New Orleans' most vulnerable

Leonard Witt wrote on AJC.COM Each time you hear a federal, state or city official explain what he or she is doing to help New Orleans, consider the opening paragraphs of a July 24 story in the New Orleans Times-Picayune. "City, state and federal emergency officials are preparing to give the poorest of New Orleans' poor a historically blunt message: In the event of a major hurricane, you're on your own." The story continues: "In scripted appearances being recorded now, officials such as Mayor Ray Nagin, local Red Cross Executive Director Kay Wilkins and City Council President Oliver Thomas drive home the word that the city does not have the resources to move out of harm's way an estimated 134,000 people without transportation."

What do you suggest they should do. Everytime a hurricane is coming that might hit the city, should they load all of their homeless people up and bus them to some other city. A city might be willing to accept them, as Houston did this time, when they knew the conditions they were in in New Orleans, but what city would be stupid enough to allow another city to dump all of its homeless on them, just because "something might happen", and then they would have been left to deal with more homeless in their cities

The officials made those statements fully knowing that those 134,000 people were very likely to end up in dire circumstances or even die. Here is what National Geographic magazine wrote in an article published in October 2004 about a possible hurricane scenario for New Orleans: "The Federal Emergency Management Agency lists a hurricane strike on New Orleans as one of the most dire threats to the nation, up there with a large earthquake in California or a terrorist attack on New York City. Even the Red Cross no longer opens hurricane shelters in the city, claiming the risk to its workers is too great."

I don't blame them. I dont think people should live in a city that is 10 to 15 feet below sea level, where all it will take is a failure of a levee, and everyone would be underwater. We should help the people get out, but I would hate to see ANY federal funds spent to rebuild in that "bowl", unless new structures were built on columns at least 25 feet high.

In that article National Geographic predicted with eerie accuracy that more than a million people would evacuate, but some 200,000 would remain, including "the carless, the homeless, the aged and infirm." The New Orleans Times-Picayune ran its own series in 2002 in which it wrote: "If enough water from Lake Pont-chartrain topped the levee system along its south shore, the result would be apocalyptic. Whoever remained in the city would be at grave risk. According to the American Red Cross, a likely death toll would be between 25,000 and 100,000 people, dwarfing estimated death tolls for other natural disasters and all but the most nightmarish potential terrorist attacks. Tens of thousands more would be stranded on rooftops and high ground, awaiting rescue that could take days or longer. They would face thirst, hunger and exposure to toxic chemicals."

Which is why I say New Orleans should not be rebuilt

And yet apparently there was no emergency plan and no resources to evacuate "the carless, the homeless, the aged and infirm." In this era when we are a nation at risk of terrorism and natural disasters, we can only hope that what is happening in New Orleans is not built into the fabric of our national homeland security policy. We should provide security for everyone, including the poor, aged and infirm.

Nice to say, but what do you want to do for them. Give a free car to everyone that is carless?

We have the resources. On Wednesday, it seems FEMA found 475 buses to help with the belated evacuation effort. Unfortunately, when it comes to looking after the carless, homeless, the aged and infirm in our country, we — in our quest to become an ownership society — seemed to have allowed our good senses, good will and compassion to go on vacation.

A lot of people with cars stayed despite mandatory evacuation notices (those cars are now underwater). How many do you think would have gotten on buses before the hurricane hit, and what city would have been willing to accept them (knowing New Orleans might well have just left them there after the hurricane went through)

Joe Gandelman blogged An even larger question that's already being asked is whether plans in place tried to find way to help people who might have more problems getting out of the city — or strictly wrote those people off as a kind of unspoken collatoral damage....which is what a columnist in the Atlanta Constitution suggests.

Ezra Klein blogged FEMA's other two doomsday scenarios were a terrorist attack in New York and a powerful earthquake ripping through California. Two out of three have happened. I hope my state, the Golden State, has taken notice.

La Shawn Barber blogged Those who had the means to leave but defied warnings bear a lot of responsibility, and if the government starts ordering people to evacuate an area en masse, they’d better provide the means for people who can’t do so on their own.