2 States - 22 Observations

Quote:

---

7. Texas: Law and order remains in control, 8 looters tried it, 8 looters arrested. Louisiana: Anarchy and lawlessness breaks out, looters take over city, no arrests, criminals with guns have to be shot by federal troops. Again, different levels of devistation allowed for different levels of law enforcement.

---

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">"White House spokesman Soctt McClellan says: "Now that the fog of war is clearing, we're starting to see that a lot of things we were told were happening in fact did not happen."

"New Orleans Coroner, Frank Minyard, whose forensic team has conducted scores of autopsies on the 650 or so bodies recovered from New Orleans says he has run across only seven gunshot victims. 'Seven gunshots isn't even a good Saturday night in New Orleans.'"

"But some of the most spectacular looting-the sacking of the Wal-Mart in the lower Garden District and the summary emptying of the Office Depot Uptown, appear to ahve been initiated not by organized bands of thieves, but police and City Hall bureaucrats intent on securing supplies."

Source: Wall Street Journal, 9/30/05

Quote:

---

7. Texas: Law and order remains in control, 8 looters tried it, 8 looters arrested.

---

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The primary reason looters were not arrested is because there was no place to take them. All the jails were under water because the Army Corps of Engineers failed to design a levee system to adequately protect the city.

Quote:

---

9. Texas: Flood barriers hold preventing cities from flooding. Louisiana: Flood barriers fail due to lack of maintenance allowing city to flood.

---

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The Galveston flood wall is 17 feet high - about the same height as the levees protecting New Orleans. Had a similar strength hurricane hit Galveston, it too would have been completely under water.

It is interesting that you note that the levees in one town "worked" while the other didn't, then list a host of devestation in the city where the levees "didn't" work, and blame that failure on the Democrats.

The New Orleans levees were not as high as the Corp billed them to be, because the whole city is slowly sinking. So while they were designed for a cat 3, they were probably only able to withstand a cat 2 or even a cat 1. The Army Corp designs the levees and controls any changes. Last time I checked the Army Corps was part of the federal government.

Just curious...who was governor when the Galveston levee was built, and was he/she Republican or Democrat?

Quote:

---

20. Texas: Mayors move citizens out of danger. Louisiana: Mayor moves himself and family to Dallas.

---

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Most estimates are that 10% of Galveston rode out the storm. Had the storm remained a cat 5 there would have been a lot of stranded and dead people.

That 10% remained despite the lesson Katrina provided, I fail to see where Texas is such a good example. They had "hindsight" handed right to them.

It should also be pointed out that many people did not leave because the area ran out of gas and the roads were completely clogged.

The Texas evacuation was hardly flawless. There was a 100 mile long traffic jam from Houston to Dallas. According to the Wall Street Journal, doubling the southbound lanes into northbound lanes would increase capacity by 60-70%. Houston officials admit that "contra-flow" wasn't even part of their emergency planning.

It was midday Thursday before Houston officials decided to do contra flow, but there was no system in place to coordinate state and local authorities who control various roads to change the traffic signals, exit ramps and feeder roads, something that could be done in a matter of hours. There are no turn out lanes so cars that run out of gas can pull over.

And for the benefit of trav, the Wall Street Journal article ends with the following:

"One final word of advice: motorcycle"

Last year here when Hurricane Charley was bearing down on the Tampa Bay area it had been the first major evacuation ordered for the entire area in recent history. Almost 1 million people were trying to make their way inland across the bridges. By 2pm all the bridges were east bound ONLY. By 7pm there wasn't a car on the road.