Originally posted by aldo_14
True (albeit the physical damage to buildings and roads was far more severe), but the Tsunami was across a markedly larger area of 13 countries, including a warzone (Aceh). Over 1.1 million were also left displaced, again across a large area. As with New Orleans, there was the threat of disease (again, the geographical scale and crippled infrastructure made it more difficult to feasibly relocate survivors from areas with bodies) necessitating action to cleanup bodies.
So IMO it's unfair to suggest the action to get aid to, what, 100,000 survivors in a flooded but limited geographical area (especially the Superdome and adjoing Conference Centre) is in any way harder than getting aid to over 1 million people spread across completely devastated areas spanning 13 nations. Especially given that Katrina occurred in a nation which had the resources to react with the likes of airdrops or amphibious vehicles, which may not have been true of most of the nations affected by the Tsunami.
Don't forget to count the remaining 400-odd thousand from NO who are very much displaced, plus all the others from the various other places severely affected. (Wikipedia puts the population of
greater New Orleans at about 1.3 million people, but I've never heard any news about the greater region. I wonder how affected it is) According to wikipedia, there's over a million people displaced. Geographically it's a smaller area, but in terms of people it's nearly the same.
It's bad enough dealing with floods further upstream (we've had some bad ones in the last few years), a city that's below sea level has got to be the worst possible case for recovery work. I pity the poor bastards who have to fix things.
Originally posted by StratComm
That's the thing. The after-the-fact response was inadequate by just about all measures. However, I saw a particularly relevant quote on CNN sometime from some US official (I don't remember who, I'm afraid):
The "we" here is key. I don't see how a 3rd-world country could respond better. However, Western efforts can certainly do better where beurocracy isn't involved. There's a pretty fundamental difference there, and saying that a 3rd world country can't respond in a more appropriate manner isn't the same as saying that victims in a 3rd world country cannot be helped in a more efficient way. The problem is the beurocracy much more than the planning.
Regarding this, I found out earlier today that apparently the only
legal way Bush could have poured in troops ASAP would be to essentially read the riot act (something to do with insurrection measures or something, I'd have to look it up) and take over, as the deployment of extra-state national guard is by invite only except during said times of crisis. Hamstrung by your own laws.
Originally posted by karajorma
And do you think the Bagladeshi army is still assembling 4 days after the event? In fact name one third world country where the army was not doing something major 3 days after the event.
As I mentioned before, the national guard is not
supposed to be the first responders. That task falls on the local police, fire and other emergency services. The problem was that those services got overwhelmed.
Moreover, the guard
were in Katrina within 48 hours (I couldn't find anything more specific) distributing aid. But the US cannot simply shuffle units around willy-nilly without going through legal hoops. See my commentary above. Jurisdictional issues caused serious problems for the US efforts.
Anything else will have to be taken to another time, because it's too late here for me to look up anything and write anything more.
