The Big Easy Flooded

My brother emailed this link showing "before and after" photos...

Reminds me of Hurricane Felix (?I think it was Felix)...I was due for a medical conference back east, and was scheduled to be at the Inner Harbor...but I had arrived early and after visiting relatives, decided that I didn't mind tornadoes but a hurricane due to hit was something different...and instead found a flight out on standby the evening before...

Well, Felix missed Baltimore, and the lady at Johns Hopkins was irate that I had left, but I finally got my money back...

However, my son was in North Carolina visiting a sick relativewho lived on the coast, and ended up being evacuated inland for two weeks...because although they had a car, the relative needed care...and the roads were flooded and he couldn't go home alone...

Hurricanes are bad, but people forget that people die afterwards...the roads may be impassable, there are floods, and often no electricity...food cannot be imported into cities, and gas and water lines may be broken...

Civilization is often fragile, and we learn these lessons over and over again...

So why is anyone amazed that stores are broken into by desperate people-- or that criminals stayed behind to loot jewelry and other expensive items from an empty city?

My question is why they didn't evacuate the hospitals.

When Grand Forks and Fargo were theatened by the Red River, we evacuated all our patients home...and as you know, Grand Forks had a levy break and ended up under water.

Most cities have such disaster plans...or make them quickly...everyone will blame FEMA and the Feds, but you know, the EMS system is supposed to have contingency plans for such things...

(HMMM the CDC link is down...hello fellahs USELESS LINK HERE...)

So our hearts go out to poor people...but since N.O. almost got hit last year, one would think they would have been better prepared...

Lots of news about lack of supplies etc...but I know from past experience that lots of Oklahoma Baptist churches filled their vans with food and water and blankets, and headed south with people from the youth groups at the first sign of problems...of course, since N.O. is isolated, such help probably is going to the other 1 million displaced...who are living with relatives or in Baptist churches in Baton Rouge, Shreeveport or the thousands of small towns nearby...