McTag wrote:I am interested in how society will deal with this...America is a "self-help" culture, it seems to me, and would not naturally react as, say, Holland or Switzerland might.
Also, there are seemingly conflicting authorities who did not at first work well together. But now a large social programme is necessary. What a huge and unprecedented task.
I am sure by now, a chain of command is established and coordinated work is being planned, on all possible fronts:
Relief work, housing work, medical work, social work, waste disposal, urban clearance, civil engineering construction on levees, causeways, ports, pumps, sewers
Urban planning, future flood protection, insurance losses and compensation, demolition, renewal...
Unprecedented, and unimaginable. It will take decades. However the will seems to be there to do it- to restore and improve the city, I mean.
I think you are correct in noting the difference in the structural responses here and in (say) Holland or Switzerland. Interesting tradeoffs, both good and bad. Our constitution places primary power and authority in local government, confining Federal power to fairly well-defined limits. Moreover our culture resists the kind of authoritarian structures that have enabled the Swiss & Dutch to accomplish so many often impressive things. I believe this is a necessary component of our adaptability and ability to assimilate so many people of such varying origins. (I don't suggest that no improvements could be made, but rather that this central tendency has some necessary and beneficial features.)
The inadequacy of the stormwater systems in and around New Orleans has been well-known in engineering circles here for many decades. One can only wonder at the municipal government that permitted such widespread home construction on a dangerous floodplain, with such inadequate protections.
Overall, I believe the responses of even the local governments to the hurricane were adequate, It was the second, related disaster of the failure of the levees that occurred about 40 hours after the storm passed that created a new situation well beyond their ability to manage.
The reconstruction effort will indeed take a long time, but the region has recovered well from such things before. Gulfport Mississippi was hit harder by this hurricane than was New Orleans, and It was nearly destroyed by Hurricane Camille (I think) about 25 years ago. I do believe that the lowest lying regions of New Orleans should not be rebuilt, and instead a very serious program of stormwater management should be put in place together with appropriate restrictions on land use. Doing this well will require that the politics of Louisiana demonstrate degrees of maturity, ethics, and competence which they have not often achieved.
