The obvious, necessary things that were not done

To expand on what I’ve been saying, the state and local officials, based on their numerous studies and scenarios and drills, had to know that the following steps were necessary in the event of a major hurricane approaching New Orleans:

• Order people to leave town, and to take as many of their personal possessions as they can, because they might not be able to return for a long time, or ever;

• Trigger a pre-set protocol by which a fleet of public or private buses is sent to New Orleans to take people out who lack their own transportation;

• Have food and water and other basic necessities ready at the Superdome and the Convention Center along with staff to lead and manage and clean these places, and police to maintain order;

• Have local and state police prepared to prevent looting and civil breakdown.

Once again, given that the flooding of the city due to water overtopping the levee was a central assumption of the disaster planners in recent years, particularly in the July 2004 drill; and given that the inability of a major part of the city’s population to leave the city on their own was also assumed, the above steps had to have been envisioned and required by the planners. But none of them was actually set up to be done.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 03, 2005 12:02 PM | Send