[Pendergast]

Originally Posted by AKcrab

Here's one from 2002
(Link also in another thread.)

All we need now is someone who got a nice table of distribution of probabilities of specific hurricanes forces for the U.S. per State.

[Weyland-Yutani]

Originally Posted by von Wrangell

The US military is not our rescue service. They are asked to help during certain missions that are simply out of our scope. So calm down please.

Our rescue service is controlled by this organisation: http://www.almannavarnir.is/default.asp?cat_id=131

Our rescue teams are working under this organisation: http://www.icesar.com/

What these teams can't handle (which is very little) the US helps us with by offering their helicopters (a grand total of 4 helicopters). We are very grateful for the help we have received through the years. But it is very seldom our highly trained rescue teams aren't able to handle the situation on their own (which is shown by our rescue teams being called upon in situations abroad).

So the next time you start a rant like the above, please have the facts straight. OK?


ps. you can click through these links to see the basic vehicles each team has. http://www.landsbjorg.is/Samskipti48...eitir?openPage

On top of that you can add two Coast guard vessels and two helicopters (of which one is a Super Puma).

Just in case you want to learn more about our rescue service instead of doing what you did above.

Good you don't have to rely on the Americans. A nation has to be self sufficient.

cheers

W-Y

[Millennium]

Originally Posted by AKcrab

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Nine stockpiles of fire-and-rescue equipment strategically placed around the country to be used in the event of a catastrophe still have not been pressed into service in New Orleans, five days after Hurricane Katrina, CNN has learned.

Glad we had that all set up.

Look again; each stockpile is a tractor-trailer filled with gear. That's an awful lot of nice stuff, but it doesn't do any good if the tractor-trailer can't get there.

It would seem as though if anything, FEMA was too dependent on mass transportation methods: tractor-trailers, large ships, and helicopters. These are good for getting through well-established routes, but there are places they just can't go. They need to add the ability to distribute goods through smaller, more versatile means. The article says these stockpiles consist of a tractor-trailer with gear: they should add trailers to carry four hovercraft. If the hovercraft aren't needed to get the gear where it needs to go, that's great, but if you need a hovercraft then nothing else will do.

[Millennium]

Originally Posted by von Wrangell

It doesn't matter how big your country is. You have an average population density of 32/km2. You have a population soon reaching 300m. That your country is big is no excuse.

Raw size isn't the issue. The population density of the US is actually quite low; a larger proportion of the US is wilderness than the continent of Africa. However, transportation has improved to the point that you can get pretty much anywhere at a decent speed, so raw size is not an issue.

What is an issue is the many climate zones and types one finds in the US. This is somewhat, though not entirely, a product of the sheer size of the US; its location also plays an important role. Even if you don't count Alaska and Hawaii, almost every kind of climate and terrain in the world, from deserts to swamps to savannahs to taiga to dry and humid subtropical zones to mountains and more, can be found somewhere in the US, and most of those zones feature at least one urban population somewhere. Expand this to include Alaska and Hawaii, and you get virtually all of them. Climate zones affect the types of disasters a given city might face: it is unlikely that New Orleans will ever be hit by a sandstorm, or that Denver will be struck by a hurricane. However, that's not the only issue that can affect rescues: a mountain-trained rescue team would be helpless in Louisiana's bayou, but they would be vital in Colorado.

With so many combinations of potential disasters and complications from terrain types, is it really reasonable to expect the US to expect the unexpected in every single possible situation? Even a god would be sorely pressed to handle such a dizzying array of possibilities, and the US is most certainly not a god (even if it thinks it is from time to time). Most nations -even larger nations, such as Canada- have to deal with only a handful of climate and terrain types, and plan over that small subset; it is grossly unfair to compare most other nations' disaster-relief requirements to what the US has to deal with. China's relief requirements might be able to compete, but I can't think of any other.

[AKcrab]

Originally Posted by Millennium

Look again; each stockpile is a tractor-trailer filled with gear. That's an awful lot of nice stuff, but it doesn't do any good if the tractor-trailer can't get there.

It's not like they got the rigs on the road to even SEE if they could get there. Why do you seem so keen to defend the response of the authorities? You really think this couldn't have possibly been handled better?

[lurkerdude]

Originally Posted by Millennium

With so many combinations of potential disasters and complications from terrain types, is it really reasonable to expect the US to expect the unexpected in every single possible situation?

Given that

this scenario was written and researched about more than once
simulations of this scenario were run
the Louisiana senator has been trying to get a coastline restoration project funded for years

it sure doesn't sound unexpected to me.

It's not like we've never seen a hurricane in this country either. I'd be pretty pissed here in Los Angeles if we got hit by a 8 earthquake, and all Arnold and Dubya and the horse trainer did was scratch their heads and say "We weren't expecting it to be that bad!" We're not payng FEMA to handle minor disasters.

In fact, it really doesnt matter what your views on government are. Only a certifiable extremist would say events like this don't fall under the purview of government. If the government cant cope with fundamental needs such as national defense or natural disasters, then the government isn't working.

"Was Katrina preventable?" The hurricane certainly wasn't. There were probably things that could have been done over the last few decades to ameliorate this. The governor of MIssissippi mentioned that gambling was going to be legalized off of riverboats. Imagine how much extra damage was caused by that absurd law. The restoration of the coastline. A big chunk of the Louisiana guardsmen being in Iraq. Legendary levels of state and local corruption.

But the level of preparedness after the disaster? There is no excuse for telling people to head to the Superdome and then leaving them to fend for themelves. None. I watched Meet the Press earlier today, when I learned that Walmart delivered water supplies before the hurricane hit, but they were turned away by FEMA. The Coast Guard delivered fuel before the hurricane hit, but they were turned away by FEMA. They "weren't needed". No one should be defending this kind of stuff.

And don't forget that FEMA is part of Homeland Security now. I know I feel safer.

[Sky Captain]

Originally Posted by AKcrab

It's not like they got the rigs on the road to even SEE if they could get there. Why do you seem so keen to defend the response of the authorities? You really think this couldn't have possibly been handled better?

I just got back from Baton Rouge.
THere was no way ANYTHING that didn't fly or floated was going to get in there.
Anything.

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by AKcrab

It's not like they got the rigs on the road to even SEE if they could get there. Why do you seem so keen to defend the response of the authorities? You really think this couldn't have possibly been handled better?

Ummm...satellite imagry from THROUGH the storm to seconds ago can tell you EXACTLY where the road stops. You think Google is the only organization with aerial/satellite photography capabilities?

FEMA has actually come out and said that they underestimated what Katrina could do. But they DID have resources prepositioned and ready to go. Unfortunately, even the worst case estimates of pessimistic people seemed to be on the low side for damage. And once your plan goes down the tubes, you have to make a new one, organize people to do different things, and then somehow get them there.

Are YOU going to ride a helicopter into an area where people are shooting at any and everything? That was the situation as early as Tuesday evening, and by late Wednesday, when rescue and relief people were straining to get into New Orleans and help, thugs were shooting at helicopters, trucks, and anything else. But go ahead-drive as far as you can and when the flood waters and destroyed roads stop you, hop on a helicopter and see what YOU can do.

[AKcrab]

Originally Posted by ghporter

Ummm...satellite imagry from THROUGH the storm to seconds ago can tell you EXACTLY where the road stops. You think Google is the only organization with aerial/satellite photography capabilities?

Great. So we know how far we can get equipment/supplies. Are you implying that we can't do anything until we fix all the roads and bridges?

FEMA has actually come out and said that they underestimated what Katrina could do. But they DID have resources prepositioned and ready to go. Unfortunately, even the worst case estimates of pessimistic people seemed to be on the low side for damage. And once your plan goes down the tubes, you have to make a new one, organize people to do different things, and then somehow get them there.

Only had "Plan A"? If that's the case, incompetence.

Are YOU going to ride a helicopter into an area where people are shooting at any and everything? That was the situation as early as Tuesday evening, and by late Wednesday, when rescue and relief people were straining to get into New Orleans and help, thugs were shooting at helicopters, trucks, and anything else. But go ahead-drive as far as you can and when the flood waters and destroyed roads stop you, hop on a helicopter and see what YOU can do.

This isn't about ME. I can't DO anything. Does that take away my right to question what I see and read? I'm glad you all seem so pleased with the response to the disaster. I just can't accept that it went as well as could be expected.

[Sky Captain]

I've learned in my old age, sometimes nothing is good enough for some.
So you learn to just ignore them.

In GW1 I had a salty sargent for a load master. Didn't take **** of nobody. Even me, his CO.
He had an assistant that did nothing but bitch and question. Sgt. Magehe finally showed him an open door at 15,000 feet. We didn'd hear a peep out of him for months. He finally let us do our jobs.

[Millennium]

Originally Posted by AKcrab

It's not like they got the rigs on the road to even SEE if they could get there.

There are many aspects of a rescue which cannot be seen from the air, but it's pretty easy to see if roads aren't going to be passable.

Why do you seem so keen to defend the response of the authorities? You really think this couldn't have possibly been handled better?

Because I've looked at what happened, and what knowledge and resources were available. I have seen many scenarios where the response could have been better, but all of them require more knowledge or resources (and often both) to have been available. Because the actions of the past were done and could not be undone, I can find no honest reason to place blame for these; they were based on the best judgments which could be made at the time, given what we had.

In the end, there is only one decision I see which could have been better given the knowledge and resources made available, but it's one hell of a screw-up: the decision to not mobilize the bus system to help evacuate people before the storm. Whoever made that decision -be it the mayor or someone else; the data I've gotten is unclear on that- is guilty of a crime that the term "gross negligence" only barely begins to describe. In this one instance, knowledge and resources were available to save a lot of people; perhaps not all of those who eventually stayed behind, but many thousands at least. I would dearly love to know why the decision was made as it was, but I suspect we will never know that for sure.

But I see no other points where I can honestly place blame, and nothing else which really could have been done better, at least on FEMA's part, given the knowledge and resources available at the time. Therefore, I cannot claim that the response could have been any better than it was.