ExiledInIllinois
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Posts posted by ExiledInIllinois
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Whatever you think of my blowhard ass, I have been at this a long time. Back in the late 70's and early 80's, we still had the "Cold War". I taught NBC Defense to the military, and also taught a thing called Shelter Management for what was once called Civil Defense, and at the time was called Civil Preparedness to certain local civilians..
There used to be a system where places in every metropolitan area were pre-stocked with everything from rations and water and medicine, to radiation monitors. There were plans laid out not necessarily where people would automatically go, but more as to how many a shelter could hold for as much as a month, without any outside support. Local leadership, not just government, but business people used to being in charge were trained in at least the basics of managing a shelter situation over an extended period.
I wonder if maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to relook those old programs.
I remember also.
As a Boy Scout we would get some stuff like medical supplies that were outdated so we could practice first aid.
At work here... We still have this mombo size can of petroleum jelly. I even remember reading in the emergency plan (circa 1959, when the installation was built) that there was to be two service revolvers and a shotgun on site.
Where those weapons ended up, I don't know?
Before we changed over our signs... All 4 underground pits had "Air raid" signs posted next to them too.
I guess we were a lot more prepared back then?
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I understand what everybody on the right is saying... I know it takes time.
We gotta learn to operate faster and get better... That is what makes us a great society.
Don't sit on our laurels.
About 10 years ago, in the early morning I witnesses a drowning. A guy attempted to "take a swim" while we were waiting on a petroleum tow to lock south. I probably should mention that the guy was liquored up and went for this swim fully clothed with workboots on.
I don't know if he was just playing with the people on the boat first but, they freaked out and spun the vessel around and head toward the open chamber screaming and yelling that he was in distress. What they did was the start of the end for the young guy in the water... THEY CREATED A PANIC SITUATION.There is about a 1000 feet of approach they were in... Did they take note on shore at what foot marker they were at? NO.
First thing I had to do was call the tow off and have it stop. Second I had to close the dam and the draw it was creating. Next the USCG was called in. All this took about 10 minutes.
The guy was already a goner.
I can vividly remember a young lady on the boat screaming that something had to be done... That somebody had to jump in the water and save him, somebody who was well under water and has been out of site for more than 15 minutes.
I tried hard to calm her down... All I could say is that the USCG was on the way and two people possibly drowning is not what we wanted. I tried to keep her hope up that he might be found alive... I knew otherwise, it was just too long.
All I knew was to keep others from entering the water and creating more causalties. It was really hard to see people helpless... Seeing someone die and not be able to help them. It was out of my hands.
The USCG showed up with marine units and helicopter within the half-hour... Dive crews swept the murky river bottom for 4 hours and finally pulled the body up at the 900' from the upper gates.
The body was twisted with a gash on his head. IMO, created when the people spun the boat around in the panic situation... The skag of the motor doing the final blow.
I still remember the name of the small boat, "Heaven Sent".
To make a long story short... We did the best we could. Could we have responded faster, sure... But, what would have really been accomplished? The man was already under, it was dark.
Would we have wanted more causualties? Things had to be down right or more deaths would have surely happened.
I take NOLA was kinda like this story.
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So true.
I think nobody knows about it or cares to know about.
I may be way off base in the end. It may just be that Katrina devastated the levees... IMHO, I just find that REALLY HARD TO BELIEVE.
There is a smoking gun somewhere... We just don't care to look for it.
The sad part is... I don't think it will ever be investigated from this angle. All they are saying is that they were in "good" shape. The things were almost 40 years old. There are life expectancies on these things. You just can't keep throwing patches on them. Pushing critical maintainence back on things due to 30 years of political and budgetary pressure is sure to bite you on the arse. Mix in growing environmental concerns that always seem to slow things down and you got a festering boil that will just pop one day.
You might think that I am beating a dead horse... I just think the Corps is breathing a sigh of relief that people refuse to grasp the basic concept of the system.
People just don't believe in preventative maintainence anymore. They see it as a waste of resources in a throwaway society.
You think NASA can't get their act together? At least that sh-- can be confusing. The stuff the Corps is doing shouldn't be.
I don't want to come off as being partisan to this issue but, my career with the government hinges greatly on this issue. I don't want it to sound like I am crying wolf only to protect my personal interests... I want to be fair and impartial when it comes this.
I am not a PE. I give them all the credit in the world and respect their education and training.
I see the rules they break and it bothers me.
Sometimes I regret the path I took, I feel my voice might have been heard more down a professional career path. Then again, I am not sure if that path would have kept that voice alive?
There is such a big difference between the design world and the practical world.
Sorry for the rant.
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Absolutely not. I don't take it personally. I just don't get a good feel that a lot of people from many different perspectives have a good idea of what the federal government is DESIGNED to provide in an emergency management role vs. what was "expected". All the "set piece" stuff is working pretty well. It's the ad hoc that had to be developed on the fly that is at issue. Consequence Management is a multi-layered system and approach. There are things broke that need fixing, but I'm still of the mind that if the system worked as designed, with both NO and LA doing their part, this would not be the controversy it has become. A regional consequence management plan should involve more than throwing one's hands in the air and screaming help. OK, Shephard Smith was at the Superdome. Whoopie. It's a lot easier to get a reporter, a producer and a camera man into something than it is a battalion and a few hundred tons of supplies. Doing anything short of that in that particular, unique situation could well have caused more rioting, lawlessness and death. Just a thought on my part, but I might weigh the value of dropping a pallet or two of water into 20,000 people already at the crazy point with the expected result vs waiting a day or two and going in with some sort of rational plan to assist everyone. I don't think many are truly grasping how bad the "security" issues were in those first couple of days. There were a lot of people absolutely NOT willing to step up and help their fellow man. People are not necessarily good, or willing to act civilized in a disaster.
Fair enough Bib... Very well said.
I realized what a security mess it was. That is why I can't fathom the political neglect of the levee system. I am still freaking out about these issues today. I just hope they begin to take a long, hard look at what makes America tick.
Things get mired in the silly here to the VERY SILLY.
NOLA being a big city had a lot to do with that.
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Study engineering?
I am glad the Corps hires the greatest and the best!
They sure can design a mean security gate or smoking shelter.
Tops on the course list:
Functional Obsolescence 101
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Sorry for being skeptical of you... Don't take it personal.
Obviously you do.
That is why it took four days when the order said IMMEDIATE.
Again is IMMEDIATE kinda like defining what "is" is?
Maybe next time they can just cut through all the crap and say:
"We will get there, when we get there."
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Bottom line again is it all goes back to the levees and the darn things breaking.
I am still gonna contend that they should have never broke. NOLA made it out of the storm very well. Yes, they should have planned for a worst case scenario and stockpiled stuff. But, the stockpiling idea has been squashed here becasue "we are a in demand world"... The community haven idea seemed to get negative response because of that issue.
My bet is that nothing would have worked.
The only hope was avoiding this tragedy.
We are focusing on the aftermath. I suspect there is more to the story about what went wrong than we will ever know.
Yes, of course Katrina's wrath was the major factor... IMHO, I just know there is more to the failures than the storm.
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It is undeniable that criminal Bush is to blame for the flood. It is not just a coincidence that Operation Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans but not his multi-billion dollars oil ranch in Crawford, punishing the disenfranchised poor black population of the city for not voting for him in the rigged fraudulent 2000 and 2004 elections.
Trent Lott's home in MS was wiped out.
Collateral damage? Friendly fire?
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So true. So true.
In this case some people got served and some people didn't get served.
I am probably sure that the people that didn't get served can blame somebody?
That is all the media is focusing on.
The media was the squeeky wheel... It served a purpose.
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I do?
News flash: I'm dead-set against most of the high dollar value programs the Pentagon's indulging right now...which I wouldn't expect you to know, as you've never asked. I only support the occupation of Iraq because I believe we're morally obligated to stabilize the country, since we destabilized it to begin with. Of course, you don't know that, because no one in this friggin' asylumn is capable of discussing either in remotely intelligent fashion without "Flightsuit! Halliburton!" Hell, most people can't even see past their preconceived notions to understand the reason we invaded Iraq, even though it's been staring them in the face for years now...
The only reason I seem to support things more than I do is because I support the media even less. If they indulged even remotely accurate reporting, I'd be expressing my criticism more frequently. As it is, I'm too busy bashing the media to properly bash the administration.
Thanks!
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The criminal Bush clique and their Halliburton oil industry masters in Tel-Aviv control the weather with banned by international law weather control satellites that they routinely use to provoke droughts and floods to steal the world's water in order to steal the world's oil. Operation Hurricane Katrina was long planned for some time, as the criminal pentagon accomplices had removed the Louisiana National Guard from the area months ago.
Bush probably got his plans from watching General Hospital while binge drinking in the '80s.
I think Mikos Cassadine is special consultant to Bush?
Edited by the Riddler... Forgot to add the ?
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Must be a Patsy game at the "Razor" you are talking about?
In Buffalo, the fans are more knowlegable and ALWAYS remain quite when the Bills are on offense!
But seriously, that is one thing that always burns me up... Home fans attempting to make noise when their team is on offensive.
Same thing goes when they start a wave!
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I'm just cynical enough, though, to believe that, as he is a politician, Al Gore's "help" is self-serving and has little to do with people in need.
You can disagree...but you can't convince me otherwise. I don't believe the ruling elite truly gives a damn about the hoi polloi except as election theory applies to them.
But you are not cynical enough that you continue to stand-up for the governmental and miltary establishment.
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I also find the manlove disturbing.
I take the water was fine where you live? Betcha your local Schnucks had lots of water stocked?
Nursing homes in Champaign are probably doing fine?
The bottom line is that TV coverage was not that positive yet, the human suffering that was shown was very real.
Why not show it?
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I gotta admit that the federal response was good. Like you said not perfect.
The funny thing is that I am a perfectionist and the levees should have held.
It isn't so much about the response as to what caused the whole thing to happen in the first place? Why 4 internal, count them 4 INTERNAL levees were breached.
Tell yourself it was a Cat 5 hurricane... That is still not the point. Hurricanes happen. Really strong hurricanes happen.
I can give you all these points... Blow sunshine up your arse and tell you things are all good till contract time comes rolling around again.
That is no the point for me.
The NOLA fiasco should have never happened in the first place.
This is no attempt to highjack the thread and no response is needed. No repsonse can probably be given?
The point for me is why some 30 years ago did the Corps piecemeal the levees when they realized that their modeling and design was proven to be grossly inadequate? Did they realize? My bet is that they didn't want to accept anything else.
When the "Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale" came out in 1969 and proved that the rudimentary modeling by the Corps used to design the levees was proven to be GROSSLY inadequate... Why wasn't anything radically done then?... This was just 4 short years after Betsy and the very same year as Camille.
You think they would have accepted anything that was going to put their pet projects and reputation on the line?
You think bureaucrats and engineers can man-up to their mistakes and shortcomings? Even if their mistakes are scientifically proven otherwise? Whatever the case is, they (the powers that were) are probably dead today... So they will never know the severity of their obstinate behavior.
Back to the point of the thread.
If we continue to blow sunshine up the arses of these bureaucrats we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes that we made over 30 years ago. The two are interconnected. In the late 60's it was the levees. Now it is about the human response to those very same levees breaking.
The "it is good enough, better than anything else in the past"[/i] mentality has to be questioned. We do not need to be protecting that and the establishment that accepts it.
Dream grace. Dream perfection.
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My guess is that you weren't waiting for water also Eryn?
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That is not the point. I do admit you make good points for bureaucrats.
Time line?
My guess is you weren't waiting for water?
Ahhhh.... Who cares? I guess you gotta break a few eggs to make an omlette.
I have found one thing out working for the governement for 15 years. Bureaucrats will always tweek the numbers.
Enjoy your picnic while others suffer. Just as long as it isn't you.
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Well here's one that's floating around, maybe you've seen it. I got it from a
Republican friend from Alabama, whose wife still has 2 missing relatives. It kind of speaks to the "out of touch" label.
And we could talk about how quickly the rebuilding contracts have been let, without bidding, to Halliburton/KBR etc. but that would be another thread. They were MUCH faster as reacting when it came to that. Surprise surprise.
At least he is promoting safety.
Love the float coat Sr.!
Can never be too safe in dem dare waters.
seldom seen opinion from the press on federal
in Politics, Polls, and Pundits
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Yes.
At least we would have somebody who knows how to work with their hands!