far from perfect storm

A busy summer and forgotten password make for bigger than usual blank spots in a blog. This being September 11 thoughts automatically turn to the events of four years ago, but also turn unbidden to Hurricane Katrina and the events of the last couple of weeks. People don't make hurricanes, at least not directly, so we don't blame the storm for the trouble it causes. The 9-11-01 events were caused directly by people, so we do blame them and those who helped them for the trouble they caused. After that, the two events start to look more alike. In both events the news was all about the failure of the government at all levels to deal with an unprecedented catastrophe, and how that incompetence resulted in people dying. I certainly don't disagree. What I disagree with is the notion that any government should be prepared to deal with an unprecedented catastrophe.

When Joseph (the biblical one) interpreted Pharaoh's dream to say that 7 fat years would be followed by 7 lean years the government of Egypt took it seriously and heavily taxed the people so that enough grain would be available for 7 years of drought. The result was the government owning the whole country by the time the drought broke. This works well in a monarchy, but would not be well received in a democratic republic. If the government of New Orleans had taxed the people sufficiently to build defenses against a category 5 hurricane they would have been hooted and booted out of office. If the air transportation system had been designed to prevent the 9-11-01 attacks, no one would be flying and Amtrack would be flush.

It's all well and good to try assessing blame and rooting out failures after an unprecedented catastrophe, but we need to remember that it was unprecedented. No politician would have been able to sell the necessary cost of preventing it.

The response afterwards is a different story. There we can identify all sorts of failures that were the result of bad planning. Relying on cell phones for communication after a disaster that will surely wipe out the cell system is probably unwise. Banks in New Orleans are now trying to figure out how to contact customers who have no phone or forwarding address. The forms people fill out don't usually include an out-of-area contact since people don't expect their city to disappear. That will probably change. We learn from these things, and the next big hurricane to hit a major American city will probably see a better response.

We are always reacting to unprecedented events since, by definition, no one ever thought they would happen or couldn't muster the political will to prepare for them. The now discredited arms race with the Soviet Union was an example of building defenses against something that never came. People in the information age are a lot less willing to buy such a response if they don't believe the danger is imminent. Let's not demand a response from government or anyone if we aren't willing to pay the price of preparedness. I am probably a lot like you, I don't want to pay for a response that may never be needed. Just before criticizing the government's response, try to imagine having paid for the preparation necessary to respond better. Would you have been willing to pay?

Are you willing to pay to fortify all gulf coast and Atlantic seaboard cities against a category 5 hurricane? How about paying for preparing all California cities for an 8.3 earthquake like the one that destroyed San Francisco in 1906? Tornadoes are a terrible problem in the Midwest; shouldn’t we have hardened facilities able to resist them? Are you willing to pay for securing all transportation systems from a terrorist attack? Of course not. I, too, like to eat in addition to paying taxes.

It is time to learn what we can from these disasters, and to avoid using them as a platform for inappropriate attacks on those charged with preventing or responding to them when we did not provide the necessary resources. No government ever has the resources to respond promptly and unerringly to an unprecedented catastrophe. Let’s not pretend that they should.