This is from Friday:
"It reached Category 2 status Friday morning, and forecasters said it could become a major hurricane - a Category 3, with top sustained winds above 110 mph - by Saturday. It was expected to turn north and hit the Gulf Coast between Florida and Louisiana early next week."
They *DID* have a couple of days to get ready, dumbbutt.
Once you get them moved out and away West from the center of the storm, the usual shelters like schools and pretty much any structure with water and toilets can be used. These types of structures couldn't have been uses in New Orleans because they were either not safe to be in for such a hurricane or else were poorly located. You needed more of a windowless bunker if you stayed at storm center. So the focus should have been on good evacuation schemes and not the everyone-for-him-herself nonsense that occurred.
Duh, not up to speed, are we? My tirade started over the use of the Superdome for a hurricane shelter without them knowing how well it would hold up in a major hurricane. My original comments actually predate the hurricane hitting New Orleans the damaging the roof of the Superdome. This wasn't any big insight on my part -- I had heard that they never determined if the Superdome would be a safe shelter in a major hurricane. So it was a complete crapshoot putting all those people in there. As it turned out, the storm dropped down in speed and took a more easterly course, which spared the Superdome from the worst winds, but still its roof started peeling away.
Here's the kicker: the Superdome supposedly would only be used as a shelter of last resort, which means it would only during a major hurricane threat, so by definition it should have studied and rated as such, and not just guessed at.
Hurricane Katrina Comments and Questions 2276I'm talking about planning, and good planning accounts for things like this. So you're saying there was this primary plan of using trains, planes, and automobiles, but that failed, as did Plan B, Plan C...
Nope. Go Google yourself what they did-didn't do last year for Ivan and try find any dicernable difference in their half-butt response this time around.
Again, you're not up to speed -- my complaint is all about the human factor, specifically planning, genuinely planning for periodic disasters like this. The half-butt "plan" of using untested-studied structure like the Superdome as a major shelter was typical of the whole dumbbutt, lazybutt thinking that went into planning for something like this.
Government has certain responsibities and planning for and managing after disasters like a hurricane is one of them. Are you claiming otherwise?
"Bah" is right.
-BC
