Gustav: The good, the bad, and the ugly.
I will preface this post by saying that with every storm that Louisiana encounters, we will learn from past mistakes and likely make new ones. This is part of the process of learning how to cope with things that are fairly unpredictable (like hurricanes) and make sure that when we do, we do so to the best of our ability.
The good:
A) Contraflow: Contraflow was awful with Ivan. It took me 8 hours to get to Grammercy from Kenner. Not good. It got better with Katrina, only 13 hours to Houston. With Gustav, I personally encountered no traffic (though I did leave early). I know some traffic existed but I believe it was better than last time. Of course, with landfall on a Monday and people scared of a Katrina like event, some (like me) started evacuating on Friday night because we could. I am unsure how many people would have left as early had the storm come on Wednesday. So kudos to Jindal and everyone else responsible for making that happen.
B) Evacuating: From what I saw, people who wanted to leave got to leave (regardless of their ability to get themselves out). The state even planned for pets to be evacuated as well. The fact that so many people got out was very impressive and while I don’t know when this new busing plan was planned, the implementation of it seemed to go as smoothly as you could expect and again, Kudos to Jindal and everyone else responsible for making it happen.
The bad:
Unemployment: Louisiana’s unemployment system was knocked out after Gustav. This effected both people on unemployment from before the storm and those who do not have work because of it. Part of Jindal’s reorganization of state government moved the Louisiana Department of Labor under the Louisiana Workforce Commission. Now, I am unsure how fault tolerant the system was previously. However, the entire system should not be handicapped by losing the central hub. Individual centers around the state could not process claims manually or otherwise save the information locally so people could process their claims. This seems like awfully poor planning to me. Perhaps Louisiana needs to consider some sort of backup system to be in place for all of its online resources to be available in the case of an emergency. We could either set up different hubs around the state, each having the ability to take over for whatever node goes down. We could also utilize some temporary servers outside Louisiana. Something should be done to make sure that all of Louisiana’s services are up and running so we can have seamless operation after a storm. This is something Jindal needs to work on.
Electricity: Really? That many people lost power for that long? Really? At one point only 2 Louisiana Parishes had 0 power loss. Even today there are parishes that are still mostly without power. When I pay as much as I do for power, I expect them to have the capability to respond to outages must faster than what they are doing. Their “fuel surcharge” costs are criminal as it is. The fact that there are so many people without power now is just pathetic and something needs to be done.
The ugly:
A) Shelters. This is where Bobby Jindal really dropped the ball. It is great that people got out. But when they got there, to have the deplorable conditions that existed at some of these shelters is inexcusable. Why wouldn’t all shelters have generators? Why would you choose shelters that had no avaiable showers and inadequate toilet space? And what really bothers me is quotes like this:
“If you’re gonna help, help me. Don’t send me to a place like this,” Brown said Tuesday, his eyes sunken in the industrial lights that stay on around the clock for security reasons. “I would rather ride it out without power at home. I’m only taking a few more days of this. I don’t care if I have to walk the highway back.”
So you know what this means? Because of the awful conditions in the shelters, this will make people less likely to evacuate in the future. Jindal should have made sure that the places people went to had better conditions. This is something that was not learned by our government after Katrina. We all remember the faces of people at the convention center. And while I am sure the conditions at the shelters were not that bad, they were still bad.
Premature un-evacuation: The Governor should have found alternate places to house the evacuees once he saw the problem. Instead, we started bringing people home when there was another major storm entering the gulf. How does that make any sense? I understand people being upset at the conditions the Government put them in but it was irresponsible to bring them back when there was a chance they would have to evacuate again. Chances are they would not have evacuated. So this was another poor decision by our Government. And while we may be escaping Ike, it was still not worth the risk.
Overall, I give Jindal a C. He passed, he got people out, and he learned from some past experiences. However, there are still many things that could have done better and had the storm been worse (or had Ike taken a turn northward) I think we would have some serious problems.
September 9th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Describing one of the Shreveport state-run shelters, a September 3 editorial in The Shreveport Times describes “outrage that the state is paying $40,000 a month for an evacuation shelter that seems like a flashback to 2005 and the infamous New Orleans Convention Center.” It continues with the following:
“It became a stuffy, industrial cavern where eyewit- … scratch that … NOSE-witnesses spoke of the odor of sweat and vomit and urine pouring out the door.”
Unlike the Convention Center, this was after extensive planning and lessons from Katrina.
September 9th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Ok, so maybe some were that bad. That makes it even worse.
Some of my coworkers gave me grief for being “too critical” by giving Jindal a C.
September 9th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Jindal inherited the DHH head from Blanco. In fairness to him, he has not had all that much time to iron out details. I’d give him a ‘B.’
Seems like Nagin is the leader subject to the most criticism. Just my $0.02.
I need to get back to my day job, but this issue is really stuck in my craw.
September 9th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Well he inherited the system but then tried to consolidate the Department of Labor under the Workforce Development Commission.
But the Department of Labor issue is minor. The shelter issues and the “evacuation fatigue” brought on by them are the failings this time around. Fortunately, we lucked out in many areas so it didn’t come back to kick us in the rear this time. We should consider ourselves lucky.
September 11th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
My letter to Mr MaGinnis on Gustav Response Article in TP 10 Sep 2008,
Mr MaGinnis,
I read your article and was appalled, yes that’s the word that I use, regarding your sophomoric crush on the Jindal during Hurricane Gustav. It is a cult like fascination.
I evacuated to Nashville on Friday prior to Gustav’s landing and watched the CNN, FoxNews, MSNBC, Weather Channel and other news outlets and I apparently saw a different storm response than you.
I saw nine months of no civil engineering activity or wet lands restoration while a foolish series of unfunded enforcement of ethics laws passed. I saw electrical pylons folded over from structural failure as a consequence of category one or tropical storm force winds. I saw river water spilling over the industrial canal levee walls from the industrial canal lock left open and the near failure of the levees at Harvey canal. I saw a governor frantic to restore power to his own command center, a center with inadequate backup power. I saw a man that micro managed the states response when the persons he selected to run multiple departments failed to do so, apparently from never planning on a storm entering central Louisiana. This man Jindal is supposed to be a managerial genius, but not smart enough to test multiple system failure on his emergency response team BEFORE a storm hits.
His blatant deficiencies are:
1. failure to publicly demand 24 hr/7 day/ 265 days a year work around the clock to build levees adequate to the threat of category 5 storms. He never harangued congress to step up the process. Instead he pushed for ethics reform.
2. He failed to immediately, upon assuming office, restoring wetlands to damped the storm surges that accompany hurricanes. It is obvious that Grand Isle blunted the storm surge into Barataria Bay. Had that barrier island not been there the West Bank would have been flooded like New Orleans was during Katrina. Yet, he still ignores the most cost effective engineering that prevents flooding in conjunction with levees. Very very foolish.
3. He failed to utilize all of this states National Guard assets to inspect the electrical grid infrastructure to assure serviceability. That is, there are several military engineering units with qualified civil engineers, with accompanying aviation assets, to inspect those pylons for structural integrity. Had the governor done so, the engineer would have reported wreaked pylons from corrosion and poor servicing by the utility companies.
4. He failed to realistically test his hand picked hurricane emergency response team and center for unforeseen failures. He, the Brown University graduate, failed to think out of the box. He selected political supporters instead of professional emergency managers. As a resident of long standing in Louisiana, he should know that those storms are unpredictable and anything can happen.
5. He has fallen for his own BS. He has succumbed to the incessant flattery and been blinded by it. He is still patting himself on his back instead of being thankful that storm was not 5 mph stronger. For had it been, even that small amount stronger, or even a couple of wiles more to the East, the levees on the West Bank and the Industrial Canal would have failed.
The governor still clings to this fantasy that ethic reform will bring in business to this state. That poor ethics was the reason why nobody will bring business to Louisiana. What a fool. Anytime any high roller thinks of investing in this state they will always confront video of water splashing over flood walls from a low power storm glancing blow to this city of New Orleans. Those businessmen will see video of a confused man scrambling in the dark at his own command center. They will see large electrical pylons felled by low speed winds and know this state cannot take care of itself enough to prevent long term disruption of business activity from low intensity hurricanes. They will NOT see round-the-clock levees building appropriate to a category 5 storm and will recognize there is no local statewide advocate for such. They will NOT see the wetland being restored, just talked about. They, the business investors, will see a billion dollars in tax cuts instead of building barrier islands or extending wetlands as far as a billion dollars will go. They will not come with their money until they do see these things going on.
So, your A+ judgement of the response is really a F-. But for the grace of a forgiving and generous God, were we spared the dist ruction and abandonment of a city and its suburban bed-room communities. Jindal is not the kind of man to for see that, should the city of New Orleans be abandoned or destroyed, the state will be no more. That the erosion of wet lands will not stop until it reaches Baton Rouge. His failure to act decisively now, this very day, lays the foundation for the dismemberment of this state among its neighbors.
But, we will have unfunded enforcement of new ethics laws. He will add to his current unimpressive resume DESTROYED A CITY AND DISMEMBERED A STATE BY DOING NOTHING!!!
September 11th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
The only thing I would change in that letter is that he has failed to make coastal restoration and hurricane protection a priority for much longer than his taking office.
He should have made that his number one priority as a Congressman.