Lots of those comments are quite reasonable. For example: “…it is more tragic when someone dies because they have nowhere to go, than when only their own bullheaded stupidity is to blame.” This was in the context of discussing people who couldn’t for economic/physical reasons leave New Orleans vs those folks with cars who chose not to leave even after the mandatory evacuation was issued. And how could anyone in New Orleans fail to grasp the problem so completely that they didn’t even bother to stockpile a couple day’s worth of drinking water? I couldn’t believe it when I saw victim after victim going by on TV saying, “we haven’t had anything to drink since the storm hit”. Poor people have agency too. You can buy five gallons of sealed water at the market for what — less than $5 around here. Hell, you can even reuse old milk containers.
Are you out of your fucking mind, earl? Huh? These people got washed out of their goddamned houses. What the fuck were they supposed to do, swim back and get something, not because it was necessary for survival but because fucks like you wouldn’t find SOME REASON to blame them later on?
I have finally realized that the best superpower to have would be the ability to teleport instantaneously behind anyone who has just said something incredibly stupid, and give them a little smack on the head.
Fuck you ginmar. I lived in Tampa. Everyone had a hurricane kit at home. You have bottled water at home and take at least some with you if you evacuate.
Earl has a good point. Folks were told -or ordered- to evacuate, chose the “it can’t happen to me” tactic, and if you haven’t lived in hurricane territory…well, you just don’t know. Everyone who had some sense had a hurricane kit. You choose to stay, and accept what comes – and it is scary. Or, you choose to go, and not know what you will be coming back to and IF you can get back.
How much do those hurricane kits cost? Are they more or less than paying the couple hundred bucks in gas money that getting out of New Orleans would have cost? Do they cost more than buying a car just to flee a city? Do any of these items cost so little that they could be purchased by someone who works for minimum wage, even though it was the end of the month and the money is all tapped out?
How much do those hurricane kits cost? More than people who cluck over the “stupid unprepared” got for their worthless shriveled souls.
Yay. More victim blaming. Well, all those senior citizens I saw on the news certainly are to blame for being old and not able to walk. Yes, some people stayed who could have left, and they stayed for many, many reasons. Did they deserve what happened next? Of course not. If you think you shouldn’t help someone because they made a decision you don’t agree with you are a fool and worse, a very miserable human being. A final point. Any disaster plan needs to take into account the fact that not everyone can evacuate themselves.
I couldn’t even read this. I am fortunately visiting my family in Houston this week and was able to volunteer today. It gave me faith in humanity–so many people willing to take in refugees…
Sure, we have earthquake kits here in California, too (not having hurricanes). And after an earthquake there’s always a run on the store for bottled water, that people presumably didn’t already have stockpiled beforehand. Because it’s pretty easy to wind up gradually using up your bottled water and forgetting to replace it. But more than that, there’s no guarantee that, if your house is destroyed, you always managed to get your whole week’s worth of supplies that you’re supposed to have (and maybe even did have) out with you. We know that not everyone managed to get transport out, that some people tried to rent cars and couldn’t, that some people tried to take the bus and found buses no longer operating. We know that there were people stuck there, not by choice. Why we should assume, once they were stuck in the path of the earthquake, that they all had lots and lots of time to hang onto their fresh water, as they fled from one part of the city to another, I can’t imagine. Jane Galt’s own comments (not those of most of her commenters) actually had some sense to them, since she did make the point that there were people who were just plain stuck. But people who want to say that no one can ever be stuck in the path of a natural disaster, as long as they have a day’s notice to leave (a day’s notice to evacuate a whole darn city, with no plan for evacuating the poor and the frail), have a bigger screw loose than those who got stuck in the hurricane.
“How much do those hurricane kits cost?” Not much. If you can afford to eat, you can afford your hurricane kit. Batteries for your flashlight and radio, drinking water to last a week, canned and packaged food to do the same. When you hear the hurricane is on its way, put all that stuff in a box and be ready to grab it on your way out the door.
Well, I’m disabled, so it’s possible that if I drowned in my own apartment, the right-wingers would say that it was ok to feel a little bad for me. But there is no way in hell that I could put a week’s worth of canned food and water in a box and “grab” it on the way out the door. On my bad days, I have trouble walking period. Walking with a really heavy box is not going to happen. And I don’t think that’s unusual. There are at least two people in my ordinary old urban apartment building who would be in the same boat. There’s also a single mother with three little kids, and I think she’d have trouble putting food and water for three in a box and grabbing it. I would kind of like to blame the victims, because the implications of this tragedy scare the shit out of me. But I don’t think it really works.
I have finally realized that the best superpower to have would be the ability to teleport instantaneously behind anyone who has just said something incredibly stupid, and give them a little smack on the head. Dibs. When you hear the hurricane is on its way, put all that stuff in a box and be ready to grab it on your way out the door. “Drinking water for a week” for one person–let’s see, the Red Cross recommends your disaster kit contain “at least three gallons of water per person.” That’s pretty heavy for one, on top of your week’s worth of packaged food. Now I’m guessing Dave and Earl are single, or have grown children, because personally I’m not thinking my grade-school-aged kids are going to be hauling their three gallons apiece very far. Look, we all agree that being prepared for a disaster is a fine thing, more people should do it, and golly, perhaps even the evil socialist government could hand out some of this stuff for free or cheap. What I’m not getting is this idea that if a disaster victim is not perfectly taken care of through their own heroic pre-planning, that they’re stupid scum who don’t deserve help.
Not much. If you can afford to eat, you can afford your hurricane kit. Batteries for your flashlight and radio, drinking water to last a week, canned and packaged food to do the same. The thing that has enraged me more than any other this week about the response of what I used to think of as my fellow Americans? The utter stubborn, relentless cluelessness about the conditions facing the bottom 25% of the economic ladder. Have you ever scraped together a food budget for month after month, Thompson? Have you ever missed a meal you didn’t want to miss? Have you ever had your food money run out two weeks before you could expect your next check? Keep a week’s worth of food by the door. Right. There are millions of people in this country, Thompson, who can barely buy the week’s worth of food they need for the week they are in. And “grabbing a week’s worth of food and water on your way out the door?” A gallon a day per person in heat like a NOLA summer. Minimum. A week, last time I checked, had seven days in it. Seven days times a gallon a day times eight pounds per gallon equals fifty-six pounds of water per person per week. Plus a week’s worth of canned food. And batteries for the flashlight and the radio. Oh, I’m sorry. Did you forget the thing about most of the people involved not having SUVs to load up with their week’s worth of canned food and drinking water?
I second what Lynn said. I live in CA as well and I can just see a particular Uncle of mine saying something similar about people being responsible for making sure they are prepared for disasters, but I doubt he had the requisite three gallons of water per person in his house before last weekend, even if he does now. I know my parent’s don’t have the canned food we are supposed to stock, and the only reason they have water is because they buy bottled water at Cosco.
“Well, I’m disabled…” In that case, you’ll need to recruit a dependable, able-bodied person to come by and help you out when it’s time to go. “Have you ever scraped together a food budget for month after month, Thompson? Have you ever missed a meal you didn’t want to miss? Have you ever had your food money run out two weeks before you could expect your next check?” IF you can afford to eat, you can afford your hurricane kit. Don’t be a spaz.
Not much. If you can afford to eat, you can afford your hurricane kit. So, given the choice between eating and a hurricane kit, people were supposed to pick the hurricane kits? Because it’s their fault, no doubt, that the levee wasn’t repaired and broke.
I live in this heat and I’m really quite used to it, and I’m in excellent shape and I have a boyfriend who’s quite strong and we could definitely carry more than your average person if we had to flee something on foot and we still would not be strong enough to carry enough supplies to survive a week in this heat while waiting for the federal government to think about coming to get us. Expecting the elderly, the disabled and even just people with children to do so in inhumane. The funny part of it is the people who are saying, “Fuck the poor; they need to take care of themselves,” are the first to piously call themselves “Christians”.
In that case, you’ll need to recruit a dependable, able-bodied person to come by and help you out when it’s time to go. Golly. You don’t say. Any suggestions about where I should find a dependable, able-bodied person who will be able to carry my week’s worth of supplies on top of his or her own?
If the right-wingers had coached Jesus it wouldn’t have been much of a religion. Consider: – Forgiving the sinners? They only have themselves to blame. – Sacrifying yourself for somebody else? Somebody unrelated? Now, that’s just so un-american…
There is not a single thing that Jane Galt wrote that isn’t true. Just because something sounds bad, doesn’t make it wrong. People should be able to take care of themselves, it isn’t unChristian (though, for the record, I’m not a Christian) to say so. Try not to be so emotional and just look at the facts of the situation. As for ‘victim-blaming’, why does everything have to be blame in order to be discussed. The victims certainly had a role in their situation, no one is blaming them for what happened just as I’m sure no one on here is blaming Bush. Right? Right?
Calm down, Karol. The issue I have is the statements in the comments. As it says in the post at Corrente.
Just because something sounds bad, doesn’t make it wrong. Just because non-Objectivists disagree with it doesn’t make it correct, Karol. In that case, you’ll need to recruit a dependable, able-bodied person to come by and help you out when it’s time to go. See, guys, this is the mindset you just can’t get around. Planning can help mitigate with the consequences of a disaster; therefore, if you suffer adverse consequences, you must have planned inadequately, and you are a scumsucking idiot who deserves whatever happens to you, unlike us clever people. QED.
The victims certainly had a role in their situation, no one is blaming them for what happened just as I’m sure no one on here is blaming Bush. Stupid victims. They should have known that they don’t live in America anymore but a banana republic. They didn’t get the memo–go fuck yourselves, poor people, because unlike in the past, no one is coming to help you.
Many of these situations could have been, in the most ideal possible world, worked around or prevented with a combination of quick community organization and good planning and forethought. If I’d just seen my neighbors drown, lost family members, been, potentially, shot at, and lost everything but the clothes on my back I’m not sure I would be capable of any of those. And I am a medium-affluent survivalist type. What are you supposed to carry, your baby or your survival kit? If people were less poor and communities less fragmented, things would have been different. If the damn levees had been fixed, or the national guard been where they were supposed to be, or the right orders given at the right time, things would have been different. Strong, well-educated communities that are at least a little above the poverty line are, in fact, better equipped to handle emergencies. So are trained, prepared aid workers with helicopters and amphibious vehicles. We should have all of the above. I am also going to throw in this: (since I’m determined not to rant on my own damn blog): I know this might not be very popular right here, but what the hell is with the organizations mounting rescues for housepets? It’s a goddamn dog. There are children still dying in New Orleans, and organizations are rallying to rescue stranded cats. I say this as a pet owner: isn’t it a little, I don’t know, wrong to choose a pet over a senior citizen?
Agreed on the pet thing. I *love* my pets. I’ve spent a fortune on veterinary care for one of them. But if I had to choose between saving a human I’d never met and one of my beloved pets, it wouldn’t be a choice. Ultimately human beings have to come first. I can see having an effort like this after the waters have receded, the dead bodies have been removed, and everybody who needs rescuing has been rescued. At that point I could see an effort like this being needed for the pets who were still alive. And I totally support organizations which I understand are donating pet food for displaced families with pets, or fostering the pets of people who aren’t allowed to keep their pets with them in the shelters. Also, prior to the storm, the city zoo’s animals were apparently evacuated to other zoos, and will likely remain there for a while. But search and rescue for animals when there are still humans waiting on rooftops with no food or clean water? Sorry. This animal lover says unacceptable. Oh, and how anybody can justify a disaster plan which does not include a plan to evacuate those people who can’t evacuate under their own steam is quite bewildering to me. The poor, the sick, and the elderly are supposed to be a top priority in disaster planning, because they’re the most vulnerable population. Maybe it’s because I live in Canada, but in every natural disaster we’ve had that I can remember, the government was able to bus out people who didn’t have the means to get out on their own. I guess I was lulled into a false sense of complacency, and assumed that any civilized, wealthy Western country would do the same.
I’m not sure pet rescue is precluding people rescue. Some things I’ve heard indicate that a lot of people are being rescued while clinging to a pet. I would not force a suffering person to give up an animal in that situation.
“Drinking water for a week” for one person–let’s see, the Red Cross recommends your disaster kit contain “at least three gallons of water per person.” That’s pretty heavy for one, on top of your week’s worth of packaged food. Not at all – you just have to be careful in packing your SUV. Why is it that some commentators here sound like they’ve never heard of this book?…
Phoe, I thought that book kind of sucked, but that’s just me. After all, ol’ girl could go home and use her credit cards at the end of the day. For a rich cracker-ass cracker intending to dabble with the idea of class I suppose it’s a decent book, but then I fancy myself a critic. Shutting up…
A lot of us Americans were complacent enough to assume that any civilized, Western country would bus people out. You know, when Loma Prieta hit, and once I heard that I’d just been in a quake bigger than the one that hit Armenia, I remember thinking, I’m so glad I live in America. See, our death toll was lower, because we know how to build things right, and we make sure things are made to code. And I guess I assumed, whatever disaster hit, that, yes, people would die, but we would still be the country that knows how to do things right, and manage to organize things so we had the least deaths humanly possible. I never dreamed we’d leave the poor and the sick behind.
This is as much a moment of culture shift as 9/11. The selfish swing we’ve taken towards individual responsiblity in place of communal responsibility has caused avoidable deaths, and unnecessary suffering and we’ve watched it all impact Americans on TV. A lot of unengaged americans just got a wake up call that their government does not reflect their values (like, most of us care about our neighbors, and want to help each other). A lot of Americans are angry, and it’s about time…
Any suggestions about where I should find a dependable, able-bodied person who will be able to carry my week’s worth of supplies on top of his or her own? That’s not his problem. He’s blessed us with his wisdom, and that relieves him of further moral responsibility. Just as in his response to me: “don’t be a spaz, if you can afford to eat, then you can get out of danger.” If you cannot afford to eat, your death is of no importance.
As far as the box full of a week of food and water. If it is by the door and you are hacking your way through the roof to get away from the flood it won’t do you any good but then again there are so many elderly disabled poor people who can easily hoist 30 or 40 pounds up to the attac in a panic while herding the kids up there as well. And I suppose you could keep a full scuba suit in the attic so after the water has reached roof level you can dive back in and retreive your bottles of water and canned food. Geez how simple is that?
The Amazon critiques of Barbara Ehrenreich’s book, ‘Nickel and Dimed’, mentioned by Phoenician in comment 29, are quite interesting. Especially the one by Orrin C Judd, of Hanover, New Hampshire, who says, basically, if she had been real working class she wouldn’t have expected a room of her own, and she wouldn’t have been too proud to go to church.
Yes, everyone has a social network of friends and family. Anyone who doesn’t is obviously a bad person. And atheists are bad people. And poor people don’t get privacy, that’s a luxury. Dick.
“Any suggestions about where I should find a dependable, able-bodied person who will be able to carry my week’s worth of supplies on top of his or her own?” Neighbors, friends, family. You will have to sound them out and hope you find someone trustworthy. It is beyond my ability to do that for you. The debacle in New Orleans demonstrates the inevitable result of wiping out the core of a just-in-time infrastructure that has no meaningful reserve or redundancy. Government in New Orleans simply ceased to exist Monday night, and it takes several days to assemble a substitute on a scale that large. If you are dependent on government for timely provision of food, water, sanitation, and the like, realize that government CAN not and WILL not provide those things to anyone for at least several days after a disaster. Know this, and act accordingly.
Neighbors, friends, family. You will have to sound them out and hope you find someone trustworthy. It is beyond my ability to do that for you. This isn’t an answer. My problem wouldn’t be finding someone “trustworthy.” It would be finding someone with the sheer physical strength to carry my week’s worth of supplies on top of his or her own. Unless you are very, very stupid, you must know that most disabled people are not going to find anyone to do this, because there are very few people up to the physical challenge. There are certainly more disabled people than people who can hike while carrying a week’s worth of food and water for two. What you are doing here is condemning people to death because they’re disabled, just as you would condemn people to death because they’re very poor, or sort-of-poor children, or sort-of-poor parents. That strikes me as kind of breathtakingly evil.
Evil I am then. Enjoy what passes for your life while you have it. Indignation makes an unsatisfying meal.
Enjoy what passes for your life while you have it. Golly. That’s an obnoxious comment. Are you lashing out like a two-year-old because you can’t answer the substance of the critique? Can you carry a week’s worth of food and water for you and another adult, in the middle of a Louisiana summer? Can anyone you know? Your “plan” is really stupid. I know it stings a bit to be called on your stupidity, but you’ll look like less of an asshole if you admit you’re wrong rather than casting judgements on the quality of other people’s lives.
“Evil I am then. Enjoy what passes for your life while you have it. Indignation makes an unsatisfying meal.” So does self-righteousness. I’m sick to the teeth of the sanctimonious sitting in their dry homes, stomachs full, preaching to the rest of us about what poor people in New Orleans should have done. As if they would have been able to do any differently. When you figure out how to conjure up a car at the last minute out of thin air–you know, because those folks who stayed behind did so because they were stupid, not because they lacked cars or any other transport out of the city–you may share your knowledge. While you’re at it, you can show us all how the infirm, old, sick, and very young can carry a week’s worth of water and canned goods to safety. Or how parents can carry these supplies–multiplied by however many people in their group–and keep their kids from drowning. Or passing out from heatstroke. I’d love to know how you’d do this as floodwaters are rising to the roof of your home, or how you’d manage to do this in ninety plus degree heat with fetid water up to your chest and kids in tow.
“Government in New Orleans simply ceased to exist Monday night, and it takes several days to assemble a substitute on a scale that large.” Well, even as your hero, the President, admitted, the response was not what it should have been. And I don’t buy the idea that more could not have been done beforehand by the Department of Homeland Security and other federal, state and local agencies with the brief of disaster preparedness and mitigation. If this is how those organizations respond to a natural disaster with at least a couple days’ warning, just imagine what would happen in another terrorist attack, with NO warning…
“Your “plan” is really stupid.” Stupid as it may be, it is the only thing between you and the grave. The police won’t feed you, FEMA won’t clothe you, the National Guard won’t shelter you. No one will suborn themselves to preserve you. We are born alone, we live alone, and we die alone with an empty hand. This is how it’s always been and always will be: preserve yourself, or perish. No one will notice.
Did someone give you the impression that if you dressed up your ideology in really overwrought language, we’d all take it as revealed truth? Do you usually find that people are more convinced when you affect the prose style of a high-school literary magazine? So you’re admitting that a lot of people can’t hike out of their city with supplies for a week and that you think the best those people can hope for is a quick death. That strikes me as silly, defeatist and cruel. Sorry, but I’m not going to become some sort of loony libertarian just because you say “perish” and “suborn.”
*Yawn* No hope for us? That’s nice…most of us like to think that we make our own hope. But, please continue with the defeatest attitude: nothing like self-fullfiling prophisies. Tell me, do you really like the world you live in? Or would you rather make it better? Because I tell you, I’d rather believe and work to make the world a better place and be proven wrong than believe the world to be impossible to improve and be proven right.
“Stupid as it may be, it is the only thing between you and the grave.” Not really, David. Given that Sally is disabled, and that she’s unlikely to find a friend who can carry a week’s water supply for two people, this plan is better (even if it does come from an ad): http://www.i4at.org/surv/bleach.htm. Carry what water you can, and purify the rest. It may not save her, but at least it’s humanly possible to do, while your plan isn’t. “This is how it’s always been and always will be” What you’re overlooking, David, is that in a democracy, what the police, FEMA, and the National Guard will do is up to people that we get to vote for. The government isn’t some blind force of nature that always acts the same way, and it isn’t, like the hurricane, beyond our control. I happen to want the government that isn’t penny-wise/pound-foolish about keeping up levees for a major port city (through which a significant chunk of our oil comes), and I also happen to want the government that sends sufficient buses to get people out of said major city before it’s flooded, has undergone civil collapse, and has armed bands running around in it. I also want the FEMA that can organize to accept the assistance that gets offered to it. And, in general, I want the government that makes good use of the days of advance notice that you get for a hurricane. And you know what? Those are choices under the government’s discretion. Yeah, I’ll also refresh my earthquake supplies, take note that they really aren’t kidding when they say it may be a week before anyone gets to you, and pack whatever food and water out I’m capable of carrying, if I have to flee a wildfire. But the fact that I’ll do these things does not mean I’m prepared to be happy with a response to natural disaster which involves leaving the poor, the old, and the frail behind. Conservative columnist David Brooks got it right: “The first rule of the social fabric – that in times of crisis you protect the vulnerable – was trampled. Leaving the poor in New Orleans was the moral equivalent of leaving the injured on the battlefield.”
We are born alone, we live alone, and we die alone with an empty hand. This is how it’s always been and always will be: preserve yourself, or perish. I dunno about you guys, but I actually find it pretty funny when loner types try to dress up their anomie in bad anthropology. What’s “always been” is that humans are social creatures and develop intricate social systems to take care of one another. In the modern world, we also develop paid entities to offload some of this–there’s just no way for 300 million people to be one ‘tribe.’ That’s why people are so pissed off about FEMA. It’s not merely a matter of wasted tax dollars. We have a deep and visceral feeling that it’s not okay to walk away from people in dire straits, especially when you’re supposed to protect them.
If anyone is still reading this…. I am going to ignore the blame the poor bullshit. I will also not ignore that what I suggest may not be easy for the poor. And what I suggest would have cost almost nothing for the country to have provided for the poor too. It’s a casualty of 9/11 that Bush never made civil defense, civil preparation for disasters a priority. As a resident of California, I have an earthquake kit. It takes up about a closets worth of space. Mine is VERY luxurious. It consists of C Rations for a week for three people. That takes up almost no room whatsoever. I also have two 25 gallon earthquake barrels of water on each side of the apartment (so that one side is safe when the thing collapses.) And flashlights and batteries. It has a paint bucket and a toilet seat that fits on top of it, and garbage bags and toilet paper. And a good first aid kit and a radio. Total cost: probably $150. It’s luxurious, since as I have kids, I have also stocked games, canned foods, a camping stove, camping food. No tent. After 9/11, almost everyone in this country needs some sort of kit like this. And homes, apartments, community centers should be designed to have disaster-proof storage spaces where these sorts of supplies can be stored and found. Oh yeah, I also have a fallout shelter. (No I don’t, just kidding.)
By C Rations, I don’t mean MREs, but I do mean emergency food bars of the kind the Coast Guard suggests you have on a boat. Wrapped in thick tinfoil, these bars only look like Soylent Green.
“What you’re overlooking, David, is that in a democracy, what the police, FEMA, and the National Guard will do is up to people that we get to vote for.” No, it’s not. One person could make the necessary decisions in short order. Two people could argue for a while and then decide what to do. A dozen people can bicker and complain and grumble out a few recommendations. A hundred people can hold a bunch of meetings. Ten thousand people will listen to themselves talk for a month, then congratulate themselves on a job well done. A government composed of an endless legion of desk jockeys has grown far beyond the point of diminishing returns and is inherently incapable of doing anything useful in a timely fashion. Elections affect that about as much as they affect the weather.
There’s an easy solution: hermitude. Just find yourself a nice little cabin on top of some mountain, and only see people once a month when you come down for supplies. Mutally beneficial.
First, thanks, Jerry, for making practical suggestions that some of us can actually do without blaming the poor. Second, I agree with mythago on being amused by the bad anthropology here. I’m especially amused by “born alone,” since being “born alone” would be quite a feat. I don’t know about you, but I sure wasn’t alone when I was born, nor for a good while afterwards, either. Now, to David: “A government composed of an endless legion of desk jockeys has grown far beyond the point of diminishing returns and is inherently incapable of doing anything useful in a timely fashion.” The thing is, this isn’t true. Governments are generally structured so that someone is actually in charge, rather than requiring every single emergency decision to be debated over by an endless legion of desk jockeys. And governments routinely get useful things done, sometimes even in a timely fashion. Useful things got done in a timely fashion in NYC after 9/11. Nothing inherent to the nature of government prevented Giuliani from getting things done. Nor is timely hurricane evacuation beyond the capabilities of government; Cuba does it routinely. We have done massive hurricane evacuation ourselves for Hurricanes Andrew, Floyd, Hugo, and others, and, though confusion often happens in large evacuations, this just isn’t something we always do equally badly. The evacuation process for Hurricane Hugo seems to have gone rather better than the evacuation process for Hurricane Katrina; nothing inherent to government prevents FEMA from looking at its successes and failures. Here is a web page of post-storm assessments of several hurricanes: http://www.csc.noaa.gov/hes/postStorm.html. With that, I’m out of the “blaming the poor” argument and the argument about whether government can ever do anything useful at all. Instead, I’m going to go collect links relevant to hurricane response.
Total cost: probably $150. Of course, you need to rotate out the water and restock the supplies from time to time. It’s a great idea if you can afford it–don’t be expecting to haul that water around much, though.