Saturday, September 03, 2005
New Orleans and our preference for inaction
[A]ny concerted effort to protect the city from a storm of category 4 or 5 will probably take 30 years to complete. And the feasibility study alone for such an effort will cost as much as $8 million. Even though Congress has authorized the feasibility study, funding has not yet been appropriated. When funds are made available, the study will take about six years to complete. “That’s a lot of time to get the study before Congress,” Naomi admits. “Hopefully we won’t have a major storm before then.”
New Orleans is a necessary city in a terrible place. Its system of levees was not cooked up by nefarious bureaucrats or the oil and gas industry or cynical politicians, but grew organically over more than 100 years. All that while we understood that only a massive undertaking that would be fraught with enormous controversy could raise the odds that New Orleans would survive a perfect storm, a direct hit from a Cat 4 or 5 hurricaine. What enormous controversy, you ask? Apart from the money, imagine the debate between developers, environmentalists, politicians and homeowners over the design of any new flood protection system. Imagine the years of litigation that would stall the construction once the design was approved and the money appropriated. Our system of local control and judicial intervention prevents the construction of airports and slaps down farmers who want to fill in an acre of "wetlands." Does anybody honestly think that even if the study had been completed the defenses of New Orleans would have been reconstructed before a catastrophe?
Our system, like it or not, creates tremendous biases in favor of inaction and omission, rather than action and commission. We overestimate the burdens of actions, and underestimate the costs of inaction. Then, when disaster strikes, we blame the people currently in office. Remember this, the next time you, your neighbors, or some activist group sues to prevent a construction project that is manifestly beneficial for most people.
4 Comments:
By 
neo-neocon, at
Sat Sep 03, 05:39:00 PM:
Excellent points indeed. People like to think that it is easier to protect ourselves from the forces of nature than it is. The preparations for building the proper physical defenses were incredibly difficult to make, but the preparations for the proper human response vis a vis evacuation and rescue on the local level would have been somewhat easier. Although these plans (evacuation, etc.) could not have been perfect, they could (and should) have been a lot better than they were, in my opinion.
This is a post I wrote about the preparedness question in general, and the physical, political, and psychological aspects that made it especially difficult to prepare for this particular situation.
By cakreiz, at
Sun Sep 04, 09:46:00 AM:
"Our system creates tremendous biases in favor of inaction and omission, rather than action and commission. We overestimate the burdens of actions, and underestimate the costs of inaction."
Yes, Hawk, 100% agreement. Another example- as gas prices exceed $3 per gal, we oppose building new refineries, exploring for new sources (ANWR), using nuclear energy. Part of the inaction is structural but part is that we don't view ourselves as vulnerable-by nature or man. We're no longer lean & mean- we prefer to build casinos and stadiums rather than sewers, bridges and levees. We're a 550 lb guy sitting on a coach eating chips.
By cakreiz, at
Sun Sep 04, 12:47:00 PM:
Our failure to reform social security and medicaid is the same thing- failure by inaction to protect our infrastructure.
By 
, at
Thu Oct 06, 03:09:00 AM:
I like your blog about adult design site web, make sure to check adult design site web web site out as well!
