Relief Perspective

RTO (Signaleer), who has been deployed to the disaster area, has an insider's perspective on the relief efforts. This from Maggie (Mrs. RTO):

just talked to rto, would like to bring up a few points. (he talked my ear off about this) katrina hit monday, tuesday they thought that NO had dodged a bullet compared to MS and AL until late tuesday when the levee broke and the place flooded, but they still really didn't have a good assesment of it until wednesday, and at that point more NG troops were called up, and they will probably take two days to get everything together.

that's not to say that things aren't  frustrating, but monday and a good portion of tuesday it looked like people would be able to go home, or at least be provided for in the area.

Comments

[maggie katzen]

um, thanks.

[gail]

I didn't want the comment to get lost in the thread since a lot of people are interested and very few have an insider's perspective.

[Carin]

THANK you. I had heard this before, but didn't really have a "source." Now RTO can be my source :)

On friday, they were already crying that for 5 days nothing had been done, and that is simply not true.

I just can't help but wonder what the liberal hand-wringers would be doing if we had a democrat in the White House. Instead of all this partisan BS that is just pissing people off, and taking away from the issue at hand.

[gail]

That doesn't let the city and state off the hook for failing to evacuate BEFORE the hurricane and to wait until they were sure the levees would hold before they let people come back. They knew the levees weren't designed to withstand more than a Cat 3 hurricane.

[maggie katzen]

They knew the levees weren't designed to withstand more than a Cat 3 hurricane.

chertoff is saying this means overflow, they expected them not to keep water out, but not break.

[Carin]

I heard an engineer the other night say that they were not designed to withstand that kind of pressure - that they would break. Who knows?

[RTO Trainer]

I wasn't the storm surge, though that broke them. That had subsided by the time the levees actually broke.

No doubt that the storm and its pressures are what fatally weakened them. In fact, i expect to find that it was the releif of the pressure that actually precipitated the actual point of failure.

Imagine a stone arch. Gravity holds it together though it is made of segments. The storm surge fractuers teh levee's structures, but the pressure outside is pressing the segments in and holding the whole together. Then the pressure subsides and allows the pieces to fall out.

I have no data to support that. It's just an educated guess.

[gail]

Thanks for the insight RTO.