[Vision2020] Netherland's Approach Better Than New Orleans

[Chris Storhok]

Ted,
That super volcano story sure is fascinating, I can believe the geology but
a FEMA detention center for 2 million people near Fairbanks, Alaska, built
in a giant mental facility...yea right..heck the State of Alaska sends most
of its prisoners and mental cases to the Lower 48.  FEMA can't even take
care of the 40,000 refugees at the Superdome.  
 
The nation as a whole has ignored our infrastructure since the 1980's   Just
take a look at the loss of rail capacity in Latah County and then multiply
that across the US.  
I attended meeting in Spokane that the US DOT held, their officials
expressed grave concern about our nations ability to handle disruption in
freight, their worse case scenarios are playing out as I type.  
 
Right now here in good old Fairbanks there are huge lines at the commissary
on Forth Wainwright and my wife was telling me that even at the Safeway in
North Pole people are stocking up and buying two to three cart loads of
food.    People have lost confidence and are scared.
 
Chris Storhok
 
 

-----Original Message-----
From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com]On
Behalf Of Tbertruss at aol.com
Sent: Friday, September 02, 2005 11:30 AM
To: vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: [Vision2020] Netherland's Approach Better Than New Orleans


All:

Those who are saying the Hurricane Katrina disaster would have been this bad
with thousands killed no matter what improvements were made to the New
Orleans levy system perhaps should study the system the Netherlands has in
place.  

It has been known for decades that the New Orleans levy system needed
improvements and modernization.  FEMA's own study of this situation revealed
this disaster could happen with a hurricane of Katrina's power.  It is clear
that funding could have been made available to improve the New Orleans levy
system to achieve greater safeguards against the catastrophic flooding we
see now.  This lack of commitment to this problem goes back before the Bush
administration, though his administration continued the neglect.

This neglect of the infrastructure that could have lessened the impact of
this disaster in waiting was deliberate ... with fingers crossed!  Just
because eventually the Mississippi River will reclaim New Orleans is no
excuse for not keeping millions of people safe.  
The approach should have been to make New Orleans as safe as practically
possible, given the fact the city was not going to be abandoned because of
its tenuous location.

Seattle is waiting for the big one (earthquake), and we could maybe get hit
when the Yellowstone supervolcano (no joke!) blows, so nature presents
future disasters of many kinds that should be planned for, if possible.  Is
Seattle going to be abandoned because of earthquake threats, or are we going
to abandon Moscow because of the Yellowstone supervolcano threat?

The first link below is about the Yellowstone supervolcano, the rest focus
on the dikes in the Netherlands.  

http://www.earthmountainview.com/yellowstone/yellowstone_press_release.htm
<http://www.earthmountainview.com/yellowstone/yellowstone_press_release.htm>


http://www.student.uib.no/~stud1713/HAZARD10.html
<http://www.student.uib.no/~stud1713/HAZARD10.html> 

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:P90uMLxZaqEJ:www.eccenet.org/Activities/E
nviron/ENVEasternscheldt.pdf+amsterdam+dikes+stronger+storm+surge
<http://www.cruise.com/LE5/Default/LocationID_9692/index.html> &hl=en 
http://www.confluence.org/confluence.php?visitid=6099
<http://www.confluence.org/confluence.php?visitid=6099> 
--------------------------

Vision2020 Post by Ted Moffett


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