Ok, the President has spoken, and I believe it is now time for all of us to being speaking bluntly. It has been my policy for the last few days to look for and point up the brightest news I could find, because I knew what we might be facing long before Katrina ever made landfall.
In my opinion, the time for optimism has passed. New Orleans did not dodge a bullet, New Orleans suffered a worst case doomsday scenario. But this is far far bigger than New Orleans alone.
By my count, America has lost not one city, but nine of them.
New Orleans, population 1.2 million, Slidell, pop. 26,000, Bay St. Louis/Waveland pop. 12,000, Long Beach, pop. 17,000, Gulfport, pop. 71,000, Biloxi, pop. 50,000, Ocean Springs, pop. 17,000, Psacagoula/Moss Point/Gautier, pop. 42,000, and Mobile, pop. 198,000.
I have figures in my possession that indicate a total maximum death toll of 410,000 Americans and a minimum death toll of 41,000 Americans.
I derived these figures as follows.
During the Hurricane Ivan mandatory evacuation, 600,000 people answered the call for mandatory evacuation, out of a total population of 1.2 million in the metro area. 600,000 remained behind. If half of those remaining behind did not survive the storm, or will not survive from this point onward, then the death toll in New Orleans alone will rise to 300,000 people. This is clearly a pessimistic approach, but I would remind the doubters that total rescue efforts yesterday saved, by the most optimistic estimates, 3,000 people. 3,000 out of potentially 300,000.
On the brighter side, if the pre-storm estimates prove to be true, then only 300,000 people did not evacuate in the greater New Orleans metro area, 100,000 of those within the city limits as claimed by the Mayor of that city. If only one in ten of the people trapped in attics and on their roofs died, or will die before they are rescued, the death toll in New Orleans alone will rise to 30,000 souls lost.
One in ten stay, one in ten of those die, 30,000, total. Just in New Orleans.
These numbers are speculative, and, having demonstrated the method used in deriving them, you may judge for yourselves their validity. Before you dismiss them out of hand, you should be aware that pre-storm death-toll estimates from the Red Cross ranged from 25,000 to 100,000 for New Orleans alone. Engineers tasked by the City with estimating worst case scenarios estimated a death toll of 40,000. FEMA estimates were 50,000 deaths for New Orleans alone.
It is my personal view that any final death toll under 41,000 will be considered a victory. The more the final count falls short of this, the luckier we will have been.
Though these numbers are speculative, other data is not.
All of the above listed cities have been reported as having lost a minimum of half of their buildings and structures. With a total population for the region, just from the cities, rural areas excluded, this means that currently, 820,000 people have no homes and are refugees. It is probable that this figure is actually over one million.
Many of these, perhaps half, perhaps half a million people, are walking wounded or even in critical need of medical attention. Seen any hospitals that will hold half a million people lately?
My purpose in being deliberately blunt today is twofold.
One, I do not believe that officials are being blunt with us or the media, for several reasons. They do not wish to start a panic, they do not wish to admit that they do not have a viable plan for dealing with between 40 and 410 thousand corpses, and they do not know how to house, feed and clothe one million people for even one week, let alone several months. Finally, I believe that their experts are telling them the exact same figures I am telling you, and, just like you, the officials do not want to believe something this bad could ever happen.
Two, I am being blunt because the scope of this disaster, the biggest disaster in the history of the United States, not one of the worst, the worst, has yet to be reported. Many, no even the majority, are pointing the finger of blame in various directions, without even barely comprehending the true scope of this event, while people who we know will die haven't died yet.
For those individuals I respectfully ask that you recalculate your priorities.
To those who would blame the mayor of New Orleans, I would ask you to prepare, in the course of three days, to completely evacuate and rebuild a city of approximately one million people. I would further constrain you by telling you to expect that the energy to be released on your city in the coming days will be equal to the detonation of one United States W81 0.5 megaton thermonuclear warhead on your city and the surrounding areas, each and every single minute that the storm is overhead.
Not only do you have to plan and build a new city in three days, that will house one million people, you must also facilitate the traffic flow of 800,000 of those people to an area that will not be affected by the rain of 450 kiloton nuclear weapons the storm will drop after it leaves your city.
You have to find, and physically force some portion of the 100,000 remaining persons to leave, and you have to find and transport the remainder of that 100,000 people who cannot do so on their own.
Whatever routes you choose to get to your brand new one million person city will be shared with mandatory evacuees from the entire two or three state region.
Beginning on the second day of your one million person new city construction project, every asset you and your staff possesses, cars, houses, offices, telephones, computers, and basic necessities, will be unavailable, under water.
At this point you will have to make some very hard decisions. No city government is capable of building a one million person city, not in three years and certainly not in three days, but this is only the beginning. When the levees begin to fail, you will have to start choosing who gets to live and who gets to die.
Not one at a time, you will be forced to decide whether large groups of human beings, your constituents, 20,000 in the Dome, 60,000 in each of three flooded parishes, another 50,000 in the downtown area, get to live or are abandoned. Will you save the people trapped on flooded roofs, or fix the levee and let them die? How many will die if you do not fix the levee?
When your best engineers tell you that they cannot close the breach before it floods the city, will you even try? When they tell you that even if by a miracle they succeed and seal the breach, that 50 others are ready to pop at any time, what then? If you seal that breach, or even try, the people on the roofs will die. If you do not seal the breach, who knows how many in the city's center will die.
But your task is not yet complete, far from it.
The largest seaport in the US has been destroyed. How will ships get in to help you?
The largest river in the US is now blocked to ocean going ships, and river going ships. Will you just let it sit there, blocked, while the rest of the country starves for gasoline, not to mention hundreds of other necessities?
All but one of the bridges into and out of your city are destroyed, but you don't even know this, not at first. You can't get even one block from your office without a chainsaw and a crane. Your helicopters are either 200 miles away or destroyed. Your phones don't work and your power is out. Will you divert resources from saving people in attics to look over the highways to see which are open and which are closed? Will you choose to check the roads, and begin cleaning the roads, if the price of doing so is to let a thousand people in local hospitals who require electricity to live, and who therefore must be evacuated, die in their hospital beds?
Perhaps instead, you will choose to place a priority on looters, who are shooting at hospitals and policemen. Who will you allow to die, while you divert assets to maintaining security?
This is just the beginning. You still have 30,000 people in the Super Dome, the water is rising, they are getting sick and they are near rioting. What are you going to do with them?
By now, you are hopefully beginning to understand the error in trying to fix blame, at least this early.
You do not, a city does not, even the United States does not build a brand new one million person city in one day.
If you try, you seal the deaths of thousands and thousands of people. What you do first is call in the Feds. This is so far beyond the capacity of any city, even New York, that the Feds have the only chance at success. But you are the mayor, you have known for years how many cops you have, how many National Guards you have, and that the numbers available to you are less than a tenth of what you need. The Federal Government is the ONLY answer.
But even the Feds do not rush into a disaster of this magnitude. If you want to know exactly how long it takes a trained crew to set up a one million person city, I cannot give you the answer. But I can tell you how long it takes to set up the headquarters that will run a one million person city.
It takes three days. We just saw it done. We just saw how professionals work. They do not run into a disaster area with two other guys and immediately bog down, buried under a task far too large to comprehend. No, they assess the situation first. That takes 24 hours. I have never seen any kind of a hurricane damage overview in less than 24 hours after the eyewall passed the area. They assess and then they move an advance team in to build the headquarters and support facilities necessary to command the entire relief effort. While that is being built, the lower echelon units ar packing and getting into trucks and flying their helicopters closer to the area. Closer, but not in, because they, and you, do not know exactly where it is safe for them to set up, or even where they will be needed.
But once you have the headquarters up, and the troops nearby, things begin to happen quickly. Now, instead of having to choose whether this 10,000 person group dies, or that 30,000 person group stays on the roofs, you have entire battalions to throw at the problem. Battalions to throw at each problem and more in reserve. Battalions that are fed and watered and equipped and supported and have a place to sleep. Battalions that you can sustain and keep working, not for a few days, but for the months that they will be needed.
Now, you have a plan. Now, you have the tools you need, the roads, the choppers, the aircraft, the rifles, and the boats. Now you can do the job right.
But you don't have any of that as the Mayor. I don't care if you are Boss Tweed or the least corrupt politician in hostory, you do not have the resources you need, not by a factor of ten and maybe not by a factor of one hundred.
There is only one option open to the mayor. Finger in the proverbial dike, and yell for the Feds. When you understand the real scope of this storm, then you understand that the Mayor's job was to hold the fort and yell for help.
Only then can you make an accurate assessment of how well the mayor performed his or her task.
But it still isn't time for that. Not yet. Not for a long time.
America faces the worst disaster in its history. More dead than Pearl Harbor. More than 9/11. Maybe only ten times as many dead. Maybe 100 times as many.
A bigger fuel crisis than the 1973 Oil Embargo.
Nine American cities mostly or totally destroyed.
America's largest port, closed until further notice.
America's largest river, closed until further notice.
A 500 year, worst case doomsday scenario hurricane.
Now take a good hard look in the mirror.
Yes, you.
If we are going to lose 40 thousand dead, and at least half of those are alive right now, what is your priority?
If we are going to lose four hundred thousand dead, half a million people, and half of them are still alive right now, what is your priority?
It isn't time to point fingers of blame, even at the looters. 100 looters don't hold a candle to the 20,000 people that will die if they aren't rescued.
Ten thousand looters don't hold a candle to two hundred thousand people at risk.
This is a huge disaster, and it is important for America to learn how to think big. If you aren't capable of walking past ten dying people to save 100 dying people, then at the very least, stay out of the way of those who can.
You know what the price is, if you don't.
When you start thinking big, you start understanding that one person doesn't count anymore. Not the mayor, not the governor, not even President Bush. Bush will not fix this, the New Orleans police will not fix this, and the National Guard will not fix this.
They aren't big enough.
Three hundred million American people are going to fix this, or else it isn't going to get fixed.
So for all the sidewalk superintendents, all the finger pointers, all those who would grab political power over this, I have one very simple question.
Do you stand with us, or are you going to just stand in the way?
eloquent - bookmark
My field is Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine, we are facing a major emergency and I have not heard a peep yet about mobilization.
A major ID meeting is scheduled for 9/21 in N.O. (obviously it will be cancelled).
Vaccine supplies and drug supplies to prevent typhoid, Hepatitis A, malaria, and yellow fever need to be rounded up and emergency aid stations and hospitals created - once we figure out where the refugees are going.
It would not be unreasonable to try to vaccinate the whole US population for Hepatitis A, since refugees will be all over and HAV will be a big problem.
My concern is wide outbreaks of civil unrest spreading beyond the disaster area. Im guessing 24 to 48 hrs before disease like typhus or cholera breaks out and spreads like the flood. Soon the real death toll will start to leak out and that's going to stir things up a lot. I waited in line tonight to buy gas for the first time since the 70's. Im not totally crying the sky is falling yet but I am concerned trouble could spread.
marker
Wow! Your name should be Jeremiah.
That is an awesome post and you are dead on. It made me take a step back and realize that no one is prepared for death and distruction on this magnatude.
Merciful God, save us.
You lost me here. You're not just "speaking bluntly" you're thinking bluntly.
good post
A large disaster not yet reported b/c it hasn't fully taken effect is the dividing of this nation against its leadership that is beginning to snowball.
I fear leadership is trapped b/c they are making decisions now based on hard/blunt estimates that they do not want to share and create undue panic.
But, at the same time the media is playing 24 hours of suffering people the media can reach, while giving us the sense of anger and frustration as to why the rescuers cannot do the same.
This will only give black eyes and perhaps even a knock out punch to all leadership involved and unfortunately will become politicized with time.
And, then there's Iraq... you know they suffered the worst days thus far today with that stampede that killed scores.
We are going to make it through this (positive), but the face of our nation, our leadership, portions of our economy are going to be changed.
Very well thought out and very well written. Thank you
Thank you
thanks!