Thinking and acting beyond New Orleans and much more politically is an excellent suggestion.  I am grateful to Ilan and Tim.  The suggestion brings to mind two things (and my apologies for cross posting).

First is Haresh Shah's well know lament after the earthquake in Gujarat (2001) that with so much knowledge, experience, science, and technology, professionals are still failing to "go the last mile" with implementation.  Since Haresh's now famous, short paper -- one that has probably circled the globe several times electronically -- I have been involved in many discussions (in Colombia, South Africa, Japan) about the obstacles to implementing what we know.  In most of these discussions my interlocutors shy away from the "political" obstacles -- such as we've seen now in the case of New Orleans.  So I fully and enthusiastically support the suggestion of not just doing studies of disasters-waiting-to-happen, but expending the "great deal of energy... to generate publicity" the two previous writers suggest.  Moreover, these studies have got to be participatory in nature, involving from the start civil society, and, especially, many women and young people.

Second, I would add Mumbai to Ilan's list.  Although the flooding that killed more than 1,000 people a short time ago was not caused by a cyclonic storm, there are many similar aspects of that tragedy.  Monsoon flooding has been getting worse and worse as the city grows and the old drainage infrastructure is not able to keep pace.  Maintenance of the drainage system also seems to have been neglected.  

I would be grateful if list members who know more about the Mumbai situation would enlighten us.

Flooding in cities -- whatever the natural trigger event --is a major threat to much of humanity and has enormous knock on effect at the level of regional, national, and sometimes even international economic relations.  Osaka, Japan's second largest city, depends on technological systems such as flood gates to keep water from a possible earthquake-generated tsunami out of its immense underground shopping areas and transportation hubs.  Will these system fail?  In a New York Times article yesterday an expert was quoted as puzzled that the point in the New Orleans levee system that failed was one that had recently been reinforced.  All such systems may fail (see Charles Perrow, "Normal Accidents," 2nd edition, Princeton University Press, 1998).

Ben Wisner
[log in to unmask]

-----Original Message-----
From: Ilan Kelman <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sep 2, 2005 10:56 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Beyond New Orleans

>To my mind, the disaster-prevention community could make a huge
>contribution if in every region
>a survey is made of disasters-in-waiting AND a great deal of energy is used
>to generate publicity
>where it can be effective, possibly far away in the nations� capitals, to
>give at least some chance
>to preventive measures being undertaken by the political class.

I wish to echo this sentiment, in particular using Katrina as an excuse to
raise the profile of cities which could suffer similar fates, such as London
and Dhaka, New York and (I believe but I might be wrong) Kinshasa.  It is
too late for New Orleans.  It is not too late for the others.

My concern is that, when I have tried to speak about disasters-in-waiting,
little impact results.  When our colleagues spoke about New Orleans as a
disaster-in-waiting, little impact resulted.  Even when we speak about
Darfur or Dhaka or Kinshasa as disasters-in-progress (at the appropriate
times), little impact results.  300,000 people had just died in tsunamis
across a dozen countries when the Chancellor of the United Kingdom offered
whatever money it would take to help them and backed up his words with the
staggering sum of one million pounds--the same amount of money required to
fire a single cruise missile into Baghdad.

In the weeks before Katrina formed, I had been spending time with
journalists trying to construct a scenario for a major inundation of central
London.  Aside from http://www.floodlondon.com minimal scientific
information appears to exist on such as a situation.  Government agencies
seem to be unwilling to consider this scenario--after all, the Thames
Barrier will protect the city.  Some government officials have publicly
stated blatant falsehoods, such as the senior civil servant who claimed that
no one would die during the next major east coast storm surge.  I challenged
him in the public forum to justify this contention, backing up my statements
with evidence, and was effectively told to stuff it.

And did I mention that New Orleans is safe?

To those of us in the more affluent countries, how dare we go to less
affluent places and work through technology and knowledge exchange, capacity
building, and institutional strengthening?  Our own countries are a mess.
Belize has a better national disaster management plan than the U.K.  India
has disaster-related NGOs which teach me far more than certain academics in
the U.S.A. and Australia.  What does it take, whether you are in Lilongwe or
Leeds, Wellington or Speightstown, to make our species think ahead of
disaster?

I fully agree with Tim's words.  How do we do so?

Ilan