New Orleans Architectural Issues (its not that they didn't predictthis)

["David Farber" <dave () farber net>]

-----Original Message-----
From: "peterb () cequs com"<peterb () cequs com>
Sent: 02/09/05 12:56:12 PM
To: "dave () farber net"<dave () farber net>
Subject: New Orleans Architectural Issues (its not that they didn't predictthis)

Dave,

This is so sad and ironic.

And very true. In the past, I have helped run communications scenarios
as a 
contractor for FEMA where we simulated
disaster events and the ability of first responders to cope with every 
increasing scripted difficulties. First responders and communications
have 
come a long way since I did this 20 years ago.

While I don't do this anymore; I'm sure that New Orleans has been
virtually 
flooded many times in regional simulations involving the  various
agencies. 
It was pretty well known public knowledge as the newspaper articles
attest.

In these scenarios command and control communications always breaks
down; 
members of the dominant political infrastructure go absent, etc. It's
just 
about what one expect. These are disasters, after all, even when they
are 
simulated.

Just like people running 3 Mile island in  Limerick, PA were forced to
use 
the payphone at at local c-store we repeat Kubrick's cinematic dialog of
the 
Cold War MAD of  the secure phone line between Russia and the US.

Or the base liason officer trying to get change out of the Coca-Cola
(tm) 
machine to call the President.

The metaphor of the machine is the entire structure that's set up to
deal 
with these situations, and  while people have authority, (and choose to
use 
and abuse it) the whole thing does not always  work all that well, like
the CRM 
discriminator that gets fried, the base commander, and so on, because we
choose to put limitations of what can be done. Read it, this is a
country without limitations
if we choose to attack a problem and work in a united fashion on the
right problems
about which reasonable people will differ.

But political reality is that there are priorities and limitations, the
question is this solely being
driven by short and long term economics of which New Orleans seems to be
the case since we
bought it? Just an extreme example of economics and geography in keeping
the machine running.

 It is organizational structure trying to come to grips
with reality that we both build, and manage. And often we accept
failures like this,
because, hey, we are only human,(we didn't know aka 9/11, oops we did
know but were not paying attention) but if in fact there are people in
charge whom we elect or choose to buy products from, who else is
responsible?

 "Hello? Hello, Dimitri? Listen, I can't hear too well, do you suppose
you 
could turn the music down just a little? Oh, that's much better. Yes.
Fine, 
I can hear you now, Dimitri. Clear and plain and coming through fine.
I'm 
coming through fine too, eh? Good, then. Well then as you say we're both

coming through fine."  (Dr. Strangelove)

To wit, New Orleans has been a known major scenario, and therefore the 
situation has to be looked at as something that:

1) Just happened as part of a natural processs. (no one to blame)

2) happened as part of a design in conjunction with natural geographic 
processes. (planners and policy makers to blame)

3) happened with the choices and knowledge of the various actors
involved in 
those processes based on their understanding (or lack of understanding)
of 
the risks involved. (ourselves to blame)

To my knowledge, no one has been forced in the U.S. to live anywhere,
(with 
the important  exceptions of historical relocations of tribal nations,
and 
slavery) except when constrained by economic circumstances.

However, big structural economic issues like this operate at a different

level, and will have to be applied to the re-design/reconstruction of 
Nouveax Orleans. This is a time for "big ideas" rather than business as 
usual.

It's not that "they", (the policy makers) don't understand the problem,
it's 
developing the overall political will to apply policy in a free market 
economy governed by the invisible hand.

Was the risk of being wiped out by Sadam's 45 minute Nukes (see Dr. S
above) 
more than a Cat 4-5 Hurrican hitting the Gulf? Even with historical 
hindsight factored out? We only have so much money, where is it going to
be 
spent?

Brutally, the market is adjusting for the disaster. While individuals
may 
benefit in the short term in ignoring ecological reality, and thus as 
economic actors will pay a price, they will not be held responsible.

In fact, we can see here that no one is in charge, and no one is 
responsible, because we all are responsible, and therefore no one is.

To that extent, the IP list is invaluable at getting at the root issues
and 
surfacing ideas that may be unacceptable within the context of various 
players who see their particular viewpoints.

If the entire situation is both a long term historical connection
between, 
politics, commerce and geography with organizations like the Corps of 
Engineer being used like a proxy warrior between natural forces and
economic 
forces, the solution will have to be architectural.

Good architectural designs balance natural forces and economic and
political 
concerns. They admit that there is no one solution, and that a stronger 
solution is one that takes into account various structural concerns and
uses 
them to create strong structures as opposed to trying to defeat natural 
forces.

Given that we do in fact have limited resources, (politics is described
as 
the competition for limited resources) at some level a priority was
given as 
to what could be done given the resources allowed and of course, since
that 
priority was established not to reinforce
the levees beyond that of what a Cat 3 Hurricane would do, based on a
cost 
benefit analysis, then it is important to realize that what happened was
a 
result of a natural occurence, but one that had been already calculated
in 
terms of risks.

peterb () cequs com

Cequs Inc.

http://www.cequs.com 



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