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Post by Kensterberg on May 31, 2006 16:23:25 GMT -5
I am absolutely retarded at math. I was proud of my pass in statistics and my pass in probability. Great Kens think alike. I'm not too great at math, either. My little brother is, but I was happy to get a B in statistics for social sciences.  |
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Post by luke on May 31, 2006 19:42:04 GMT -5
Yep Rocky, that's why they used to be only women's names. I have to say that I have really really mixed feelings on the kind of warnings like that Luke. On the one hand, people need to know that it can happen, so they prepare. Floridians have been great at this for years, due in large part to the state's commitment to educating residents. But all hurricanes don't hit Florida, and there are a lot more people who need to prepare better than they do. Given the way the east coast has been let off so easily the past couple of years, I'd be rather concerned about their level of preparation right now. You've got a lot of newer residents who've never been through one - and others who have been lulled into thinking they're someone else's problem. All that said, I think that too often, the preparation warnings take a dramatic tone of "It could happen here!" rather than a "It could happen here, and so this is what you need to do to prepare ..." In many ways, I think that overly dramatic "the sky is falling" warnings do more harm than good (when they're dramatic rather than informational) because they make it more likely that people will ignore the real warnings, figuring it's just more dramatics. People here are pretty prepped, though. No shortage of windows fitted for plywood covers or people ready to up and leave at even the slightest warning. We usually get the remnants of a storm or two every year, and the town empties pretty thoroughly. Our thing is that we're so far inland, basically impossible for us to get anything over a 3. I mean, that's pretty brutal still, but it's not really possible for this city to get wiped out New Orleans style, so the papers are just harping on fears at this point. Further into the season, when the threat is or isn't there, we get all kinds of "shelter at this church" type stuff. |
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Post by skvorisdeadsorta on Jul 12, 2006 22:55:09 GMT -5
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Post by skvorisdeadsorta on Jul 12, 2006 23:00:10 GMT -5
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Post by chrisfan on Jul 13, 2006 7:52:55 GMT -5
Wasn't there sufficient evidence of the levee's failure when most of the city was under water? |
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Post by skvorisdeadsorta on Jul 13, 2006 10:30:16 GMT -5
Yes. The question that I read about the most in the news today is "how did New Orleans flood?" Where did the money actually go to if it wasn't for the levees? Those kinds of things.
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Post by luke on Jul 13, 2006 10:41:28 GMT -5
New Orleans is dead. Or at least in a coma for the next 25-50 years. Local, state, federal, and corporate leadership are all incompetent, self-serving, and counter-productive.
Not to mention that Hurricane Rita was just as devastating to Louisiana, so a lot of people who could be rebuilding N.O. are busy rebuilding their own villages, towns, and cities, as they're getting an even bigger shaft from the government.
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Post by chrisfan on Jul 13, 2006 10:45:36 GMT -5
Yes. The question that I read about the most in the news today is "how did New Orleans flood?" Where did the money actually go to if it wasn't for the levees? Those kinds of things. There's been corruption on the levee board for a long time ... so I'm not going to pretend that 100% of the money devoted to the levees has been well spent. But that aside -- we're talking about a city that is under sea level to begin with. Then, we know it is sinking further because of the water being used for the city. And we're surprised that it'd flood due to failure of the levees? The city flooded because of a cold-hard fact -- man cannot manipulate nature to his liking. It's not a matter of "oh, with more money it wouldn't have happened" or "With less corruption it woudln't have happened". If you talk to just about anyone who has worked on the river / levees for the past 60 years, they will pretty much all tell you that this was bound to happen - it was just a matter of when. If man is to blame for it at all, we're not to be blamed because of money or corruption. We're to be blamed for the utter arrogance of thinking we can control nature. |
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Post by luke on Jul 13, 2006 11:06:17 GMT -5
I can't completely agree there. Yeah, it was bound to happen, and part of it was the arrogance that man could control nature. But it was man's arrogance that he could control nature so EASILY. The flooding could have been prevented or at least curbed if politicians had done what they could to raise awareness about the problem and get an effort to strengthen the levies.
I've talked to friends' parents who worked on the levies and they'll tell that they've known the disaster was going to happen, known that it was because the shape the levies were in, but while they were all aware of the problem and the solution, no group was vocal enough about it for change. Because people are careless and lazy.
So the government is not solely to blame, of course, as a lot of it just comes from the lazy people who completely ignore the concept of "crisis" until it's bearing down on their asses. We're the ones who've been putting corrupt, apolitical morons in office for decades, after all.
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Post by chrisfan on Jul 13, 2006 11:13:14 GMT -5
The assumption there is that it is possible to build a levee that will hold back all flood waters, all the time. I just don't think that is true. Maybe a stronger, bigger levee would have held back the waters THIS time. But what about when New Orleans actually gets the direct hit, rather than the blessing of being on the west side of the eye? What about when it's a category 5 when it hits land? Natural disasters destroy what is in their path -- that's why we call them that, isn't it?
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Post by luke on Jul 13, 2006 11:32:07 GMT -5
Oh, completely agree on the Cat 5. If N.O. had gotten what Mississippi did, there's not a man-made structure on earth that could have held that back.
I do think that the "this time" is a pretty big deal here, though. In a city like N.O., the levees needed to be built to some of the best of man's abilities, and they weren't even close.
It's like going to a baseball game without a cup because you know that a 90 mph fast ball is going to hurt your sac regardless.
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Post by Mary on Jul 13, 2006 12:31:34 GMT -5
If SF gets hit by a truly monumental earthquake, a lot of buildings are probably fucked no matter what. But surely we should still do our best to make buildings as earthquake-proof as possible, knowing we live in earthquake-prone country. And if a building gets destroyed and people die in an earthquake that perhaps didn't need to be quite that devastating given better advance preparation, it still seems reasonable to me to call people to task for failing to take the best preventive measures possible.
Cheers,
M
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Post by skvorisdeadsorta on Jul 13, 2006 12:50:43 GMT -5
Chrisfan, explain to me the levee system of the Netherlands then. They have been able to keep floodwaters out for years.
Honestly Chrisfan, your conservative view on the New Orleans situation is one that I honestly don't have a tolerance for and that will be the end of the discussion as far as that goes.
I have made the decision that in a year and a half I'll be moving there.
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Post by kmc on Jul 13, 2006 12:56:49 GMT -5
No one could have done anything. We put a man on the moon, but we couldn't possibly have done anything to make the New Orleans situation a little better.
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Post by Fuzznuts on Jul 13, 2006 13:05:34 GMT -5
The moon landing was faked, Ken. I should know, I worked with a guy who worked in the space program back in the 60s, and there's no fucking way we could have pulled that shit off with idiot engineers like him.
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