If New York doesn't have an evacuation program why should New Orleans have had one?

Here’s a link for people who need mental health resourceshttp://www.mentalhealth.samhsa.gov/cmhs/katrina/

My friends the countess and count of Myrtle Beach and Atlanta have given their house in Myrtle Beach and condo to people who need housing. We can’t all do that now; we can’t all volunteer right now. After people’s immediate needs are met; there will unfortunately be plenty of time to help later.

Mulligan has a great post at Bring it on! about the busses. You know the ones that at most could have gotten 15,000 people out. Yes I know there was an evacuation plan; I also know that it was doomed for many reasons.

Who was supposed to have driven them?
How was the driver supposed to protect the bus from being taken over by people who wanted to get out?
Where were they supposed to have been driven from?
Who was supposed to decide which people got out?
Why? What criteria would have been used?

I’m not asking these questions because I’m in the mood to fight with people; actually just the opposite.

I live in Manhattan; we have had exactly four years to know that we’re in desperate need an evacauation plan. Do we have one?

Hell no. And we have a Republican mayor and governor. We don’t have an evacuation plan, and we’re a city that was attacked. We’re smaller in land area then the area affected by the Hurricane with many more people. I realize that New Orleans had a plan; but a plan that goes beyond man power and capabalities is no plan at all. Have to plan for the worst case scenario–worst case.

Who decides who gets out and how?

I don’t own a car nor do I drive.

If I had two days notice, we (my best friend and her daughter to keep it simple) could try to rent a car. That’s a joke. We could try getting a train or bus, but how do we get to one? Who decides? Who keeps order?

Rafe would try to get us and take us to his house in Westchester, but what if he couldn’t be here in time, or people tried to take his car? I could see cars being so backed up that the parkways become one giant parking lot.

I know that we have a great police department, National Guard, and many other law and order people here. Wouldn’t it be natural for them to try to get people that they know out first?

We can’t go to Long Island; it’s an island without an evacuation plan, also.

I live near The Hudson River. For the past four years I have had visions of people running over each other to get to the river, the boats and the kaayaks. Not a pleasant vision nor one that I have ever thought through.

All of a sudden every question that I had for the mayoral candidates seem meaningless. I just want to know how the hell I’m supposed to survive. That’s right: me. Or am I supposed to give my place to people with children? Or older people?

This whole debate about the busses is meaningless. If New York has had four years to plan for something that’s not a hypothetical, how was New Orleans supposed to plan for a true hypothetical.? Yes I read the study that said if (I believe) Camille had landed in New Orleans what would have happened. But it was still a hypothetical.

People don’t want to plan for a hypothetical.

Back to New York City: only the Bronx is connected to the mainland. There are ways of walking to The Bronx from Upper Manhattan. Who decides who gets to go to The Bronx? Grand Central Station? Penn Station? The Port Authority?

There are waits at the bridges and tunnels at the best of times. Nobody’s going to want to go to Long Island.

Will there be armed guards in New Jersey and Westchester that turn people back?

Thirty years ago a bridge was supposed to be built in Bayville, a very pretty town on Long Island. It was roundly defeated because people didn’t want to destroy a town for a bridge that might help people. At the time it seemed right. Now we know so much more.

This is the first day it’s all hit me. I’m not being articulate; I’m crazed and not ashamed to say that.

I know the real reason New York doesn’t have one; least not one that they have shared with us. How can millions of people evacuate Manhattan Island? We can’t. So we go about our daily lives and don’t think about it. But with Katrina and the anniversary, it’s a bit hard not to at times.

Maybe you all understand us some more now. I know that I understand things I couldn’t understand for the past four years like how the attack felt as if it were in your back yard also

I have a longer version of this on the sidebar at Bring it on!