusions need not be drawn between these characteristics.) Since blond, grumpy, short and queer works for David Spade, well, hell, I even have a media role model. The point is, I only vaguely have a clue as to what life is like on the other side of the legendary Street. I purposefully spent part of my life putting myself in situations where I wasn't automatically privileged (me: mohawk; him: Southern law enforcement; and &c.) but I always had an escape hatch. I do not know what it's like without that line of credit available to extract myself from most situations.

[keletkezes.livejournal.com]

tropism has made some good posts to this effect.

I'd go for the 'it's America, they're backwards' stereotypical British student approach, and for once, we might actually be partly right.

And being America, they've got used to the luxuries of law, order and food and water: pooorer countries have better means to cope without because they're not so 'civilised' or 'democratic'. As for people shooting at rescuers, well, again, loony America makes the stereotype suddenly seem realistic.

[mandragora1.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's the whole story. I think there are many factors at play. Let's see what happens next.

I will say, though, that if there had been such a tardy response in the UK it would have led to the fall of the Government. Actually, not making the attempt to get the refugees out would bring down the Government, I think.

[cromarty.livejournal.com]

Here via raincitygirl... I felt much the same way but in truth the BBC reports were restrained in comparison to ITN, where I sensed a real anger behind a lot of the reports. It's true that ITV news is prone to hyperbole (and often very badly written) but this was anger.

Why the fuck wasn't there at least some sort of effort to get those people out?

I think the rich have grown too used to thinking that the poor have opportunities but they're either too thick or too lazy to take them up, when in reality equality of opportunity is receding. I think this may be true across Europe and America, but as always, it finds its most extreme expression in America

[mandragora1.livejournal.com]

I agree. But I think that even the rich in other countries recognise that there but for the grace of God and all that.

I'm a pretty privileged member of society - middle-class, well-educated and professionally qualified (solicitor). And yet, I and pretty much every one of my friends who are also lawyers, have experienced problems in our lives that mean that we know how terrifying easy it is to fall from that privileged position. Thank God for the welfare state, you know.

And if the lawyers can fall that quickly, how much easier is it for the more vulnerable, the less well-educated, the people who didn't have much to begin with?

[treehavn.livejournal.com]

The thing that gets me - when I'm not fuming at the government/Bush response or getting weepy over the awful scenes on television - is the dazzling ineptitude. I can't help but think that the UK, especially London, expects to be bombed so we make disaster contingency plans. Which were proved to be effective on the 5th July. New Orleans, being a below flood-level city, must have allowed for the possibility of flooding; prior to the events I recall all the tv channels in the UK making a big deal about how, although Katrina was going to be a one in a million storm, people in this region of the world were not unfamiliar with hurricanes and all they entailed. But from what I've heard - most specifically the greyhound station closing on Saturday even whilst the airports were still flying into NOLA - there seems to have been a glaring gap in the actuality of planning for evacuation. And remember, evacuation was still a voluntary action until latish Sunday afternoon when it was upgraded to mandatory. How the fuck did they even pretend to entertain the possibility of getting people out in time?

/ flails angrily

[mandragora1.livejournal.com]

I share you anger. I also wonder how well we'd cope in such circumstances. As I wrote above, I can see us failing through ineptitude. What I can't see, though, is us not even *trying*.

I just find myself incredulous, even now, that in NOLA they just... left the people without transport there.

[raincitygirl.livejournal.com]

Someone in local government couldn't have taken the initiative to commandeer the city buses and bus drivers, have people assemble at central points, load 'em on and drive them to higher ground *before* Katrina hit? It wouldn't have solved the problem of what to do with those 134,000 people, but at least they'd be alive. And hey, save some of the infrastructure in the form of the bus fleet!

[mandragora1.livejournal.com]

Well, I think they'd need to find somewhere for the people to go as well, but an evacuation - by planes, trains and buses - should have been possible. There was enough notice to at least get the most vulnerable out.

[fledge.livejournal.com]

I agree. It is grim indeed.

But the why probably has a lot to do with the Bush regime putting all its apples into the fight against terrorism, and ignoring the other predicted problems for the country.

What outrages me the most is that the helicopters come in, they drop supplies, but they don't even send out a relief crew to distribute them fairly. People are left to fight over the bundles as though in some kind of sadistic prison camp. And a shoot-to-kill policy on looters? Hell, these people are *starving*, of COURSE they are looting the shops!

Did I say grim? It is disgusting.

[mandragora1.livejournal.com]

It is, but at least now - at long last - and way overdue help is *finally* getting through.

I am sure that individual Americans and teams sent in to help have been magnificant in their response. They always are. The problem is there just weren't enough of them - and it's government's job to organise that.

As for shoot-to-kill, it boggles the mind. If all they're doing is foraging for essentail supplies, then they should be left to get on with it. The *only* time shoot-to-kill is justifiable to my mind is to protect your own or other people's lives. Not property. Who gives a fuck about that compared to people's lives?

[fledge.livejournal.com]

Who gives a fuck about that compared to people's lives?

The most capitalistic country in the world?

Yes, it is the government's job to organise - and *pay* for - emergency services. I also can't help thinking that they're somewhat to blame for the hurricane in the first place, since they refuse to uphold the Kyoto treaty, and it's environmental warming which is causing this extreme weather!