Klarinet Archive - Posting 000520.txt from 2005/08

From: Karl Krelove <karlkrelove@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] BRSO Auditions 2nd Clarinet Tenure Position...
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 22:29:27 -0400

It is worth considering that at least 12 - maybe as many as 18 - hours
before the storm hit, tracking radar showed that the storm center was
changing course such that it was going to pass east of New Orleans,
which would have been hit with the weaker western side of the storm.
And, indeed, that's exactly what happened. As of late Monday night all
reports were that the city had missed taking the beating that had been
feared a couple of days earlier. So, well before the "last minute" many
people may have decided with some apparent reason that the danger didn't
justify leaving after all, and the authorities would have had to spend a
great deal of energy and man-hours finding these people in order to
forcibly evacuate them, man-hours that it appeared were needed more to
help those who were leaving. In fact, the flooding that now has
destroyed so much of the city is the result of the failure and breach of
two of the levees that contained Lake Pontchartrain and kept it from
flooding the city, not of the actual wind and rain that had by that time
passed the city by without flooding and mass destruction.

The cities and beaches along the Mississippi coastline are another
story, and the finger pointing there has already started.

Karl Krelove

Joseph Wakeling wrote:

>
> Not good enough IMO. The authorities *have* to take direct
> responsibility for people's safety in a situation like this. It's not
> good enough to simply leave each private individual to do things for
> themselves. To what extent was there an official evacuation plan and
> facilities put in place to facilitate people leaving? To what extent
> was the city capable of dealing with eleventh-hour evacuations for
> people who changed their minds at the last minute? To what extent did
> the authorities recognise the seriousness of the threat enough to
> understand that in such circumstances it would be reasonable to
> *oblige*, rather than advise, people to evacuate?
>
> "Advising" just undersells the seriousness of the situation. I can't
> help but believe that in most first world countries people would have
> been told: You *must* get out now because if you don't there is a high
> chance you will end up dead. And adequate facilities would have been
> put in place to *make* that evacuation happen.

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