Quarterly Report - Hurricane Katrina - Is the Federal Response Adequate?

Hurricane Katrina

Is the Federal Response Adequate?

James R. Audet

August 31, 2005

It is two days since Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast devastating the major cities of New Orleans, LA, Gulfport and Biloxi, MS.

Today, President George W. Bush gave his first speech after this catastrophe of unprecedented proportions, the single greatest natural disaster to ever have been suffered by the United States in its modern, post-industrial age history. He called it "one of the worst natural disasters." Bush does not have a clue how bad this situation is. Hurricane Katrina is the worst.

What we can say for his pithy statement of a Federal response to this crisis is simply this: He beat his father by a day in offering a response to the hurricane -- Hurricane Andrew -- that ravaged South Florida in 1992. ^1/

It is clear that President Bush and many of the politicians who have appeared on the television news have no concept whatsoever of what it is going to take to stabilize the situation in New Orleans. They are offering unrealistically low predictions of the time it will take to get the refugees out of the city, the water out of the city, the power back on, and restore the roads. It is obvious that the time will be measured in the many, many months.

The offer by the Federal government is so clearly inadequate, one must wonder what planet Bush had just come from after terminating his vacation earlier than he expected. His offer of a couple of navy ships and about 10,000 army troops is so utterly pathetic to be laughable. His statement today offered no hope for an estimated 1.5 million refugees. This is the United States, damn it, not Africa!

The damage to New Orleans is so catastrophic that there is considerable doubt whether the city should be rebuilt at all.^2/ It is reported that eight percent of the city is underwater, and it is clear that the majority of the flooded structures will have to be demolished. Where are the 1.5 million residents who are now under a mandatory evacuation going to live? What is necessary is a program on scale not seen since World War II when private residences were used to house servicemen who had no accommodations.^3/

The media reports that losses from Hurricane Katrina may total as much as 25 billion dollars. This figure is ridiculously low. The figure is more likely on the order of at least 100 billion dollars and that figure does not reflect the cost to the economy from gas prices which are going much higher from the average of $2.61 as of August 29. Click here for U.S. Weekly Retail Gasoline Prices.

The Army Corp of Engineers is trying to fix three broken levees with sandbags! They should take a lesson from history and sink some ships in the breached portions of the levees to provide a basis for shoring up the levees. Until such time as the breached levees can be repaired, the water inside the city cannot be pumped out. This is the sole mechanism for draining the water from New Orleans as the city is below the water levels of the adjacent Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain.

Conspicuously absent in the President Bush's speech was any call for conservation of fuel. At least 25 percent of America's crude oil comes from the Gulf Coast. Production is curtailed and refineries in the affected area of the storm have been closed. President Bush should have asked the citizens of nation to drive at a maximum of 55 mph to save gasoline, reduce upward price inflation, and minimize shortages. Conservation could make up for a large portion of lost refinery capacity.

It remains to be seen if the Federal response to Hurricane Katrina ramps up in accordance with the needs of the Gulf Coast. We can but hope that government officials take the situation more seriously than they have yet to do.

Footnotes

1. As with Hurricane Andrew in 1992, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has been caught utterly unprepared. FEMA's failure to have a hurricane rescue plan on the shelf for just the type of emergency that now exists along the Gulf Coast is clearly evident. Call it Operation Hurricane Relief, or Operation HR, or whatever you like, a plan should have been placed into operation the moment the hurricane had passed through Louisiana. Michael Brown, the FEMA Administrator, and his agency are utterly FEEBLE, INCOMPETENT responders to this emergency.

2. Of course, another hurricane could ravage this area at any time and the likelihood of Category 4 or 5 hurricane striking this area again is high. There appears to be no substantive reason to rebuild New Orleans.

3. Alternatively, use army bases to accommodate the displaced citizenry.

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