Lessons Learned

Before all the commissions and committees blow forth the final fog about how the governments performed or failed to perform in Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and before we are so locked in on the scent trails pointed to by the Congress and its hired hands might it be possible for us draw a few preliminary lessons of our own?

It is quite clear that we haven’t done nearly so much in disaster planning and preparedness as most of us had assumed and inferred from official pronouncements and media interpretations. Judging from the actions of local, state and federal leaders and agencies, we weren’t nearly as prepared for a category 4 or 5 hurricane strike on the Gulf Coast as we should have been, let alone two such events in less than a month. That, of course, says nothing about preparedness for a terrorist attack on a major population center

It is clear that the City of New Orleans, other local entities, the States of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the federal government were far from ready for an event for which they’d been given as much notice as would ever be possible. The Hurricane Center in Miami clearly sounded the alarm in a timely and crystal clear manner. The potential physical damage of Hurricane Katrina was known to officials in all of the jurisdictions. None of the three levels of governments appear to have been nearly properly prepared or acted as well as we or they would have liked.

With the coming of Hurricane Rita on the heels of Katrina, however, it appears that the impacted governments drew many lessons from the earlier hurricane and did their level best to deal with the situation. Many things went right and quite a few did not. Clearly all three levels of government performed with far more energy, as we fully expected they would after the disaster that unfolded to the east of them.

The citizens took the warnings and the orders to evacuate far more seriously for Rita. That led to many new and unanticipated problems such as turning the highways out of Houston into endless parking lots. But with the newly exposed problems, I’m certain that all levels of government will respond even better in the next great storm. Obviously, everyone will work to find ways to stagger the exodus of refugees from the next hurricane. Governments can learn and have shown it in the month since Katrina.

Before we go too far in condemning President Bush, the governors, mayors, county judges, and their administrations for their failures in these two storms, we should note that many public officials performed competently, effectively, even admirably and obviously charitably. Then we should draw a deep breath and indicate much as the early colonist observed watching a condemned man ascend the gallows, “There but for the Grace of God, goes John Bradford.” I used to work on disasters for federal agencies and know full well how lucky I am not to have been in the chain of command in responding to Katrina.

From all that I can see, we’ve learned much and will deal with future natural disasters far better than we did with Katrina and Rita. But what about events caused by man – attacks by enemy states and terrorists? Those are very scary thoughts.

First, it’s unlikely that we’ll have any better intelligence than that provided by the Hurricane Center. Looking back on lessons of the Cold War, an attack by a prospective enemy state is likely to offer only a few hours or days warning and that is probably going to be general rather than target specific. Who will be advised to evacuate? Who will help the refugees? Who would obey the logical order of evacuation that we will surely learn from Rita? You know who, nobody!

In the case of terrorism, there will almost certainly be no warning. Obviously if the government becomes aware of an impending attack it will move heaven and earth to stop it, but there is unlikely to be time to advise residents of the target area to evacuate in an orderly fashion. Clearly if there is a terrorist attack using weapons of mass destruction, all the logic in the world regarding planned evacuation will be out the window. If Houston highways were snarled, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

To me, Secretary Chertoff’s program to plan for catastrophic events at the federal level is right on target. State and local officials must deal with smaller events – even up to the horror that was 9/11, and the federal government must use its resources to prevent such catastrophes and to respond to them in case its intelligence and intercession fails.

Katrina and Rita must be reminders that we must do more to develop intelligence on both natural and man induced calamities. In the case of hurricanes, it looks as though we have an excellent system in place. We must spend more money on earthquake identification and prediction and on the tsunamis that can result from those quakes under the sea. We’re doing research on bodies in space and that must continue.

But the most important lesson to be learned from the disasters of August and September 2005 is already receding from view. Pork is the enemy of public safety in these perilous times. Already defenders of one president, governor or another are proclaiming that they spent more on the Corps of Engineers (or the Bureau of reclamation, etc.) than their predecessor or successor. This is where the bunkum hits the fan. The legislators and their friends in the executive have classically played games with budget figures and they show every sign of continuing.

Spending money on the Corps does not mean they are spending money on projects required for public safety. Spending money on Homeland Security does not mean they are funding project essential to protecting us. The Defense budget has always been laden with pork, but these have almost always meant add ons to the budget not substitutions of Congressional views on defense policy for the leaders of the DOD. These redundancies have often been wasteful but not detrimental to our safety.

Homeland Security and Corps of Engineers pork, on the other hand, is not added onto the required funding. It is in lieu of projects needed for national security. Your Congressional representatives in both Houses are knowingly steering money into hometown boondoggles. This used to be a relatively harmless pastime designed to get them reelected and to assure that a little federal money fertilized the grass around city hall. That won’t do in this age.

Take your pick: global warming is creating more powerful hurricanes or we are entering a multi-decadal cycle of more frequent and powerful storms. From a homeland security perspective either option works as well as the other; giant storms are coming. More of our citizens live in danger zones, and we can’t afford to be penny wise on Corps projects and ignore the possibility of paying ten times as much to lock the barn door after Dobbin is gone.

We are living in an age of terror and the United States is the number one target. While we can’t ignore the possibility that a shopping mall in Lincoln, Nebraska will be the scene of a suicide bombing, we must know that New York, Washington, Chicago, the Port of New Orleans and other major metropolitan targets are what Osama bin Laden would like to take out. We can’t afford to have pork looted from the Homeland Security budget to satisfy the pipedreams and electability of craven politicians.

You’ve got to have some idea whether the project being pushed in your town really adds to the safety of all of us. If it doesn’t blow the whistle! The lives and safety of tens or hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens is in the balance.

Don’t stand idly by in this; the security of the nation is at stake.

Blog on!

Wild Bill