New Orleans Times-Picayune is publishing breaking news in weblog format. It makes for a pretty disturbing read: destruction and death and misery. A lot of people have had their lives wrecked, and are going to be living like refugees for years to come.
Why were so many people apparently too poor to be able to get transport out of the city, and/or un-informed about the likely consequences?
(Via Dave Winer)
Update (14.10): If you believe this, then its all too clear why so many people stayed in the city: the state givernment assumed that people would use private transport to evacuate. I’m not sure whether cities in the US have standing plans for total evacuation, but everyone knew that the hurricaine was coming at least 24 hourse before it hit the coast. Surely someone must have thought “what about the people who don’t have cars?” If the comment is correct, and even 10% is the city population was left without an escape option then 48,000 people were just abandoned.
I wonder if, in general, evacuation plans exist for cities in the UK? Manchester (where I live) has had an evacuation plan for the city-centre for some years, and google knows about similar plans for other cities, but nothing that seems to cover an entire city. Is this something that can be adequately planned for?