Hurricanes, Hype and Hysteria

The media has fallen to new lows in the face of the hurricanes. During the early days after Katrina, we heard nothing but hysteria from the media, 10,000 people were dead in New Orleans, the city was filled with looters, thousands of people were trapped in the superdome being terrorists by rapists, somebody was shooting at helicopters, the city's streets were filled with a toxic soup of disease filled waters, the police were running away, the city would have to be abandoned forever etc. etc. etc.
Yet, little of this turned out to be true, there were only between 800 and 900 deaths. There were no rapes and murders at the Superdome, no evidence that any body took a shot at an army helicopter has been found. Less than a month has passed since Katrina most of New Orleans is pumped out and residents are returning.
The media got it wrong, badly wrong, just as they got Rita Wrong that monster hurricane turned out to be far less of a threat than we were told. All the media reports did was to make a bad situation, authorities apparently kept some relief workers out of New Orleans because of reports of shooting, etc.
Why did the media do this? Probably because of a need for drama, the media wants to be as dramatic as possible. It sells newspapers and attracts viewership. In this age of 24 hour news the media has to have something going on every five minutes or so to attract viewers. The more dramatic the better, obviously viewers are going to watch so much coverage of firemen wading around in a flooded city or people handing out food to people before changing over to TV Land for another rerun of Andy Griffith. So the media makes the story more dramatic and sensational. The situation is made worse by non journalists playing journalists, Oprah Winfrey turned up in New Orleans and aired what turned out to be false and completely hysterical comments by Mayor Ray Nagin. Nagin falsely accused his own citizens of raping and murdering each other at the Superdome on Oprah's show. Imagine the outcry if a white mayor had done that?
What this will do of course is once again undermine credibility in the news media which is already close to zero. Remember similar hype right after Sept. 11, Bin Laden is coming to blow us up with a nucler bomb or release deadly germs, or before the Iraq War tens of thousands of American casualties, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi casualties? People won't pay attention to the media.
The frightening thing coming out of this is that when there is a real threat out there and the media tries to warn us. Nobody will listen because they don't believe anything in the news with good reason. Oops that already happened in New Orleans before Katrina vast numbers of people stayed put believing the warnings to be more media hysteria. The news media has a lot to pay for, the question is how do we make them act responsibly.

Cars, Trains & Hurricanes

In the last few weeks, a lot of middle and working class Americans have arrogantly thought I'm in no danger from a major disaster like a hurricane because I have a car. If my city is threatened by some sort of catastrophe, I can simply jump in the car and drive to Uncle Bob's house in Des Moines. I won't get caught in misery and danger like those poor wretches in New Orleans.
That comforting illusion has been destroyed by Hurricane Rita. Hundreds of thousands of middle and working class Texans hopped into their cars and headed north to escape the hurricane. They found themselves trapped on gridlocked highways, many of them without any gas and empty gas tanks. The state sent out tanker trucks to bring gas to the stranded and many still didn't gas. Many people found themselves camping out in the night in their cars as the hurricane approached.
Obviously, automobiles wouldn't be a very efficient or effective method of evacuating large cities as the exodous from South Texas proves. Passenger trains on the other hand would be a very effecient and effective method of evacuating a large city. Even commuter trains would be handy, if disaster struck say Los Angeles, the city could move large numbers of people out using the Metrolink Commuter trains which can operate over the freight railroad tracks.
Now this doesn't mean that we should keep investing money in Amtrak, Amtrak as even many rail backers concede is a miserable failure. It means we should invest in a modern passenger rail network taking advantage of the latest high technology, perhaps electric powered high speed bullet trains like they have in France or Japan or maglev literally trains floating on a cushion of magnetims which is even faster and more effecient. These trains should be operated by private companies, perhaps the geniuses behind Southwest Airlines or Jet Blue could be given tax breaks or government subsidies to operate the passenger trains. The high speed trains could haul freight and packages which would generate vast amounts of income. Since they run on electricity rather than oil such trains could save a lot of money and give us a transportation system not dependent upon the Middle East.
Yes this would take years and cost money but it would benefit average Americans and it would be money we'd get back. If we could make our transportation network more effecient we'd make our economy more effecient which would benefit all Americans. More importantly Americans would have an effective means of getting around their country which wouldn't rely upon gasoline and imported oil. I wonder how many more people will have to suffer in disasters before we start thinking this way.

Cars, Trains & Hurricanes

In the last few weeks, a lot of middle and working class Americans have arrogantly thought I'm in no danger from a major disaster like a hurricane because I have a car. If my city is threatened by some sort of catastrophe, I can simply jump in the car and drive to Uncle Bob's house in Des Moines. I won't get caught in misery and danger like those poor wretches in New Orleans.
That comforting illusion has been destroyed by Hurricane Rita. Hundreds of thousands of middle and working class Texans hopped into their cars and headed north to escape the hurricane. They found themselves trapped on gridlocked highways, many of them without any gas and empty gas tanks. The state sent out tanker trucks to bring gas to the stranded and many still didn't gas. Many people found themselves camping out in the night in their cars as the hurricane approached.
Obviously, automobiles wouldn't be a very efficient or effective method of evacuating large cities as the exodous from South Texas proves. Passenger trains on the other hand would be a very effecient and effective method of evacuating a large city. Even commuter trains would be handy, if disaster struck say Los Angeles, the city could move large numbers of people out using the Metrolink Commuter trains which can operate over the freight railroad tracks.
Now this doesn't mean that we should keep investing money in Amtrak, Amtrak as even many rail backers concede is a miserable failure. It means we should invest in a modern passenger rail network taking advantage of the latest high technology, perhaps electric powered high speed bullet trains like they have in France or Japan or maglev literally trains floating on a cushion of magnetims which is even faster and more effecient. These trains should be operated by private companies, perhaps the geniuses behind Southwest Airlines or Jet Blue could be given tax breaks or government subsidies to operate the passenger trains. The high speed trains could haul freight and packages which would generate vast amounts of income. Since they run on electricity rather than oil such trains could save a lot of money and give us a transportation system not dependent upon the Middle East.
Yes this would take years and cost money but it would benefit average Americans and it would be money we'd get back. If we could make our transportation network more effecient we'd make our economy more effecient which would benefit all Americans. More importantly Americans would have an effective means of getting around their country which wouldn't rely upon gasoline and imported oil. I wonder how many more people will have to suffer in disasters before we start thinking this way.

Emergency Management

“Emergency Management” the Real Katrina Catastrophe
By Daniel G. Jennings
The real cause of much of the suffering caused by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath maybe a government dogma called Emergency Management.
The idea behind Emergency Management is that a group of bureaucrats can draw up a plan that will address all of the problems created by a disaster and implement it. These plans are usually drawn up by high paid consultants and preceded by lots of meetings where officials sit around drinking coffee and watching slide shows. The bureaucrats will then direct the disaster rescue and relief effort.
This of course is a prescription for disaster, just as no battle plan can survive contact with the enemy no emergency management plan can survive a real emergency. Bureaucrats used to sitting in offices, shuffling paper and attending meetings are ill prepared for dealing with real emergency situations.
We saw a prime example of this in Louisiana where the state department of Homeland Security the state’s emergency management agency actually hindered relief efforts. The Red Cross tried to deliver supplies to people trapped at the Superdome and other locations. Emergency managers blocked these efforts because they weren’t part of the emergency management plan. Real people suffered and suffered badly.
The only agencies that effectively helped the people in New Orleans were old fashioned results focused ones. The military, the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, the Coast Guard, the police, fire departments etc. These people effectively responded to the plan because they came in rolled up their sleeves and got to work and forget about the plans.
In other words the Emergency Managers were useless and perhaps unnecessary. Nothing shows this more than the President’s decision to pull Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown out of the disaster area and replace him with veteran Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen.
Brown of course is typical of emergency management officials, he’s a politically connected lawyer with little or no background in dealing with emergencies. Thad Allen on the other hand has decades of experience rescuing and helping the victims of accidents and disasters.
Perhaps it’s time for us to look at doing away with Emergency Management and going back to the traditional method of having established authorities, the military and charities deal with disasters. This would save taxpayer’s money and alleviate suffering.
We also should ask ourselves is the expensive new Department of Homeland Security really necessary? Will it prevent a single terrorist attack or provide an effective response to one? Or will it become a catastrophic failure like FEMA?
More importantly, we should question the mindless faith in bureaucracy and planning. Perhaps it’s time to start looking for real world responses rather than fancy plans.

More rail

Rail Transportation America’s Most Desperate Need?
By Daneil G. Jennings
Events in the last couple of weeks have exposed one of America’s most desperate shortcomings it’s lack of modern rail transportation.
First we have the hurricane in New Orleans, hundreds of thousands of poor people, elderly people, tourists, travelers and others without access to cars were trapped in the city with no way out. An efficient passenger rail system could have evacuated those people easily and effectively. Trains could have moved all those people from New Orleans to neighboring cities in a few hours. Even a good commuter or light rail system could have moved all those people out of the city to points where buses could pick them up. Yet there wasn’t such a system in place only a couple of antiquated trolley lines maintained for the tourists.
Lack of an effective modern passenger rail system caused a great deal of suffering and many unnecessary deaths in New Orleans. Yet the disaster in the Big Easy is only the tip of the iceberg, the gasoline price increases expose another part of the story that is almost as frightening.
Here in Colorado tourist business in mountain towns that rely on tourists has fallen off considerably since gas prices went up. The number of cars going into the mountains is going down and with it the money that flows into the bank accounts and pocketbooks of the people of those areas. Merchants are doing less business because people aren’t driving because of high gas prices, waiters and waitresses are getting less tips for the same reason, hotels are renting less rooms, stores selling less products. More than a few of those businesses will have to let employees go because of this lost business. Many of those people are barely eking out a living right now.
To make matters worse, investors will put less money into mountain towns. Intrawest has already delayed a major redevelopment project at the Snowmass Ski Area near Aspen. Fewer construction jobs will be a result as will fewer jobs at cement plants, lumber mills and other businesses that supply contractors will be a result.
Now just imagine if the tourists who wanted to visit Colorado’s mountains the golfers, the fishermen, the daytrippers etc., had an alternative to the car. Many of them would have come anyway but there is no alternative. There is some airline service but its so expensive only rich people can afford it and the planes only serve a couple of towns. Amtrak runs a passenger train that attracts few riders and a local company runs a ski train that isn’t running right now. That’s about it, for people who want to reach Colorado’s mountains but can’t afford to drive there is no alternative.
The economic impact of these high gas prices and the higher airfares we’ll soon see will be a disaster in many American tourist destinations. All the people who rely on marginal tourist industry jobs many of America’s most desperate will be in trouble, many of them will out of work.
Yet it’s not just the tourist industry, take farmers, many of them won’t be able to get their crops to market this year because ports on the Gulf are closed. If we had increased railroad capacity we could get their crops to other ports and export them. Many farmers will suffer from this.
As will us all, we all rely on products hauled by trucks and trains that run on diesel fuel. Oil prices go up transportation costs go up. So do the prices at our local Wal-Mart and the neighborhood supermarket. We all pay more and it doesn’t have to be this way.
If America had a modern electrified railroad system we could move a lot perhaps most of that freight around the country using electric trains not reliant on diesel fuel. These trains would be faster, more efficient and haul more. If we had such a rail network, we would probably still be paying more at the pump but not at the grocery store.
And the frightening thing is other nations are investing untold billions on such rail networks while America sleeps. China is building a network of electrified rails that reaches to Tibet, Europe is unifying and modernizing its rail system, Russia has electrified the Trans Siberian Railroad from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok. In other words these nations will be able to compete and survive because they have transportation alternatives that we don’t.
Hopefully the catastrophic hurricane and the oil crisis will wake us up and show us what why we need rail. If they don’t we’re going to face a far worse crisis in the near future.

Hurricane

The Hurricane and the President
By Daniel G. Jennings
The media has already decided that the chaos, confusion and misery caused by the government’s inability to deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is all President Bush’s fault. Commentators like NBC blabbermouth Tim Russert are saying it’s all Bush’s fault.
What we are seeing in Louisiana and Mississippi is a catastrophic systems failure, the entire system of government and emergency relief seems to have broken down. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong, no one man not even the President can be blamed for that.
The story on the Gulf Coast is the inability of all levels of our government, state, local and federal to deal with the disaster. Law enforcement, the military, emergency services, social services, and political administration have all failed and failed miserably.
Yet that’s not the way the media seems to see it they are engaging in a game of blame Mr. Bush. Average people are wondering why the media is spending its time smearing the president in a time of national crisis.
There are many reasons why the media is doing this. For one it simplifies the story the media likes simple stories good guys vs. bad guys. Creating a villain to blame also puts a human face on the story and makes it more melodramatic. It provides conflict and gist for the armies of political commentators on the networks’ payrolls.
It also helps the media cover up what amounts to a complete failure on the part of our classes of political leadership. Politicians of both parties failed to plan for this catastrophe or to create the mechanisms needed to deal with it. The media failed to expose the shortcomings of the system or investigate the lack of preparedness. Commentators failed to talk about this, instead they blabbered on about Cindy Sheahan and other artificial stories.
The catastrophe on the Gulf Coast exposes what amounts to a complete breakdown of our political system and its inability to meet even the basic needs of citizens. This is a disaster on the magnitude of the Great Depression or Pearl Harbor and our so called leaders don’t know how to react to it.
Worse even if they wanted to respond to the disaster the system may not let them do so. It’s obvious that traditional means of disaster response are not going to work here. New means are needed as are serious discussions of the problems involved.
Unfortunately that’s not what we’re going to get from either the media or our political leaders. Instead we’ll get a round of blame Bush and conservatives circling the wagon and defending the White House. Even if a politician wanted to engage in serious talk the media mavens would quickly redirect the conversation to bash Bush.
How many disasters will our great nation have to endure and how many innocent people will have to suffer before we wake up and realize that the whole system is broken. Then maybe we can start working to fix it rather than trying to destroy each other.

Katrina

Note: I'm loathe to post this next comment because I don't want to be in the company of such witches as Ann Coulter and Cindy Sheehan who are taking advantage of tragedy for cheap publicity. Still the point is important so I'll make it.
Hurricane Katrina Proves We Need Passenger Rail
By Daniel G. Jennings
The effects of Hurricane Katrina upon the grand old city of New Orleans once again demonstrate America’s need for a modern passenger rail network and worse lack of such a network.
News reports indicate that thousands perhaps tens of thousands of people were trapped in New Orleans a city that sits below sea level but is surrounded by water on two sides as Katrina approached. Some of these people were the usual it can’t happen to me morons who stick around for any disaster (note the deaths of people that stupid might be a good thing at least for the gene pool), but judging from news reports the vast majority of them were average people trapped in the city by circumstance. For example 9,000 poor people were herded into the Superdome, a flimsy structure built for football not survival and were there when wind ripped off the stadium’s roof.
The reason these people were in the Superdome and others were trapped in other parts of the city was that authorities apparently had no way of moving them out. Some of these people were those too poor to own cars (a predicament many of us will soon be in judging by gas prices), others were those who couldn’t drive because of disability or age, some were those who choose not to own cars because of economics or convenience, Joe Working Class who can afford a mortgage payment on a decent house if he has no car payment. Some of course were those who had cars, but the car broke down and had no money for a mechanic or worse had a good car and money for repair but the garage was closed the mechanic having wisely left town. Rental cars were also unavailable the car rent agents having fled as well. The bus depot will be closed, and the taxi cab drivers fled preferring to drive their families to safely.
There was no way for these people to leave town, aircraft can only carry a limit number of people and can’t land in say downtown. Military helicopters well, they’re all over in Iraq fighting the war. Buses well they use the highways, what if the highways are gridlocked?
In other words there was no way for large numbers of New Orleans residents, rich, poor, middle class, white, black etc. to quickly get out of town. Even as the hurricane approached, all they could do was hunker down. In the aftermath all they can do is sit around in the flooded city and wait for evacuation.
The sad thing is that if Katrina had hit New Orleans back in 1935 or 1945 there would have been a cheap and simple way to move all those people to Baton Rouge or if necessary Little Rock, Birmingham, Dallas, Houston and Nashville: trains. Back in 1935 the National Guard and regular military could have simply herded all the residents of New Orleans down to the train stations and had them board passenger trains, many diverted from other lines. The trains would then have taken everybody who could have reached them to safety.
Today that wouldn’t be possible we don’t have a passenger train network in most of the country. If a catastrophe hits say a big earthquake in California that collapses the freeways or a terror attack in which a dirty bomb (a conventional explosive that spreads radiation) is unleashed in a major American city. (and a dirty bomb is just as likely to be set off by a couple of college drop out Marxists trying to stop President Bush’s evil plot of world conquest as Bin Laden’s followers). Americans may have no way to leave their homes or hometowns.
They’ll get in their cars and head for the Interstate only to find it gridlocked. If they have money they’ll head for the airport only to find that only a few thousand can fly out. Or they’ll drive out into the countryside hoping that Aunt Bee and Andy will put them up out in Mayberry only to find that Mayberry is only found in TV Land reruns. They’ll approach small town USA only to find some redneck with a deputy’s badge and an assault rifle telling them to go to the next town. Or worse Boss Hogg and Sheriff Roscoe charging $1,000 a night for a hotel room in Hazard County. Many will try to take the bus finding only that the bus runs on the same congested freeways as every other vehicle.
Perhaps we’ll learn why passenger rail is vital when hundreds of thousands or millions of Americans find themselves herded into empty cargo containers on rail cars by the National Guard (recently augmented by heavily tattooed “volunteers” from the prison system) and hauled to relocation camps in the countryside after some catastrophe. Perhaps then we’ll realize why we needed passenger rail.