Under Construction

Since writing the below, I have become increasingly disgusted with the long-term response to Hurricane Katrina - namely the failure to, at the minimum, end practices such as subsidized flood insurance that encourage building in unsafe areas (and, worse, the governmental subsidies for home insurance in general in Florida, in which someone living sensibly in the north-central part of the state will pay (via taxation) for the decisions of others to build in stupid places like the Florida coastline). That feeling is the main reason why I have not done any donations to try to help out with, for instance, the California wildfires earlier this year.

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Response to Hurricane Katrina

I went to high school in Metairie, LA, which is part of Greater New Orleans although not technically within the city limits, at St. Martin's Episcopal School. At the time, my parents and I were (moderate) Southern Baptists (I am now a (non-Christian) Unitarian Universalist and my parents are now Presbyterians). We attended St. Charles Avenue Baptist Church (and I suspect my parents would have kept being Baptists if they had found a Baptist church like it in Mobile, Alabama); BTW, see http://www.allianceofbaptists.org/Katrina_Stories.htm for more on how they're doing. My parents are now living near (essentially, in a suburb of) Mobile, in Spanish Fort, Alabama, at a retirement community, Westminster Village. Moreover, I have a cousin who is going to college in Jackson, Mississippi (with a fortunately brief interruption after Hurricane Katrina due to a loss of power). I can thus say I have some connections to areas devastated, to one degree or another, by Hurricane Katrina.

The subject of this webpage is the proper response to said hurricane - and to anticipated future hurricanes. It is in two categories, namely what needs to be done right now and what needs to be done in the future.

Current needs

In regard to current needs (as of 9/2/2005), I suggest that what most people (as in those who cannot travel to the affected areas to help or who do not have skills helpful enough in the current situation to justify expending gas, taking up food and water in the disaster area, etcetera) can best do is contribute money. The following are where I have, to the degree that I can, contributed, or will contribute once I am able to do so, in approximate priority order:

UUA/UUSC Gulf Coast Relief Fund
Metropolitan Community Church
St. Charles Avenue Baptist Church, probably via the Alliance of Baptists
National Youth Advocacy Coalition (for LGBTI families (who will be largely cut off from receiving aid, insurance payments, etcetera in many cases due to governmental biases toward heterosexual marriage) and youths)
IHN - Interfaith Hospitality Network (through which my parents' church - Central Presbyterial Church of Mobile, Alabama - is sheltering Katrina survivors and other homeless families (they concentrate on families with children due to the unsuitability of most shelters for children))
HIV/AIDS treatment for Katrina survivors in Houston
Museum of the American Cocktail (for New Orleans' bartenders, restaurant workers, etcetera)

Future needs

There is nothing wrong with defying nature - but you have to be smart about it. There is likewise nothing wrong with individualism, despite what some (mostly in Europe) are claiming - but if government is going to exist and exact taxes, it needs to use those taxes for the right purposes (protecting individual liberties, including from natural disasters, as recognized by Adam Smith) and in an efficient manner (including not in a way that encourages behavior that makes things worse!). Instead, it's been busy doing evil like the war on (some) drugs - searching people as they went into the Superdome and Astrodome for drugs?!? - and claiming that it would indeed take care of people in disasters, while not following through when the disasters actually come... resulting in people not being prepared to take care of themselves. ([] sections of the below are in the process of revision - I wanted to get up the above section rapidly.) Note that many of the below - namely regarding where building/rebuilding should take place, insurance regulation and state pools, etcetera - are also applicable to other (potential) disasters, such as volcanic activity in Washington State and earthquakes in California.

[Bayou (and similar barrier) restoration; this also includes taking measures to prevent New Orleans from sinking any further below sea level (and perhaps build it up higher, especially in areas that will have to be completely rebuilt anyway - some debris from the storm should be usable for at least part of this). Note that bayou et al restoration may well involve removing levees in areas in which they are not absolutely necessary to protect people.]
[Levees - concrete, deep enough not to be undercut; height is not as critical; primary ones to be rebuilt (as opposed to left alone or removed entirely, the latter being to help with bayou/etcetera restoration) being in areas with lots of investment or other vital functions, namely New Orleans]
[No disaster aid for rebuilding in stupid ways in stupid places (like southern and lower-height areas of Plaquemines Parish, Mississippi and Alabama very close to the ocean, etcetera) - by stupid ways, I'm meaning in ways that won't withstand flooding, hurricane, etcetera and aren't so cheap that one doesn't care if they don't (as long as the people get out beforehand!). Most of all, no disaster aid for rebuilding anything on a barrier island that doesn't have to be on a barrier island (examples of things that do belong on barrier islands are marine research facilities and parks - but only roads and maybe bridges that allow access to these should be rebuilt (or maintained once built)). Also, no state insurance pools or required insurance coverage protecting such areas.
Stupid ways most definitely include in mobile homes, RVs, etcetera. (And I would not advise insurance companies to issue auto insurance for RVs in this area, unless hurricane/flood/etcetera damage is specifically excluded - similarly for mobile homes.) If someone choses to live in a mobile home (including due to lack of sufficient funds for anyplace else), they should most definitely not be anywhere near the coastline in areas prone to hurricanes - including the entire state of Florida below the panhandle. Government money currently going to build/buy/rent/whatever mobile homes, spaces in trailer parks, etcetera should instead be going into expansions of Section 8 vouchers - for people to live elsewhere, if there are too few slots left in the area close by New Orleans, Mississippi, et al. About the only exception that I can think of is if a mobile home or RV is just going to be put in someone's yard or driveway for long enough to rebuild their house - provided that the rebuilding is in a smart way for that area (as in sufficient that it can take a hurricane, or is just a cheap shack that won't cost much to reconstruct if it's someplace like a barrier island - in which latter case it shouldn't take long enough to need a mobile home or RV), and provided that the rebuilding won't take until the next hurricane season, and the people don't move into the mobile home or RV until after the end of the current one (at the end of October).]
[Everyone seems to think that there are two options: invite people to come back to New Orleans et al (even when there isn't any adequate sewage, hospital, et al systems in place) or prohibit adults from coming back to their own property if they so decide (including short-term). Why, exactly, is it unacceptable to tell people "adults can come back if you want to but we don't advise it"? Liability is not (unfortunately!) a concern for governments, so that can't be an excuse - so the other possible reason is that politicians don't want to get in trouble if people come back when they shouldn't and get hurt, but these are the same people coming back that we allow to vote to choose politicians in the first place! Anyone stupid enough to blame politicians instead of adults who freely choose to come back, even though advised (but allowed) not to, is not someone who should be voting - perhaps not someone who should be allowed out on the street without supervision! See more below, in earlier writing:
They are now (de facto or de jure) forcing some people in New Orleans to evacuate their homes (and are using force to prevent (some) people from even visiting their own property in New Orleans, Plaquemines Parish, etcetera). (They claim that they are not actually using direct physical force as of yet for evictions - and are now letting some people back in, although they are confused over the difference between letting people in and inviting them in, with the local Coast Guard guy not wanting to do the former and the mayor (Nagin) doing the latter, when a compromise of "you can come in but we don't advise it" is obviously best - but they are definitely using the threat of such to coerce people.) This should be stopped immediately for adults. Forcible evictions for adults (who can decide for themselves) are wrongful on both a civil liberties stance and a pragmatic stance, given that shelters are already having problems handling the number of people being evacuated. (Similarly, I saw at least one news report of an "informal shelter" being closed down due to insanitary conditions - said conditions they weren't cooking food on the premises but were bringing it in from outside, and this was considered problematic! Exactly how insanitary are the conditions that people would be faced with without said shelter?!? This practice is like condemning houses, apartment buildings, etcetera (like in France with the recent fires in Paris), on grounds of lack of safety, without providing for new homes for the occupants when homelessness is quite a bit more unsafe than almost any housing!) I can understand not providing food/water to adults who choose not to evacuate when the opportunity is offered, with said evacuation being a real evacuation (e.g., to someplace outside the disaster zone, not something like the Superdome) - although it would most definitely not be right to act to prevent others from providing said food/water (there are some reports that this has happened with the feds not wanting the Red Cross to go into many areas in New Orleans). I can also understand truly mandatory evacuations if people being present was significantly contributing to disease risks for others - but it is rather unlikely that those still there will make much of a difference in this regard. (Do I think it's a very good idea for people to be voluntarily sticking around in New Orleans, either before now or currently? In most cases, no; I think that most of the people voluntarily sticking around are idiots. But I also hope that - if the media fails to catch forcible evictions on camera, or the public fails to respond sufficiently to stop this wrongdoing if such is caught on camera - cops et al carrying out forcible evacuation orders on adults are killed in self-defense (vs attempted kidnapping), and the same for the officials who ordered this; ditto for anyone taking (aka stealing) weapons from innocent people who have them for self-defense, including vs the government.) I note that there was proven looting in the area around the World Trade Center after 9/11, during the period of time when cops et al were the only ones allowed in the area. I also note that enforcement of orders keeping people out resulted in a number of cases of keeping people urgently needed to help with the evacuation et al out, such as technicians to repair the local emergency radio communications system (see http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050913/ap_on_hi_te/katrina_failed_emergency_networks).]
[In Mississippi and a number of other states, change the idiot laws that limit gambling to only on boats. For states with Katrina damage, allow it at first anyplace in any of the counties with Katrina damage, then allow it in the entire state after, say, 4 or 5 years (when the Katrina-damaged counties will have had a chance to rebuild).]
[No disaster aid for rebuilding sillinesses like monuments to the Confederacy and/or Confederate "heroes". The South lost, people, and it was in the wrong - admit it and get used to it.]
[Get rid of flood insurance, unless a private insurer is stupid enough to provide it. It just encourages building in places that should not be built in (unless one builds in a way that will withstand floods without damage - in which case flood insurance isn't needed!). The program can probably best be discontinued by a combination of not allowing new people to sign up for it and by increasing premium payments to sufficient to pay for the debt caused by Katrina et al. (The Washington Post is currently saying that we should require everyone to get flood insurance - why? Government not paying for reconstruction in stupid places/ways takes care of the problem that they're talking about. If the problem is that politicians don't have the guts to take that step, then the answer is better politicians (probably via a better political system to produce better politicians). BTW, when I am saying no disaster/reconstruction aid for rebuilding in stupid places/ways, this doesn't mean that I advocate not aiding people suffering from Katrina, even if it's because their homes were in a stupid place or built in a stupid way. Just:
- Don't aid them if they are rebuilding in a stupid place/way
- Make it clear to other people that, in the future (as in after people have had time to adjust to this reality), no disaster aid (beyond basic necessities) to compensate if you lose your house, business, whatever due to building in a stupid place/way. In other words, new construction after this point? Not covered by disaster aid for rebuilding anyplace after a natural disaster.
)]
[Eliminate hurricane and similar anticipatable weather/earthquake/volcanic/etcetera damage from coverage under any state insurance pool (e.g., Massachusetts' so-called FAIR plan), coverage that insurers are required to provide if they wish to do business in a state, or similar. Do not set up any federal insurance pool for disasters, as is currently being proposed by insurance companies. (Indeed, I favor eliminating all state insurance pools in the first place. But if they are going to exist, at least don't have them encouraging people to build in stupid places in stupid ways!)]
[If a state, like Louisiana is apparently moving to do, does require insurers to keep insuring areas that are (compared to other places) unsafe and/or is not allowing non-coverage of anticipatable damage, or, worse, like Mississippi, is suing insurers - like mine, USAA, whom I recommend - to force them to consider non-flood damage what is probably mostly flood damage, then I suggest that insurers stop providing coverage in that state.]
[There is no need to modify the Posse Comitatus Act to allow the Army et al to play a police role - that is not their function. Instead, the National Guard should be kept within the US unless in a case of a large-scale invasion. (And, of course, the war on terror and the war in Iraq are entirely seperate, except for Bush's war on Iraq making terrorism more likely. Bush saying things like no, we won't pull people out of the war on terrorism to take care of things here is yet another example of his lying (or his delusions, take your pick). From http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20050902/wl_mideast_afp/usweatherbushiraq_050902185453:
```
   Fri Sep 2, 2:54 PM ET
   
   BILOXI, United States (AFP) - US President George W. Bush rejected calls
   to pull resources from the war in Iraq to handle Hurricane Katrina,
   saying: "We've got plenty of resources to do both." 

   "The people (have) just got to know, we've got what it takes to do
   more than one thing. And we'll secure our country from the terrorists
   and we'll help rebuild this part of the world," he said after touring
   this devastated town.
     
   Some US lawmakers have asked that Washington call home members of the
   National Guard whose homes were devastated by the storm, others worry
   about the multi-billion-dollar pricetag of funding both ventures.
     
   "I just completely disagree," said the president.
   
   "We've got a job to defend this country in the war on terror, and
   we've got a job to bring aid and comfort to the people of the Gulf
   Coast, and we'll do both. We've got plenty of resources to do both,"
   he said.
```
) Remove approval requirement from federal government for sending National Guard troops to a disaster in another state, with authorization from the governor of that state - Bush et al didn't authorize this for Katrina for several days. There was at least one unit of the National Guard in a nearby area that was held back from disaster relief because they were in training to go over to Iraq!]
[Don't expend resources trying to fight global warming:
- Global warming is going to happen, partially because of CO2, methane, et al already in the atmosphere and partially because decreasing CO2 significantly would require either:
  1. No longer having technological civilization (I'd prefer to be dead - and probably would be anyway from "natural causes", as would many members of my family - than go without technological civilization long-term)
  2. A major technological breakthrough, the most likely one of which is probably development of improved thermostable cellulases to enable efficient ethanol production from trees (such as the pines currently used for paper production), agricultural waste (much more efficient than using just the kernels or whatever, which is the current practice), etcetera.
  The Kyoto Protocol would not make any real difference even if all the nations on the planet signed up to and obeyed it - even if it covered less-developed countries, it still wouldn't help that much.
- The frequency and intensity of hurricanes is on a set of cycles, and we are unfortunately at a high point - many, perhaps most climatologists appear to believe that if hurricanes will be increased by global warming, said increase (primarily in intensity) will be several decades away. Combined with the lack of effectiveness of Kyoto Protocol-level (and of any practical level of) cuts in CO2 emissions, blaming Katrina on global warming (as some idiots in Germany (a country that is doing things like phasing out greenhouse-gas reducing energy production from nuclear power) are doing) shows a lack of knowledge of the facts, or a lack of caring about said facts in order to make a political point.
Given this, resources put into attempting to reduce global warming (barring a technological breakthrough) would have to come out of resources better spent someplace else - like bayou restoration, levees, etcetera.]
[No tax cuts, except maybe for estate tax exemptions for people who died as a result of Katrina (so what if it would only effectively be for people with large amounts of money to inherit?). Tax cuts when we have a deficit are stupid. Tax cuts when that deficit is about to be expanding further due to Katrina disaster relief are even more stupid. If we need an economic stimulus (over and above disaster relief spending), that's what the Federal Reserve is for. Keynesian (tax cut and spending) economic stimuli (as opposed to interest rate cuts) just lead to budget deficits, due to democracy's tendency toward bread and circuses.]
[People keeping kids in stupid places chargeable with child neglect (or abuse if harm results)]
[No Core of Engineers measures for making barrier islands easier to live on - if they want something, let them pay for it via private contractors]
[Looters - make it clear that shooting them is perfectly legal, if they are looting something other than necessities (or are stealing necessities from someone else who needs them as much or more, or are using violence against people, not property, in order to get said necessities). (Note that, for someone who is addicted, drugs to satisfy that addiction are a necessity.) Ditto if anyone does something like shooting at a rescue helicopter or otherwise endangers the lives of others during a disaster situation. Indeed, refusal to take all measures needed (including shooting back) for a helicopter to be able to land in such a situation is either incompetence (possibly of the people in the helicopter, possibly of those who sent them out without adequate weapons) or cowardice. The invasion of Iraq and the similar looting there is another example of the Bush administration's incompetence, as commented by Barbara Bodine and Deputy Ambassador (of Iraq to the UN) Feisal Amin Istrabadi ("Iraqi Envoy Sees Parallel in New Orleans Looting" - washingtonpost.com). A lot of the motivation for the looting, of course, was the incompetence of the feds (including their failure to recognize the degree to which local government would be disrupted by something like Katrina).]
[Make desertion (including via resignation) of duty by cops et al during an emergency a specific crime, with the penalty being death. Abuse of authority such as looting by cops also should be chargeable as a death penalty crime. Discipline - by firing and imprisonment at the minimum - all cops who are otherwise cowardly, such as the ones who refused to use adequate force to get into the Superdome to help the people there. Note that I am not blaming the cops (and other emergency workers) who may need to stop due to personal medical problems, including psychological ones - if someone is coming close to suicide due to disaster relief work, they need to be prioritized to be gotten out ASAP! I also note some cops - who unfortunately are too threatened by police culture to speak other than anonymously - who likewise are condemning cops who "turn in their badges" when an emergency comes.]
[Allowing confiscation of private property by authorities during emergencies is, I suspect, a cause of the looting - people saw cops apparently looting (or, if they weren't keeping proper track for later repayment, which was probably usually the case, actually looting), so they decided to do it themselves. For food, water, medicine, etcetera, there should be no need for cops to be authorized to loot - air-drop it. This was apparently strongly suggested by people who had been involved in similar operations by the military in Afghanistan and Iraq - but they were told they needed to wait on FEMA OKing it, due to jurisdictional legalities, and FEMA didn't bother to do so.]
I will quote from the New Orleans Times-Picayune (the courage of the people of which was notable even compared with the very impressive record during and after Katrina of the news media in general) regarding FEMA director Brown:
In a nationally televised interview Thursday night, he said his agency hadn't known until that day that thousands of storm victims were stranded at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. He gave another nationally televised interview the next morning and said, "We've provided food to the people at the Convention Center so that they've gotten at least one, if not two meals, every single day." Lies don't get more bald-faced than that, Mr. President.
Should everyone at FEMA be fired, as the Times-Picayune editorial ("OUR OPINIONS: An open letter to the President" from September 4th, 2005) says? No. Some were apparently competent, but were overridden by their superiors (mostly political appointees and/or those who didn't want FEMA dealing with non-terrorism-related disasters). But many - especially Brown and his bosses, like Chertoff and above - should be fired, and prosecuted if at all possible.
[If diplomatic officials from other countries need to get in to look for people from their countries (who are likely to be more disoriented and confused about where to turn than natives, and are likewise likely to have problems dealing with bureaucracy that assumes US citizenship or permanent residency), let them, just as one would let in someone from another city or state who was looking for their residents. The State Department has apparently been refusing such permission on the grounds of lack of safety - let other countries and their officials judge that for themselves, after the State Department makes whatever advisories it wishes!]
[While one may not feel that non-citizens should be getting governmental aid (although certainly children should be, and medical care et al (including clean water) needed to prevent epidemics is for the benefit of all), first claiming that the feds want all Katrina victims needing aid to get it, but then refusing to guarantee that data on illegal immigrants will not be turned over to law enforcement, is quite thoroughly hypocritical. But given the Department of Homeland inSecurity's actions in general, this should not be considered surprising - trying to keep out economic migrants is directly contrary to US national security, since (for instance) this results in people setting up illegal immigration routes which can then be used by terrorists et al.]
[Remove sovereign immunity, so that governments can be sued and officials made personally liable.]

I've heard that:

I wish the press would stop trying to blame someone. Can't we understand that we live in a fallen world and disaster is part of it? Isn't a disaster something that you did not plan for?

Said statements are obviously from someone who is politically and religiously (the belief that this is a "fallen world") biased in favor of Bush and his administration. It was perfectly possible to plan for this, especially for what happened in New Orleans; the hurricane was seen coming (unlike, say, a terrorist attack, that the Department of Homeland inSecurity is supposedly preparing for!), it has been known for some time that New Orleans is vulnerable to flooding due to levee breaks if a hurricane comes through (and preparatory practices had been done beforehand for this - but the lessons learned were not followed!), and there was time after the hurricane came through New Orleans, before the flooding, to start flying in emergency supplies and personnel. Even if these had not been needed in New Orleans (if the levees had not broken), New Orleans could have been used as a staging area for Mississippi. A delay of a day would even be understandable - everyone makes mistakes. But three days before anything significant was done?

Bush and company are also attempting to blame the locals. From what we have all been able to see, while the locals (including at the state level) are to blame for not adequately preparing immediately beforehand, and the blame for inadequate levees, bayou restoration, etcetera is shared by multiple administrations and congresses, the locals were (with some exceptions among the police force) the ones doing the best they could with what they had. The feds were incompetent, had cut FEMA funding beforehand and paid inadequate attention afterward, and are otherwise largely culpable for the deaths and other misery. DHS is currently saying things like that locals should be prepared for 72 to 96 hours before Federal aid can get there - something they had not made public before, I note; if this is to be considered acceptable, then I suggest that Washington, DC's politician inhabitants should be forced to wait at least 72 hours before anyone from outside it comes in to help, if a disaster happens there.

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