How a City Slowly Drowned Essay

This cutting summarizes events preceding the Hurri pottye Katrina, which was one of the worst vivid catastrophes in the modern history of the USA. It raises questions about the lack of reasonable streak and preparation actions due to flimsy structure and management of the responsible organizations and persons, invalidness and inconsistence of their actions and incapability of making the finalitys in a timely manner. As a result of the unstructured and incoherent activities, we could observe several(prenominal) ineffective and costly attempts to mitigate stuffs and hurricanes. In the beginning the local officials, U.S. Army corps of Engineers and innocence Houses past and present al slipway seem penny-wise and pound-foolish because of the cosmic string of the wrong decisions, which is indicated by Republican Sen. David Vitters words Instead of expending millions now, we are going to elapse billions later (Grunwald and Glasser). One of the key actors in this case who do the most important decisions was the U.S. Army corps of Engineers. The delegation had a budget formulated by the earmarks. The Corps in lanthanum were acquire more money for the protection from hurricanes than any other state, yet, the actions were non outletn wish of until the very last moment. In the late nineteenth century the Corps, were holding to levees-only policy.So it is not surprising, that the U.S. Army Corps afford implemented the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet depict in 1965, which increase the storm wave when Katrina hit impertinently Orleans (Grunwald and Glasser). This is an evidence of mischievously thought-out decision made by this agency. The Corps engendernt been interest in hurricanes until Betsy hit the city. No wonder that evaluation of the threats was again equip to the Corps instead of another research institute or agency. It be fill ins diaphanous that the Corps had failed their mission, but still had the authority for the implementation. Other ke y actors of the case are politicians, particularly the local officials and the Congress. Local officials didnt want to spend money on expensive but effective projects, which could have protected the lives and infrastructure of the city if implemented on time. It is though surprising that in that respect has been sh consume no considerable interest of the local population or non-governmental organizations in stopion and mitigation of the disasters. However, it is important to mention the concern of the local scientists who assay to warn the officials about the approaching danger. LSU professor Joe Suhayda tried to push the Corps to upgrade the citysdefenses, but was told to choose the stepwise touch on which put up the solution of the problem on the shelf (Grunwald and Glasser).On the other side, the community and its leaders should have put greater draw on the local officials and the federal government to work up changes in the police and present actions onward the hurrica ne hit bracing Orleans, make them take care of the worst case scenario, not the Category 3 hurricanes. It would also be a heavy option if NGOs could make an independent analysis of the environmental situation in the area, involve the experienced specialists from other countries to the projects, and get their ad wrong before letting the Corps implement anything in the area. There was no cognitive operation measurement of the problem handling. In my opinion, in that respect should have been some agencies or private companies hired by the government to check and follow up the actions taken by the Corps. Local population was not getting education on how efficiently tax payers money was spent. No visible actions had been taken by the city mayor, who was responsible for the social welfare and protection of homo lives. The main problem of the politicians and the governmental agencies in this case was the model they chose to make their decisions. In fact, they chose incremental (branc h) regularity instead of the solvent rule set forth by Lindblom in his article (The Science of Muddling Through).Branch manner does not give opportunity to look for alternative solutions decisions are made based on assumptions, and at that place is no boilersuit strategy. The decision can be made even without an agreement on objectives. On the contrary, the radical method that is although more for an ideal world would make a ruin effect. It combines such ordained features like being more theory orient and assuming complete knowledge. It gives possibility of making a choice among several alternative solutions, not the first available and etc. One good example of the decision made according to the branch method in this case, would be the construction of the lock for the New Orleans Industrial Canal. This project was justified only economic ally, without prior values or objectives (Lindblom) and would never be approved by the regular decision process (Grunwald and Glasser). T his suggests that if the root method was implemented, the decision would not be accepted, because, the participants of the discussion had some agreement, which made it contingent to make a decision in favor of approval of the transfer lock to be built.However, if the root method was applied, there would have to be anoverall agreement based on in depth analysis. another(prenominal) reason not to choose the branch method is that it does not sufficiently rely on theory. We can observe that in the case when the Corps decided to build the shipping canal to the Port of New Orleans. zero thought of the consequences of this decision. The construction only aggravated the situation when Katrina hit Louisiana, because there hadnt been any research or experiments carried out. The politicians were choosing this method, because it seemed safer for them. They did not have to take a big responsibility and could delegate it to the lower-level agencies. In the branch method there is a watchdog sys tem that should keep the values in balance (Lindblom). For example, Former Democratic senator Bennett Johnston Jr. was criticizing the Corps for spending alike much money. But later on, we see that he had his own embrace project, a $2 billion effort to subdue the Red River surrounded by the Mississippi and Shrevport, LA which he pushed through the Congress.This method is more adaptive to internal and external changes, so the Corps and the politicians could make any small changes they wanted. In 1982, the Orleans Levee District urged the Corps to lower its design standards to house more realistic hurricane protection and also switched to 100-year storm protection from 200-year send off to save money (Grunwald and Glasser). The whole disaster can be exposit just by the quote of Vic Landry, a Corps engineer lets apprehend it doesnt come on our watch (Grunwald and Glasser). This was the overall point of view of the responsible parties of this case. Basically, nobody wanted to so il himself and take a responsibility to solve the problem as one unit. Essentially, if the root method had been chosen for making decisions, it would have a more positive effect on the situation. When the cost is the human lives you should look for the best opportunities to prevent the problem, not the first satisficing solution available, you should find out the most efficient ways to get a result, not the cheapest. You indispensability a deeper view of the problem. You need to be able to see the whole picture, identify the problem and find the alternative solutions to the problem.Congress was well informed that the US did not have a water resources policy and could actually pass the law or the bill to have it. If there was a water resources policy for taproom of natural disasters, that would also decrease the caused damage. In this case, the Corps would have to come up with a better plan to prevent or at least to mitigate the disaster.The Corps had already faced a tragedy of pr evious hurricanes and should have been more prepared to this situation. If there was better research, it would be clear, that if the Category 3 or higher hurricane happens, the lakes in the area would flood New Orleans. That would expose the problematic issues and give an opportunity to establish pecuniary responsibility, so there wouldnt be any over limits of the budget. beyond all doubt, if there was one center to control the processes, to plan the mitigation actions and etc. there wouldnt be any projects that contradict each(prenominal) other. The structures built for flood were not corresponding to the structures built for storm and vice versa, only worsen the consequences. Obviously, it takes too long for the politicians to make any decision and it takes even longer to change laws.Besides, some decisions were made blindly, without any forecasts for future. For example, there was a cut in budget of the Corps in 2002 by President Bush which as a result impacted New Orleans hurr icane defenses. However, this kind of decision should have been made only after(prenominal) in depth analysis. What is really demanded is the change in the structures of the governmental agencies. Their actions should not depend on the decisions of the certain politicians that want to pass the particular projects for their own advantage which is not necessarily something positive for the social welfare. The lock for the New Orleans Industrial Canal which cost $750 million was justified by predictions of increasing ship traffic, but traffic rapidly declined (Grunwald and Glasser).The process of getting funding from the government should be more complicated to stop blow money of the tax payers. As French composer Hector Berlioz once said, sentence is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils (Berlioz). I hope that the experience of lost time will teach the government and all responsible people to manage their resources properly and wisely, not to let American natio n stay red-faced and homeless because of the wrong decisions and ambitions of certain people. indication list1. Michael Grunwald and Susan B. Glasser / How a City Slowly Drowned. The Washington Post, National periodical Edition, October 17 to 23, (2005) pp. 6-10 2. Charles E. Lindblom The Science Of Muddling Through (1959) 3. Letter written in November 1856, make in Pierre Citron (ed.) HectorBerlioz. Correspondance gnrattle (Paris Flammarion, 1989) vol. 5, p. 390 Paul Davies About Time Einsteins Unfinished renewing (New York Simon & Schuster, 1996) p. 214.