From the Washington Post:
City officials said Friday that the death toll from Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath may be far lower than originally feared, as troops and police shifted their attention from rescue of the living to recovery of those who died here in the past 11 days.
The mayor had warned previously that the number of dead in New Orleans could be as many as 10,000, but other city officials said Friday morning that initial sweeps of flooded and devastated neighborhoods suggested a total that would be less cataclysmic, if still tragic.
“Some of the catastrophic deaths some people have predicted may not have occurred,†said Col. Terry Ebbert, the city’s director of homeland security, declining to provide further details. “The numbers, so far, are relatively minor as compared with the dire predictions of 10,000.â€Â
Any large-scale loss of life from a natural disaster is, of course, tragic—and we should look for ways to minimize such occurences in the future by carefully examining our response to Katrina.
But in order to do so, we have to be honest in our assessments of failure, in our reporting, and in our interepretation of events as they transpire.
And in the aftermath of Katrina, we failed in those tasks—our media and our politicians, specifically—even as we succeeded in doing what Americans do best: rushing aid and relief, raising money, and cleaning up the mess on the ground.
Notes Stephen Green:
Around 8pm Mountain on 9/11, some talking head on CNN or FNC or MSNBC said they feared as many as 20,000 people might have been killed. I remember that moment quite clearly because I ran directly to the bathroom and threw up.
When I read last week that 25,000 people might have died in Louisiana and Mississippi, I didn’t even get queasy. It’s not that I care less for people in the South than I do people in the Northeast. Far from it. It’s because I learned a valuable lesson on 9/11: The human animal can be a remarkably tough creature to kill. Whatever the initial prediction is, divide by ten for a worst-case estimate.
Initial reports coming from the Superdome—of babies being raped and 200 dead—have turned out to be, well, let’s be charitable and say simply that they’ve been exaggerated.
Similarly, take a look at these reports of FEMA “failures” (many of which have nothing to do with FEMA) and see how many have been debunked or are on their way toward being debunked.
Unrealistic expectations and breathless hyperbole (tinged with the myopic, desperate certainty of on-site reporters angling for Pulitzers) turned Katrina’s aftermath into a toxic stew of partisan finger pointing. When all is said and done, I, for one, won’t forget who and what is responsible for that.
(h/t LGF)
Jeff,
You and I might not forget it, but the American people will…*sigh*
You’re just foreshadowing the upcoming media circus, “The Tragedy of the Hyping Of The Tragedy” self-flagellation.
Jeff, Blackfive has a link to a slideshow put together by a resident of the quarter.
Just go look and read his commentary. First hand photos and commentary of much that has been discussed here in the past few days, including highway access, news commentary and much more.
Even tho he fecked up, can we still give Shep the Pulitzer?
I mean, he was so sincere and um angry.
Doesn’t that count for anything to you wingnuts.
Here we have Shep.
Here we have Brain Williams.
Here was an unamed reporter from MSNBC
Here we have a picture of an onramp below the highway at the dome on day 2.
Umm..strike that.
If I use the direct url to the picture, you lose the commentary, and the other just takes you to the beginning of the slideshow.
But the real question Jeff is to what purpose did Shep have for the overinflated death toll report?
I thought I smelled a pulitzer, but alas, it slipped from his fingers in a matter of days when the smoke cleared……..
Brings to light, is ANGER really truth?
I started to look through the list of FEMA “failures”. My guess is that this boils down a language problem.
The Left, as such, is confusing ‘FEMA coordinated’ with ‘FEMA controlled’. In the example of the flotilla of 500 boats that was turned back at the dock, apparently FEMA failed to coordinate the information exchange between the Department of Fish and Wildlife with whichever other state agency was involved.
Because, face it – if you’re the Dept. of Fish and Wildlife guy at the dock and you you see 500, that’s five hundred, boats show up
Here’s 50 simulated boats to give you some idea of the scale involved:
____/ ____/ ____/ ____/ ____/ ____/ ____/____/ ____/ ____/
____/ ____/ ____/ ____/ ____/ ____/ ____/____/ ____/ ____/
____/ ____/ ____/ ____/ ____/ ____/ ____/____/ ____/ ____/
____/ ____/ ____/ ____/ ____/ ____/ ____/____/ ____/ ____/
____/ ____/ ____/ ____/ ____/ ____/ ____/____/ ____/ ____/
What would expect the Dept of Fish and Wildlife to do? Just say “Sure – drop ‘em in and go find people?
Would you expect him to reserve out 50 boats of of the 500 to they can go rescue the rescuers?
What are the odds that around 75 to 100 of the rescuers will have Sean Penn like boating skills How many of these people know how to safely effect a transition from a house to a boat?
How are you going to coordinate the efforts?
My guess is that you’d end up with the ‘Hey! Let’s Everbody go get the Shark!” scene from “Jaws”.
The DWF person did the right thing – if FEMA failed to coordinate the activity between the DWF and the Governor, fine, lay it on FEMA.
But the La. DWF is not, repeat NOT, FEMA-Controlled.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Annecdotally, there was a story that involved flooding/ hurricane where an Olympic medalist slalom kayaker went out in his kayak to assist the police. He was basically taken off the river at near gun point.
We had some friends over for dinner last night. The subject of NO came up. One of our guests, a Republican originally from Texas BTW, mentioned that she had been watching the TV news since the hurricane and that she was disappointed with the slow response from FEMA.
I asked her if she was aware that every city is supposed to have a disaster plan that is developed with the assumption that FEMA will not be able to be on the scene for 72-96 hours. That FEMA’s response time actually exceeded that of previous storms. That part of NO’s disaster plan recognized that a significant portion of the population would be unable to leave on their own and called for the city to make use of a variety of resources to evacuate these people before a storm, specifically mentioning school buses and public transportation buses. That hundreds of these buses that could have been put to use in a pre-storm evacuation sit to this day unused, and now unusable.
That the mayor of NO instructed people who were unable to leave to head to the Superdome knowing that there was insufficient supplies for them. That he told them to bring enough of their own food and water to last for a few days. That the Red Cross attempted to bring food and water to these people the day after the storm and were turned away by the Louisiana National Guard, which was acting on instructions of the government of the state of Louisiana because the governor didn’t want to encourage people to come to the Superdome.
Her reply: “No, I hadn’t heard any of that. They don’t tell you that on the news.”
The first casualty estimates that I heard from 9/11 were 50,000-100,000 dead. Now it’s 2,000.
So Green speaks wisely of the tendency to overestimate fatalities. But perhaps it’s better than underestimating them.
Insofar as it helps raise money, the overestimation is useful. Insofar as it is the cause of panic and recrimination, it is not.
Which is why newspapers really shouldn’t be “speculating” at all until perhaps they enough fact to base the speculations upon.
Here, the speculation is attributed to the mayor—who may himself have been influenced by the tenor of the reportage.
Dunno. Vicious cycle.
Andrew Sullivan: What? Not enough gobsmacking vileness to take pictures of?
So, is it too early yet to play “Pin the Ophelia on Bush” game?
NHS predicts landfall about sometime Monday.
Bonus: North or South Carloina are Red States. Winds approx. 80 mph now, but FEMA should know just how severe they will be, where exact landfall will be, and how well prepared the locals are, don’t they alredy, DON’T THEY?
The press will:
Ignore it (esp. if there is not enough of a black/white death ratio), but blame him for not responding to Katrina as well as Ophelia.
Not care enough (Red States),
Blame FEMA for getting in the way too early and not allowing the locals to handle the situation?
Am I missing any?
TW: Ten: Ten hours before landfall Shep will be on the outer banks screaming “Get thee to a nunnery” before the storm; ten minutes after landfall, Geraldo will find someone named Yoreick and claimed to have “known” him; ten hours after landfall Anderson Cooper will find that Rosencranz and Guildenstern are among the victims.
Too bad “Blow wind!” is from a different play.
A question for the esteemed regulars on this blog (and the owner if he has the time)—what reporters—television or print—do you most trust to keep a cool, objective head in a disaster like the one in New Orleans? I’m talking about someone who is right there, in the middle of the action.
Because lately I’ve been wondering if, in addition to liberal bias, the inaccuracies we see are also a product of excitement and hysteria. I’m not saying I’d be calm, cool and able to maintain perspective either, but I’m wondering which reporters might.
Two examples to start things off—NBC’s Tom Aspell and former AP Baghdad bureau chief Hannah Allam.
I know only a little bit about Aspell personally, but that guy strikes me as pretty capable of maintaining perspective. Yes, he looks like 1000 miles of beat up road, but he’s never said anything that makes me throw something at the television or jump on the internet and check it.
Hannah Allam, on the other hand– she reported the day before the January elections in Baghdad that there was an air of hysteria. It sounded like the city was going to go through a bloodbath. I checked her previous writings and got the feeling she was a young, sensitive girl who got scared and emotionally wrung-out by the whole experience. Not that I would have been braver and cooler. I’m not dissing her courage, just her objectivity and ability to maintain perspective.
Anyhow, if you have the time, I’d really appreciate some opinions about which reporters the folks on this list trust, and why.
Come on. FEMA is an organization of omnipotent superheroes who can be everywhere when they wish it. FEMA must have hundreds of thousands of supersecret employees waiting for the batsignal to spring into action. Only state and local officials can be overwhelmed by a disaster of 90,000 square miles in size. [/sarcasm]
That doesn’t explain everything FEMA did wrong, for instance, I blame other FEMA failings on central-planning fetishists (in all political parties) who believe that nothing can’t be made better by adding layers of bureaucracy and process, and throwing more unsupervised money at a problem.
Salt Lick – I gave it some thought and nobody really comes to mind, except…
Baghdad Bob.
(sorry, I know you wanted serious answers)
CBS FAA/Homeland reporter Bob Orr.
Mostly because he played 3rd base on my church softball team while he was in Philadelphia area.
Salt Lick:
Sportscasters. I’m not kidding. The San Fran earthquake in 1986 (?) occurred shortly before the beginning of an important baseball playoff game, and the place was chock full of sportscasters and their cameramen. I had been watching the pre-game, and then when the quake hit I immediately switched to a “news†channel to get the skinny. Their reporters – without exception, and on every network – were utterly useless because they didn’t have a script to work from: “And over there I can see … I dunno, it likes like something . . . And I just heard a sound – I can’t really describe it …†Click back to the sports channel, and the announcers were telling me clearly and precisely exactly what they were witnessing. Which, when you think about, isn’t that surprising: that’s exactly what they’re paid to do, only they usually do it with sports. No joke, in a “breaking situation†without a script, give me a sportscaster every time.
I gotta go with Quiggs. I was in that quake and Al Michaels, bless him, was my newsman that day.
Around 8pm Mountain on 9/11, some talking head on CNN or FNC or MSNBC said they feared as many as 20,000 people might have been killed. I remember that moment quite clearly because I ran directly to the bathroom and threw up.
Now, I realize that the word “lie” has been distorted and nearly drained of its real meaning these past five years by the left.
So note that I am using the word in its normal, original sense when I say that Stephen Green is completely lying here.
He did not run into a bathroom and throw up when he heard a newscaster say some words. Not before Sept. 11, not after Sept. 11, and not on Sept. 11.
Period.
Awhile back I spent some time living way out in boonies and had one of those big ass 12’ satellite dishes that could get Ku band. That is where the live network feeds are, so you get to see them before the actual bit that is aired and after. After watching that awhile, I don’t believe any of the sonsabitches.
Because you were there, right?
My comment was addressed to NINALJBYDL, not B Moe.
No, I wasn’t there, actually. If by “there” you mean in Stephen Green’s presence around 8 p.m. Mountain Time on Sept. 11, 2001. I just know that hearing some words on TV has never made Stephen Green vomit. I also know that Stephen Green has a penchant for, how shall we say… blogging as if the Internet is one big Hallmark card?
Looks like we’ve got someone who was banned from Vodkapundit taking refuge here. Or should we call him an “evacuee”?
Just Cuz U Hate This Post
Actually, I love the post.
It’s U I can’t stand.
Nothing compares 2 U. Except maybe Gandhi.
October 17th, 89, 3rd game of the World Series..SF Giants and Oakland A’s..the Bay Bridge series, and a MAJOR reason why the Cypress wasn’t packed full of bumper to bumper traffic during rush hour when it pancaked on itself or why more lives weren’t lost when the span on the Bay Bridge fell..
Most of us were already home in front of our televisions on watching those sportcasters.
well..until we lost power.
They misspelled “lower than originally eagerly panted for”.
As for leftards pinning the blame on Bush, try to understand their frustration. Why, if we had elected John Kerry, then Christopher Reeve would be doing backflips with Cirque de Soleil now. Instead, with Bush in office, we’re getting pounded by freak hurricanes, sent by a wroth Gaia.
I’m guessing everyone has seen this but the Standard’s best writer has a good man on the scene account.
It did get me thinking. Is FEMA a catch-all for local anger because they’re the ones at checkpoints and such with identifiable caps on regardless of who gave whom whatever orders or directives?
Say what you want about FEMA but I am sick and tired of people slamming the military especially the Navy.
Look, the active duty military can’t just run in and take charge without the Local and state government gov’t asking. That damn Constitution and all. I love it, people bitch that the gov’t has too much power in the Patriot Act, but then have no concept of why the Military can’t just run into a US city and take over.
As for the Navy, ignorant people throw around stats like “The Bataan can produce 100,000 gallons of fresh water a day” True, but how is that transported?!??! Do you think the Navy carries a million empty Evian bottles? There are no logistics to transport it.
As for the 600 medical bed claim, that is not exactly true. There are a handful of ICU beds and the rest are just that, beds, not like you see in the hospital. These ‘600 beds’ are not able to treat 600 people… just let them maybe sleep.
Know your sh!t befotre you start talking sh!t