, an Indian grad student here at UT, sent me the following comparison between New Orleans and Mumbai (which , I should add, is on the west coast of India. You may know the city of Mumbai as Bombay.
inches of rain in New Orleans due to Hurricane Katrina... 18
inches of rain in Mumbai (July 27th).... 37.1
population of new orleans... 484,674
population of mumbai.... 12,622,500
deaths in new orleans within 48 hours of katrina...100
deaths in mumbai within 48hours of rain.. 37.
number of people to be evacuated in new orleans... entire city..wohh
number of people evacuated in mumbai...10,000
Cases of shooting and violence in new orleans...Countless
Cases of shooting and violence in mumbai.. NONE
Time taken for US army to reach new orleans... 48hours
Time taken for Indian army and navy to reach mumbai...12hours
status 48hours later...new orleans is still waiting for relief, army and electricty
status 48hours later..mumbai is back on its feet and is business as usual
USA...world's most developed nation
India...JUST A DEVELOPING NATION..
...this comparison to a 3rd world country really stresses the gross incompetence of the officials entrusted to respond to this emergency.
And before you start with that whole 'the local officials were responsible' talking point, let's reflect upon the newly formed Department of Homeland Security. A department formed in the aftermath of 9/11 to make us safe and handle, well, let's see it in their own words...
"In the event of a terrorist attack, natural disaster or other large-scale emergency, the Department of Homeland Security will assume primary responsibility on March 1st for ensuring that emergency response professionals are prepared for any situation. This will entail providing a coordinated, comprehensive federal response to any large-scale crisis and mounting a swift and effective recovery effort. The new Department will also prioritize the important issue of citizen preparedness. Educating America's families on how best to prepare their homes for a disaster and tips for citizens on how to respond in a crisis will be given special attention at DHS."
Oh, and BTW: FEMA now is under the Department of Homeland Security. (Thanks to John for this excellent point!)
Also, get this... Bush didn't declare a state of emergency in New Orleans until after Katrina had made landfall, but he did declare a Statement of Federal Emergency Assistance for Lousiana in counties nowhere near the water! (Thanks to Indy over at CHT for the heads-up).
So why does Shreveport have a State of Emergency declared on August 26 (Katrina won't make landfall in New Orleans until 7AM on August 29th, BTW) but not New Orleans?
Three words: Incompetence, Incompetence INCOMPETENCE
Rightwingers looooove to say the Democrats will blame Bush for anything he does... but when you are this BAD at doing your job and appointing people to handle these matters.
People like Michael Brown, the blithering idiot in charge of FEMA - a job he trained for by running something called the International Arabian Horse Association - admitted he didn't know until Thursday that there were 15,000 desperate, dehydrated, hungry, angry, dying victims of Katrina in the New Orleans Convention Center. Boy did Ted Koppel let him have it.
Koppel: I've heard you say during the course of a number of interviews that you found out about the convention center today. Don't you guys watch television? Don't you guys listen to the radio? Our reporters have been reporting on it for more than just today.
So what did Bush think of Brownie's bumbling? He said "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."
Does anyone else smell the reek of cronyism on 'Brownie'? That he only got the position through loyalty and some political backscratching?
When liberals sy this is the worst Administration EVER, we mean WORST ADMINISTRATION EVER!
And we can always look to George W. Bush to back up our claim in spades.
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2 comments:
Amen!
- Matt Klempner
From an American living in north India -- the parallels are bizarre. We've had the heaviest monsoon on record -- here its still going strong though it should be winding down. The photos of people in Mumbai wading through knee, hip, waist, chest-deep water -- the anger at the government's response.
Nice to see a US blog making the link between Mumbai/NOLA. A minor correction - the India Today issue in my possession says "108 people were killed and 190 feared buried in landslides. The toll is likely to rise as water recedes" -- but the flooding affected areas outside of Mumbai and I don't know final totals. On the other hand, failure to publicize anything like accurate death tolls for days after Katrina hit are part of the coordinated effort to denigrate the victims (like leaving their corpses to putrify on the streets for two weeks).
Used to be an American might wonder why things are so poorly organized or there's so much corruption here in India -- NOT ANY MORE!!!!
Mumbai didn't experience wind damage and is [arguably] the most important city in India. But environmental damage from unregulated wetland construction, erosion of barrier protections and (as India Today notes) "successive governments' failure to upgrade civic services and infrastructure" aggravated the destruction in both cities. Mumbai had the same problems of failed phone service -- that effected emergency response. Incredible traffic jams resulted from inability to assess the disaster unfolding and communicate to buses and traffic police. The city's emergency department tried to get Army aid to rescue people but due to lack of coordinated response planning -- or the 'culture' of the army bureacratic structure, the Army did not respond. On the other hand, the emergency rescue was required within a very short period of time -- 3 feet of water fell within a few hours so the flooding happened quickly and the deaths were immediate. Similarly, most of the people who died were the very poor -- because they lived in areas prone to flooding, or their shacks were swept away or the unstable hills collapsed on the shacks. Actually a lot of people were killed in a rural city outside of Mumbai when a rumor of flood waters caused a panic.
BUT ONE MAJOR DIFFERENCE. The government of Mumbai and the state of Maharashtra were 'inept'. It cannot be suggested that they deliberately allowed people to suffer thirst and hunger in an effort to stimulate an 'insurgency' in order to justify martial law. Sorry, but I don't believe W or his crew are are inept as they claim. Even here in India, I've known for two years that the flooding of NOLA ranked as one of the top 3 disasters facing the USA per FEMA study, etc.
Your blog points out the deliberate omission of the parishes that were known to be in peril from the storm. Not an accident. Not incompetence. Deliberate. Sending symbolic messages by eating cake and playing stringed instruments and golf while NOLA drowns are not PR mistakes either. These and the rest of the WH PR campaign during the week of death are deliberate -- but deniable -- threatening proclamations of malice-of-forethought. [Although even if the response failure was due to ineptness, it's so egregious that it rises to the level of criminal manslaughter -- and requires independent special prosecutor, not some 'bipartisan commission'.]
However, there is overwhelming evidence that this was a planned -- as Cheney said in Austin, TX on 9/10 -- "Katrina exercise" [military/psy op]. In reply to Hon. Nancy Pelosi complaints about FEMA's NOLA response at White House meeting, W said, "What didn't go right?"
Having been unable to google a transcript of a downloaded clip from Ron Reagan's MSNBC "Connected" show with Jack Burkman, a "GOP strategist", I transcribed it today. Not certain when it was taped, but probably on the 9/5. Definitely while the calamity was unfolding. Below are excerpts (Jon Stewart used a short clip from this).
"JB: I have to defend the President. I think the Federal response, I hate to say this – I know it’s going to generate a lot of controversy – was entirely appropriate. I think what is failing – once again – is the President’s PR strategy.
"Look. I can’t believe the Mayor of New Orleans is making the kind of comments he’s making. He has been Mayor of a City that is Below Sea Level for some time.
. . .
"There’s a difference between triggering the [Federal Emergency] statute . . . and setting up a military government in Louisiana. It’s not for the President to set up some kind of a military [garbled] and create a Federal Protectorate. This is not Reconstruction. I understand there are 10,000 people dead. It’s terrible. It’s tragic. But in a democracy of 300 million people, over years and years and years, these things happen. We can’t abandon our way of life and our way of government, and have a national panic because this has happened. I think people need – as tragic as this is – we must put this into perspective."
Jack is the first I'd heard [and on the show, the only one] to suggest setting up a military federal protectorate.
Jack closed the segment:
"[S]ee, here’s the issue. . . . We have limited resources. We have a war. We’re spending money guarding against a bio-terrorism accident. Maybe it’s the case that the Federal government could have put more money into storm prevention and hurricanes. But maybe if we’d done that, we wouldn’t have enough money to guard against bio-terrorism. The Federal government’s first job is to protect the country against terrorism. Is protecting America against terrorism much more important than protecting against hurricanes, even of this magnitude? Of course, it is."
If the people of the United States can't figure out a way to stop this cabal, next year we'll be facing a more disastorous 'operation.' I urge you to see the extreme crisis nature of the threat to our nation's ideal of Liberty and Justice for All. No longer a matter of, "IT can Happen Here" (Sinclair Lewis) -- IT IS HAPPENING HERE.
Thank you for your patriotic concern and goodwill,
nordron
PS -- Last Fall, a former WSJ reporter wrote about his inside knowledge of the White House for the NYT. One high level WH aide said something we need to take seriously:
"We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you [good people] are studying that reality –- judiciously, as you will -– we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors, and you, all of you, will be left to study what we do.”
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