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Drying Out

It’s been over two weeks since Hurricane Katrina struck the gulf coast.  Parts of the south shore are still under water and 40% or more of the north shore is without power or phone service.  It’s amazing to think that this time last week people were still stranded downtown.  I am currently writing disaster recovery plans for some applications at BellSouth and it amazes me that the city of New Orleans did not have a plan.  I’m sure they did have a plan but why wasn’t it followed?  It seemed to me that when the levee broke, the top officials down there started running around with their hands in the air.  It took a day before they figured out how they would seal the breech.  It took over a day before the massive rescue effort was enacted.  People were being rescued from their flooded homes and taken to a rendezvous point to wait to be rescued again.  People had been anticipating a Katrina-like storm for as long as I can remember.  Why then did they not have a plan in place to coordinate everyone?  I really believe everyone involved in the rescue effort had the best idea on how to proceed.  If they would have stepped back and followed the plan, maybe things would have gone smoother.  I hope that when the rebuilding effort begins we won’t see a similar scene take place.  A lot of thought needs to go into these things.  Americans need to ask themselves if this could happen anywhere else.  This is a great time to go through EVERY disaster scenario and make sure that there are procedures in place and duties are assigned so that when the next disaster strikes (and it will), more people will get out alive.

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