#546

Date: Mon, 5 Sep 2005 19:41:27 -0400
From: "Susan M. Smith" <smsmith@UTK.EDU>
Subject: Re: Katrina

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Thanks for your comments.

AS a tourist,and safety/emergency professional who was in New Orleans presenting research at the National Safety Council just a year ago when a voluntary evacuation was called and then a mandatory one. As I sat in a vehicle and moved 12 miles to the airport in 3 1/2 hrs and no information was provided to the 15-20,000 tourists at the convention center and ONLY one able bodied adult was allowed to go with disable people who were residents to the superdome. ALL the other 100,000 persons plus tourists were basically told to vertically evacuate. At home I could be a resource in New Orleans I was just another tourism that would potentially put a drain on the system for clean water or food.

Since vertical evacuation just means go higher in existing buildings ending up in the attic and eventually on the roof follows the same logic this year.

When people were told to vertically evacuate a year ago and no strategy was provided that I could see to get anyone who needed public transportation out of town, it is remarkable that now someone, anyone would say it is the "individual's fault that he or she did not evacuate."

My daughter has just moved to Chicago. She will bring her car back to Tennessee before winter, and I most certainly expect the government to provide a way for my daughter to evacuate Chicago if and when it is needed.

If I had time to write about the problems with the non evacuation plan for New Orleas with my graduate students and compare it to best practices used in South Carolina and Florida particularly hospitals,(which rarely if ever now include vertical evacuation be cause of wind damage and tornadoes as well as standing water) and to publish and present the information internationally in June 2006 it is a national disgrace that FEMA and the federal government did not take action to get people using public transportation out of harms way and to initiate a year long community based education program to let people know how to access this system. This was not a close kept secret. Neither were the large cuts in FEMA's already tiny budget.

Instead as someone pointed out on the time line earlier the federal government chose to cut the FEMA budget as well as other funding that was previously targeted for disaster mitigation. Under the Bush administration the disaster resistant community program in FEMA, however small under Clinton was completely eliminated from view and I believe the budget. That program was based on prevention first and then preparedness.

Thanks for all of the comments from those on the List serve.

I teach environmental health, accident prevention and emergency management to graduate students who are preparing to enter the safety, emergency management or public health fields at UT and I can assure you I never need any more real life examples for any of my classes of poor management or funding decisions by the federal government and to a large degree also the states. Starting with the NC floods, 9-11, anthrax, global warming and the last two seasons of hurricanes, the poor decisions made by the federal government both in management and funding in the area of emergency management and particularly in the areas of prevention (mitigation)are almost as bad as the ones previously and continuously made in management the nation's environmental resources. Not to even mention the short term decisions based on greed about resource management that create more hazardous environments.

Thanks to those that continue to focus attention on the real issues. IF we have a hard time believing that such poor decisions are made, think about how hard it is when you have to try explain what may be the cause of U. S.
Federal actions to those working to prevent disasters around the world. Some how greed and short term profits seem to always rise to the top.

Susan M. Smith
Associate Professor
University of Tennessee
Director UT Safety Center




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