It Takes a disaster to prevent a disaster

[Chris]

Before Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Louisiana coast, people’s
complacency was clear as day. “It just can’t happen here”. The stark
warnings came from the hurricane center and city officials did finally
attempt to evacuate who they can and stuff them into an Astrodome in
downtown New Orleans. This obviously proved to be a poor decision as
the roof nearly collapsed and rivers of water arrived right outside
the Astrodome’s door. A few years later, Hurricane Fay threatens the
same area. This time, the response from the city and surrounding areas
was like night and day. An organized evacuation ensued well in advance
of the storm and people listened this time and got the heck out.

Now, a couple weeks later Hurricane Ike is about to hit Galveston
Island and Houston and since it has been 108 years since the last
disaster took place, complacency was and still is the rule. A massive
number of people ignored warnings to evacuate Galveston Island. Such a
large number of people decided to simply ride out the storm. On the
KTRH news radio website an unbelievable nearly 85.5% of people say
everything will be ok and did not evacuate. Only 15% say they
evacuated. Now, I feel the city of Houston’s idea NOT to have a
mandatory evacuation may have sent the wrong message for the people
living on Galveston Island. Many probably felt if Houston can ride out
the storm, so can they. So, again, people did not listen and will
likely pay for it with their lives. So, for a city which is not even
all that far from New Orleans, the complacency and stubbornness of the
people there amazes me.

Now, only a day after the 7th anniversary of the 09/11 attacks, it
took another disaster to PREVENT a future disaster. Prior to 09/11,
airport security in the USA was a joke. You had screeners on minimum
wage that probably wouldn’t even find an AK-47 stowed away in a carry
on bag, let alone a bomb. So, it took 4 planes getting hijacked, the
throats slashed of 8 pilots, and 2 of those planes slamming in the
World Trade Center taking that building down and 3000 Americans with
it. So, only after those horrific attacks was airport security
drastically improved to hopefully prevent another attack of that
magnitude. Even though terrorist attacks were quite frequent in other
regions of the world, it just “can’t happen here”. Unfortunately, 7
years later, many people seem to have already forgotten that dreadful
day and are already starting to believe that it can’t happen again.

So, apparently history needs to repeat itself over and over again and
people’s lives need to be lost before changes can be made. How many
people living up the Northeast coast and Long island believe that a
Category 3 or 4 storm “can’t happen here"? Well, 1938 happened after
1900… and that can and will happen again. And yeah, the tough New
Yorkers won’t listen and they will pay for it with their corpses
floating away in the ocean in what would be THE most deadly disaster
in U.S. history. I’m also sure there are even people on this board who
believe a category 4 hurricane can’t happen that far north. So, when
it does happen, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I suppose it is just human nature not to listen or heed warnings,
especially concerning weather phenomenon. It is ingrained in people’s
heads that the media just hypes everything, so why listen? It won’t be
that bad. It won’t be that bad until it happens. Then after it does
happen and it is “that bad”, will people listen the next time. For
Galveston Island, it will be a tough brutal lesson. Many people won’t
see the light of day to get that second chance.

[TQ]

It would appear there/s no random drug testing program @ Ron Jackson/s
place of employment.

[Lou Gentile]

As predicted Galveston is a disaster. They moved one of those towns
inland back in the 19th Century. Thing is along the Gulf coast in these
areas they know that when the earth was warm, they were covered with
water. So why do they still build?

As for NYC, all it takes is a three. A 19th Century Hurricane swept
Brooklyn and Queens with a wall of water thirty feet high. Today, we can
get a million people out on an 18 hour notice.

As for the rest, what can I say? We warned them. For nearly half a
century the U.S. Weather Bureau and later the National Weather Service
was concerned about this. The response? Migration to counties adjacent
to the American coastline swelling the population to 41 million people
backed up by considerable media support and massive daily gridlock.