Flood Relief: How it should be done.

[phantom power]

The contrast is astonishing. Just the fact that they maintain a "six story underground disaster unit." We here in the U.S. have nothing like that. Nothing. As Krugman said, we've elected to power people who are "ideologically committed to the idea that government is useless."

Flood Relief: How it should be done. Dutch broadcaster and human rights activist Frank Tiggelaar writes:

Dear Andras, Laura,

Watching events unfold in the New Orleans area I had flashbacks of the 1995 river Rhine and Meuse floods in Holland. Then, in just under two days aurthorities staged a forced evacuation of almost half a million people (total Dutch pop. is 16 million) and 2 million heads of cattle, pigs etc. It was the most orderly mass-operation I have ever seen.

I live near Holland's main disaster hospital AMC, which can effectively triple its capacity from 1,200 to 4,000 patients in 3 hours by opening up its six-story undergound disaster unit, and witnessed how hundreds of ambulances, army trucks and dozens of medicopters (including German and Belgian air-borne operating theatres) brought in hospital patients, people from care homes and the disabled from the disaster areas. Roads were closed to all other traffic, in hospitals across the country an overwhelming - and fortunatly unnecessary - number of staff and volunteers were on stand-by.

The material damage was incredible, but there were no casualties, there were three meals every day for every temporarily displaced man, woman and child, all cows were fed and milked, there was no looting. National public TV within days set up a disaster charity show which raised over 60M guilders (EUR 30M) to pay for damages not covered by insurance.

What I'm seeing on TV now is a third-world country with a government unwilling or incompetent to fulfill its tasks. I feel very, very sorry for the residents of the area.

Frank
http://gadflyer.com/flytrap/index.php?Week=200535#2129

[Inland]

1. A government that works

What would that be like?

[phantom power]

2. Disaster planners call it "surge capacity."

The ability to rapidly expand services like hospitals, food supply, etc, beyond the normal day-to-day capacity.

Here in the US, we have basically no surge capacity. Why? Because everything is fucking privatized, and maintaining surge capacity is not profitable. No privately run organization will ever develop surge capacity. Only a government can do that.

If there is one lesson that people learn from this, I hope it's that. But I can tell already that nobody has learned anything. The people who need to learn it most are already blaming the victims.