Katrina fall-out

On 2005-09-01, john smith wrote:
Dylan Smith wrote:
It would have to be 'whatever' because tens of thousands of New Orleans
residents DO NOT own cars and there aren't enough buses to go around.

100 city buses each carrying 75 people 200 miles inland could relocate
65,000 people in three days, distributing them so as not to cause an
undue burden on any one geographic are and resources.

The math doesn't work out for that.
The roads were jam packed leaving New Orleans, with traffic moving very
slowly. 80% of the population was already in their cars, and the
freeways were choked.
A contraflow was set up on major routes, so the return trip
would have had to have been made on more minor routes. Average speeds
for the city buses would have been 15 mph at best from sitting in
traffic for hours followed by a relatively slow run (city buses don't
tend to have a particularly high speed due to their normal usage
patterns) once they were in the clear.

What 100 city buses could do in a non-emergency situation when the
freeways had normal traffic flows is totally irrelevant to what they can
do when every major route is running at parking lot speeds.

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

There's also an emotional aspect to leaving that you, accustomed
as you are to travelling routinely throughout the country, won't
understand. A lot of these people have never been more than 25-30 miles
from the home they were raised in. They may be in harm's way, but
it's a familiar place. Even a lot of the middle-class inhabitants of the
city can't understand how someone could move so far away (like maybe
150 miles) from everything they grew up with and all their friends and
family. After all, if you're that far away aren't you in a different
country?

Translation: they are ignorant and uneducated, incapable of logical
reasoning? Stay alive or feel good? Hmmm... what should I do?

Thank you. I couldn't have said it better.

What some people call "tradition" and "the comfort of staying near home"
many of us call "stupid" and "ignorant".

Those people died for NOTHING.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

You must be a Socialist. Steal from one and give to another.


"Guy Elden Jr" wrote in message
oups.com...
The people looting for food and water - I'm ok with. The people looting
for fancy clothes, jewelry, etc, I'm all with the original poster on.

--
Guy

The challenge getting folks on the bus three days in advance is an
exercise left to the reader.

Friday morning, Katrina was a cat 1 just south of Naples, Florida some
600 miles from New Orleans. The west coast of Florida was still on
hurricane watches and warnings so motivating anybody in New Orleans to
evacuate would have been difficult.

"john smith" wrote in message
.. .
Dylan Smith wrote:
It would have to be 'whatever' because tens of thousands of New
Orleans
residents DO NOT own cars and there aren't enough buses to go around.

100 city buses each carrying 75 people 200 miles inland could
relocate 65,000 people in three days, distributing them so as not to
cause an undue burden on any one geographic are and resources.

I would have been in my plane/van/car/whatever, aimed north...


Right. Like the guy with one leg that had to be carried for blocks to get
into the Superdome. How far north you reckon he would've gotten?

George, the people in the Superdome were the *smart* ones.

I'm not talking about them. I'm referring to folks who -- in the face of
overwhelming evidence of impending doom -- decided to "sit it out" in homes
along the Mississippi and Alabama coastlines. They were underneath a giant
bull's eye that everyone in the world could see on live TV -- yet they chose
(and yes, it *was* a choice) to "leave it in the Lord's hands." (That's a
direct quote from a woman I heard on CNN several days ago...)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:1xtRe.320308$xm3.164023@attbi_s21...
JH Why the hell were they there?

Ah, finally we see an example of "conservative compassion."

???

Let's see, Jim Cantori (Sp?) on the Weather Channel told 'em...

Their State Governments told 'em....

CNN told 'em...

Fox News told 'em...

How many people have to tell these dumb asses to GET THE HELL OUT OF DODGE
when there is a Level 5 hurricane bearing down on them, before they
actually
listen?

I said the same thing at first, but I've learned a bit since then.

1. It wasn't a category 5 until pretty much the last minute. It took even
the forecasters by surprise.

2. These folks have been through some serious storms in the past, including
Camille. Old timers there remember Camille and stayed put because they felt
nothing could be worse than that storm. They were very wrong, but they have
been on the winning side of this bet so many times since Camille.

3. NO is very very poor. This affects what and how folks do things. Really
poor folks don't hardly ever go ANYWHERE. They walk to the grocery store,
post office etc. Especially the elderly (who lived through Camille--see
point no. 2) It's not foremost in their mind to jump in their car and get
out. Hell, there's a good chance they don't have a car! If you don't believe
me, go to a grocery store in a poor section of town. You'll see shopping
carts all over the place from where people push their carts home.

4. Even if they could get somewhere, where would they go with little money?
Who would they stay with? When all your family lives in NO, and you don't
have much money, you have few options.

Even middle class folks are in serious trouble. They evacuated, but their
houses were leveled. I saw a family on TV who was living in their car in
front of a CVS pharmacy. There are countless stories like this playing out
all over the gulf coast right now. It is terrible.

Regardless of why people stayed in NO, they are there and we need to help
them. They have lost literally everything they have. Pointing our fingers at
the vicitms right now is not helping.

-Trent
PP-ASEL

And this is for Jay: can't you show, just once, even one day after a
major disaster, some normal human compassion?

I show compassion privately, and with my check-book.

On an aviation newsgroup, where we discuss things in more scientific,
logical terms (I hope!), I express outrage and disbelief.

They are not mutually exclusive.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

It's the only country with so many fat people, period.

And that has a lot more to do with the huge fraction of processed
foods and fast food restaurants with grossly oversized proportions,
than anything else.

Clearly you've missed the point.

Or, more likely, simply ignored something you apparently wish to deny -- so
let me spell it out for you:

In America -- by comparison to the rest of the world -- there are no poor
people. What we call "poor" here would be rich beyond measure in many
parts of world.

Now, on the other hand, here in the Midwest, in hundreds of dying farm
communities, there are plenty of people living in aching poverty rather than
shame themselves by living on the government dole. Pride still lives in
this part of the world, and I have known many people who would die before
asking for help.

But that doesn't change the fact that -- if they so choose (and, yes, it
*is* a choice) -- in America the poor need not do without.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

I was wondering how long it would be before one of you OT crie babies
would start crying again.

Bryan "The Monk" Chaisone

I'm going to catch some crap for doubting the wisdom of a pilot, but
even the smartest of us do what others think weird. There was a poster
who moved his plane to Dothan, Alabama which is 160 miles east of
Mobile. My immediate question was why not fly due west into Texas since
these monsters tend to move north and east.

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:jHDRe.321253

George, the people in the Superdome were the *smart* ones.

I'm not talking about them. I'm referring to folks who -- in the face
of overwhelming evidence of impending doom -- decided to "sit it out"
in homes along the Mississippi and Alabama coastlines. They were
underneath a giant bull's eye that everyone in the world could see on
live TV -- yet they chose (and yes, it *was* a choice) to "leave it in
the Lord's hands." (That's a direct quote from a woman I heard on CNN
several days ago...)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"