Re: Hp Technology forum (New Orleans sept 12-15)

From: JF Mezei (jfmezei.spamnot_at_teksavvy.com)
Date: 09/05/05 

Date: Mon, 05 Sep 2005 02:17:27 -0400

AEF wrote:
> Even taking your comment seriously, it is still way off the mark. First
> 3 days of 9/11? What special event happened on day 4?

After a few days, New York started to come back to normal, except for
the huge scar in lower manahattan.

But initially, New Yorkers were starved for information/leadership to
help them understand what was and wasn't working in their city. (and it
took much longer than 3-4 days for traffic access to manhattan to return
to normal). It wasn't information about basic survival, but it was
information nevertheless.

> Note: 80% of NO is flooded.

CNN mentioned 50% today.

I think that the 80% was spouted out initially because nobody did the
math/inventory of what was and wasn't flooded. Also, I think wtare levsl
have since receeded a bit, and because large protions were under just a
bit of water, many areas are probably dry now that were slightly flooded before.

> Fires are burning out of control

BBC showed harbour fire fighting ship fighting some wharehouse fire
CNN showed how NO firefighters were pumping wanter from the streets to
fight fires in flooded areas.

> People are desparate for food and water.

Yes, although this situation is getting much better now. But there is no
debate from me that authorities were quite late in getting that going.

>People are trapped in attics and on roofs.

Yes. But this situation has lasted so long because authorities didn't
bring in the right equipment right away. Doing it by helicopter is going
to take a LONG time. They need boats to do that job, lots of boats. Yes,
there are logistic issues of bring in boats into a partly flooded city,
but if the military has amphibious vehicles, they would have been great
for that. (and I am not talking about tanks, I am talking about
vehicles used to do beach landings from ships.)

> Two NO
> police committed suicide. Others simply turned in their badges.

I would say that lack of leadership and clear direction is partly to
blame for those. They were left to fend on their own without any
leaderhsip trying to fight anarchy. Hopeless job.

> collpases, along with several dozen police officers. This is effective
> crisis handling? (I'm not sure how much of this to pin on Giuliani --
> NYC's firefighters and police have a history of not getting along.)

Giuliani is ultimately responsible for not having fixed the
communications problems fully documented after the 1993 bombing. (and I
don't mean just the political inter-agency stuff, i als mean the
physical walky talkies not working in the towers). And he is ultimately
responsible for not forcing the FDNY to have a disaster plan for a major
fire in a tower.

But on the days immedatly following the crisis, he handled himself very
well in terms of leadership and statesperson to inspire confidence in
new yorkers. (and the rest of the world).

> But things were beyond his control. You want him to lie about it?

There is a way to spin this without sounding desperate and out of
control. And that is where the mayor failed. He sent out a loud message
that the city was out of control, wiothout police and FD. What do you
think hoodlums did when they heard that message ????? Steal guns, steal
big time, set fires and start shooting.

In the end, politicians will have to find ways to spin this in a
positive way because they won't be able to tell the truth: they just
didn't get this rolling early enough.

Can the mayor honestly say that on the sunday morning, he requested
40,000 troups be ready to be airlifted into town as soon as the winds
died ? Can he honestly say that he asked the military and/or commercial
airlines to airlift as many people as possible prior to the hurricane ?
Can he say that he called up the local transit authority and intercity
buses to help evacuate ? My guess is that the answer to that is NO. So
naturally, the mayor will shift the blame to state/federal poiliticians.

If the political structures in the USA put such responsabilities on the
mayor, then this is where the buck stops. If it puts in on state
governors, then that is where the buck stops. It seems that the
president of the country isn't really normally allowed to "push"
solutions onto cities/states. And in fairness to that Bush <censored>,
he did declare state of emergency well before the hurricane which would
have given the mayor and governors instand access to federal assets.

It would be interesting to get some sort of post mortem on this on who
requested what and when. Only then could we start to lay blame and find
ways to prevent such delays from happening again.

> Not a valid comparison. NYC had functioning communications. NO does
> not. Aside from all the other differences.

You know, the media are sworming in New Orleans. Seems to me that they
have no problems relaying their reports in colour. Surely the mayor
could have made full use of this. And police/fire department have radio
communiactions that don't rely on telephone companies, they should still
have communications.

The mayor should have a sat phone, and should have access to walky
talkies to talk to police.

And this is where this comes back to VMS and disaster tolerance:

Seting up a disaster tolerance plan doesn't involve only getting VMS to
operate at a remote site with your up-to-date data. It involves also
setting alternate communications facilities, being able to reach
employees and direct them to new offices, being able to redirect
telephones, having liason with fire department in order to get a few
trained people to be allowed to enter the old building to recover some
of the assets etc etc. There is a lot more to such a plan than just
saving data in a remove site. And similarly, a disaster plan for a city
is a lot more than just calling for an evacuation without providing any
help for such evacuation and not knowing what to do after.

Any city where you can have severe weather should have a disaster plan.
And that means assuming phones/electricity are out and thus having
alternate means of communications. And cities should also know that
without power, most gas stations are closed and as a result, a city
should have some fuel reserves in its onw depots, as well as generators.

When we had the ice storm here in 1998, police and in some areas, the
army, had no problems talking on their radios despite not having power.

> I really think, JF, just like the Feds, you completely underestimate
> the magnitude and seriousness of this crisis.

No, I do not underestimate the magniture. But I also feel that the media
are not providing the complete picture and are not discussing what
actually does work in the city, and not differentiating between a vew cm
of water on streets and areas where water if up to roofs, treating them
all as "submerged under water". There is a lot of sensationalism in the
reporting, and this is what I am trying hard to filter out.

BBC had a reporter on a reportly usually extremely busy street, where
MACY's has a huge department store. It was all very dry there. Not
flooded. One of the hospital is just 2 blocks away from dry land. Not
exactly "in the middle of the floods" as reported by USA media.

And one more thing to keep in mind: the media are not necessarily
allowed to go everywhere. Notice how they all report from the same spot
showing he;icopters at the airport ? They aren't reporting from other
areas of the airport where commerical airlines are providing airlift
service for instance.

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