The Disaster Created By Hurricane Katrina In Louisiana

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The Disaster Created By Hurricane Katrina In Louisiana

By Neil Levine
Aug. 31, 2005

I believe Judy Ramsook’s essay of August 31, 2005 in favor of the evacuation of New Orleans was a good starting point to hopefully reduce the tragedy of the next natural disaster or public emergency or whatever that confronts this great nation.

I happen to be a detail person so I am going to offer specifics that I, at this moment in time, consider important and helpful.

With a lot of people in this country living paycheck to paycheck, the civil authorities, meaning elected officials, are going to have to insure at least four things for the next evacuation emergency.

The first would be transportation. A lot of people do not have cars. A lot of people are disabled for whatever reason. Telling people to leave New Orleans isn’t much of a help for people who fall into these two categories.

I have never been to Louisiana so I have no idea what the train situation is, but buses have always been useful in getting people to where they are supposed to go. New Orleans is near the Gulf of Mexico so it could be possible for civil officials to seize the authority to commandeer appropriate water transportation for the duration of any official emergency that would arise. So people are at least removed from the danger zone in a publicly reasonable manner.

Then they have to be taken somewhere. In summer, people can, in theory, sleep outdoors for a day or two. But winter is worse and since New Orleans appears to be "out of order" for what appears to be a good while of whatever duration, plans should be made to designate armories, underutilized barracks, public arenas, churches and whatever for use as emergency housing for the entire length of the public emergency.

Finally, in this fast and brief critique, people are going to have to be taken care of, meaning food, water, toilet facilities, sleeping accommodations and so on would have to be provided for the duration.

Finally, while this country has a lot of media that can convey directions to people a way has to be provided for so that people get the detailed instructions they would need to survive the next Hurricane Katrina.

All of this means studying hypothetical potential future disasters by using past experience and figuring out how to possibly deal with what could happen. This means studying existing laws and looking to revise them in ways to prevent future catastrophes and this means seeing that existing and new laws are complied with and, finally, and most important of all, making sure that things get paid for, since little in this great country is free and material things that get damaged have to be replaced and so on, or at least returned to their proper owners in what could be called decent shape.

This is my thirty-ninth essay for Useless-Knowledge.com, something I am quite proud of. I have also been busy writing for thespoof.com where I now have forty-six little stories and have hit Number Two in the site’s writer’s rankings because I have been productive and I have also found some suitable subjects for spoofery such as Paris Hilton, who gets hits far out of proportion to her importance in this tiny world of ours.

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