Rita Evacuation Strategies

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: peterb () cequs com
Date: September 23, 2005 1:18:54 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Rita Evacuation Strategies


Dave,

An interesting but largely unknown factoid is that the Civil Defense
warnings and shelters that many of us boomers experienced in the 1950's
and
60's  were largely a palliative measure aimed primarily at preventing
keeping people off the roads, who would naturally
tend to "head for the hills".

Traffic jams were anticipated by the Defense Civil Preparedness
Agency, which was the agency before FEMA.


Houston officials that claimed they did not anticipate massive traffic
jams
but did not adequately communicate
who specifically needed to evacuate within the short time frame allowed
in
pre-evacuation, and thus got
a mass, rather than a specific targeted response. This speaks to how we
choose to organize our responses.

Historically, also the logic behind the Interstate System which served
dual
use purposes of
civilian and miliary traffic was to prevent congestion.

The Texas highway
officials were going to open
up "contraflow" allowing all traffic to flow northward, but changed
their
minds when it was apparent that
resources needed to arrive in the city for pre-positioning.

The governor of
LA was forced to issue the following
advice, "go North", and ask those remaining in the most dangerous areas
to
write their default identification
number (social security) on their arms in indeliable ink to aid in case
they did not make it by failing to leave.

At one point, pre-FEMA days, the official government policy was to lie
(mislead?) over
the CD radio system to avoid counterproductive mass behaviors that would
prevent orderly evacuation and subsequent relief efforts. It's probably
been
noted elsewhere, that taken as a whole, as a Nation, we don't line up
very
well, which is a difference between individual behaviors, and group
behaviors in qeuing.


We don't do this very well, and why other Nations are capable of this
speaks
to our inherent trust in government in general and the historical
record, as well as
crowd psychology, communications, and genetic traits regarding
altruistic
behaviors, like empathy which gives us an understanding of our fellow
humans
condition. Competition and cooperation are at the heart of the
"teamwork"
ethic.

Egress simulations turn up different types of behaviors that are
probably hardwired into our flight or fight response, which is a basic
binary motivator, i.e. should I stay or should I go? The types of
behaviors
can be categorized into free agency which tends to block
all exits as people look upon themselves as competitors, and act
primarily
as individuals; and in queueing behaviors where agents detect others and
their potential exits, thus producing a queuing strategy. Herding
behaviors
take place when people follow others to exits. Every evacuation has
a mixture of all three.

What FEMA value added to this boolean logic of stay or go,
was a flavor of free agency by
giving people the ability to weigh their own options, rather than
explicitly
encouraging mass behaviors which would largely overwhelm resources,
like being slashdotted. Information flow can degrade into
denial of service.

The better the information flow, the better the
response.

With  that early Civil Defense strategy abandoned, FEMA came a change in
logic that said that it was far better to tell people the truth, and
allow
them to sort out the situation for theselves, even to the point in
perhaps
engaging in mass behaviors that might not be productive. There came a
faith
in the individual to do the right thing, but with an expressed role of
government officials to convey what the right thing was to do. As such
the frustration
of those stuck on the road, running out of gas, who were doing what they

thought they were told to do.

The importance of clear communications underscored the need for public
officials to accurately convey information, and the dire results
in not doing so clearly, and the tragedy where accurate information was
not
flowing to all the actors in the system, thus as in the case of Katrina,
rather than Rita, actually preventing needed responses(like
transportation, responders
and vital supply delivery)  from occuring while
command and control messages failed to be processed correctly to let
these
responders respond with help.

While there's
much to be lauded in terms of heroic self sacrifice in events like the
9/11,
Katrina, etc., in terms
of first responders, we should not let our emotions in encouraging
heroism
in our "war on Terror/Terra" overshadow the need for
logic in preventing these situations from becoming disasters in the
first
place. Sure it would not as newsworthy to have things run more smoothly,
but
wouldn't that be great news? As such we appear to have learned and
quickly since the response and planning for Rita seems to be much
better than Katrina.


Often we  look at what a horrible position we put these people in, and
make
then into heroes and victims,  rather than fixing the problem and giving

good options, and that appears to come  from an  ancient fear of
angering the gods by
using techne to challege the fates, as well as the sheer organizational
challenge
that any disaster requires.

It was Ben  Franklin who convinced us to
adopt the lightning rod, a move that was opposed by some church
officials
of that time.

He also fought against he rivalry of fire brigades and organized the
insurance company symbolized by joined hands. While we have far more
modern
technology, it's clear that our thinking in these matters could progress
beyond the binary flight or fight response to a more organized community
that recognizes and takes into account the actions of our fellow humans
like
the citizen Franklin envisioned.

peterb () cequs com



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