THE MYTH AND REALITY OF KATRINA

[From an exceptionally deep piece in Popular Mechanics]

MYTH:"The aftermath of Katrina will go down as one of the worst
abandonments of Americans on American soil ever in U.S. history."--Aaron
Broussard, president, Jefferson Parish, La., Meet the Press, NBC, Sept.
4, 2005

REALITY: Bumbling by top disaster-management officials fueled a
perception of general inaction, one that was compounded by impassioned
news anchors. In fact, the response to Hurricane Katrina was by far the
largest--and fastest-rescue effort in U.S. history, with nearly 100,000
emergency personnel arriving on the scene within three days of the
storm's landfall. Dozens of National Guard and Coast Guard helicopters
flew rescue operations that first day--some just 2 hours after Katrina
hit the coast. . . By the end of the week, 50,000 National Guard troops
in the Gulf Coast region had saved 17,000 people; 4000 Coast Guard
personnel saved more than 33,000.

These units had help from local, state and national responders,
including five helicopters from the Navy ship Bataan and choppers from
the Air Force and police. The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and
Fisheries dispatched 250 agents in boats. The Federal Emergency
Management Agency, state police and sheriffs' departments launched
rescue flotillas. By Wednesday morning, volunteers and national teams
joined the effort, including eight units from California's Swift Water
Rescue. By Sept. 8, the waterborne operation had rescued 20,000.

Computer simulations of a Katrina-strength hurricane had estimated a
worst-case-scenario death toll of more than 60,000 people in Louisiana.
The actual number was 1077 in that state. [Not including, however, the
still missing -TPR]. . .

It was local and state agencies that got there first and saved lives.
Where the feds can contribute is in planning and helping to pay for a
coordinated response. Here are a few concrete steps.

MYTH:"This is a once-in-a-lifetime event."--New Orleans Mayor C. Ray
Nagin, press conference, Aug. 28, 2005

REALITY: Though many accounts portray Katrina as a storm of
unprecedented magnitude, it was in fact a large, but otherwise typical,
hurricane. On the 1-to-5 Saffir-Simpson scale, Katrina was a midlevel
Category 3 hurricane at landfall. Its barometric pressure was 902
millibars, the sixth lowest ever recorded, but higher than Wilma (882mb)
and Rita (897mb), the storms that followed it. Katrina's peak sustained
wind speed at landfall 55 miles south of New Orleans was 125 mph; winds
in the city barely reached hurricane strength.

By contrast, when Hurricane Andrew struck the Florida coast in 1992, its
sustained winds were measured at 142 mph. And meteorologists estimate
that 1969's Category 5 Hurricane Camille, which followed a path close to
Katrina's, packed winds as high as 200 mph. Two factors made Katrina so
devastating. Its radius (the distance from the center of the storm to
the point of its maximum winds, usually at the inner eye wall) was 30
miles--three times wider than Camille's. In addition, Katrina approached
over the Gulf of Mexico's shallow northern shelf, generating a more
powerful storm surge--the water pushed ashore by hurricanes--than
systems that move across deeper waters. In Plaquemines Parish, south of
New Orleans, the surge topped out at 30 ft.; in New Orleans the surge
was 25 ft.--enough to overtop some of the city's floodwalls. . .

MYTH: "The failure to evacuate was the tipping point for all the other
things that . . . went wrong."--Michael Brown, former FEMA director,
Sept. 27, 2005

REALITY: When Nagin issued his voluntary evacuation order, a contraflow
plan that turned inbound interstate lanes into outbound lanes enabled
1.2 million people to leave New Orleans out of a metro population of 1.5
million. "The Corps estimated we would need 72 hours [to evacuate that
many people]," says Brian Wolshon, an LSU civil engineer. "Instead, it
took 38 hours." Later investigations indicated that many who stayed did
so by choice. "Most people had transportation," says Col. Joe Spraggins,
director of emergency management in Harrison County, Ala. "Many didn't
want to leave." Tragic exceptions: hospital patients and nursing home
residents. . .

MYTH: "We will rebuild [the Gulf Coast] bigger and better than ever."
--Haley Barbour, Miss. Gov., The Associated press, Sept. 3, 2005

REALITY: In the past 25 years, the tiny community of Dauphin Island,
Ala., has been hit by at least six hurricanes. Residents there carry
insurance backed by the federal government, and they've collected more
than $21 million in taxpayer money over the years to repair their
damaged homes. Not bad, considering their premiums rarely go up and they
are seldom denied coverage--even after Katrina almost completely
demolished the barrier island at the entrance to Mobile Bay. "It's like
a guy getting inebriated and wrecking his Ferrari four or five times,"
says David Conrad of the National Wildlife Federation . "Eventually, a
private insurer would say no. It doesn't work that way with the federal
flood insurance program."

The National Flood Insurance Program, administered by FEMA, was started
in 1968 for homeowners who live in flood-prone areas considered too
great a risk by private insurers. And for more than 30 years, the
program was self-supporting. But studies by Conrad's NWF team revealed a
disturbing fact: Just 1 to 2 percent of claims were from
"repetitive-loss properties"--those suffering damage at least twice in a
10-year period. Yet, those 112,000 properties generated a remarkable 40
percent of the losses--$5.6 billion. One homeowner in Houston filed 16
claims in 18 years, receiving payments totaling $806,000 for a building
valued at $114,000.

Just as significantly, the five Gulf Coast states accounted for half the
total of repetitive-loss costs nationwide. Taxpayers across the country
are paying for a minute number of people to rebuild time and time again
in the path of hurricanes.

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