Dear Dr Durgadas Mukhopadhyay
Thank you for your perceptive letter, I am sure that all experienced people
working in this field are totally shocked over the many failures in New
Orleans. I share your convictions and want to wish you well in your vital
work in this field.
With warmest regards
Ian Davis
----- Original Message -----
From: "Durgadas Mukhopadhyay" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, September 05, 2005 10:26 PM
Subject: Re: Day by day graphics, chrono of Katrina & New Orleans
Dear Professor Davis and friends,
The mismanagement of Katrina disaster has taken place
in a country which shouts from the rooftop claiming to
be the biggest democracy.It is time to look into the
human rights issues of the criminal negligence in
disaster management. Even the poorest country like
Bangladesh has provisions of cyclone shelteror qila or
forts with provisions of food, drinking water,blankets
and medicine in almost all the villages and
settlements.In this cyclone and flood prone
area,houses are of bamboo and built on a stilt so that
floodwater run below the house. Even during the
Orissa supercyclone,the navy and the army reached the
affected areas and started relief ,reconstruction and
rehabilitation within a few hours of the disaster.
Why it took eight days for the mostly white national
guards to reach the affected areas. Why it took ten
days for Bush to come and hug the white affected girl
for the cameraman.Why the people lived in the company
of dead corpses without water or food for four days in
the richest country of the world. Of couse there would
be not one but many commissions in the nesxt thirty
years to play the blame game without any consequence.
On June 1, 2005 the body of a black boy Emmett Till
who was murdered in 1955 by two white was exhumed by
the police with the hope that 50 years later, an
autopsy might reveal some clues about the killers'
accomplices. On June 21st July, 2005 a jury in
Mississippi found an 80-year old man Edger Ray Killen,
a preacher, guilty of manslaughter in a case involving
the deaths of three civil rights workers in 1964.
When the American soldiers in Iraq were flushing the
Koran down the toilets to amuse themselves and were
urinating on the naked POW's in Garib prison, the US
was passionately involved in excavating its past and
sounding the drums of justice
In a democratic country like USA,The mismanagement of
Katrina Tragedy could be the beginning of second civil
rights movement!
Professor Durgadas Mukhopadhyay
[log in to unmask]
--- ian davis <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> To the Editor, The Washington Post
>
> Dear Editor
>
> Almost thirty years ago, in the aftermath of the
> Guatemala earthquake that
> killed over 22,000 people, Professor Nick Ambraseys
> of Imperial College
> London suggested that "Today's act of God, will be
> regarded as tomorrow's
> act of criminal negligence". He was referring to
> all the unnatural aspects
> of the disaster that contributed to the scale of
> deaths and damage. His
> words now ring true in relation to the chaos and
> acute suffering following
> Katrina. Therefore, when the US Congress initiates
> some form of
> Congressional Commission to investigate this
> tragedy, to decide on who was
> responsible for the 'unnatural' aspects of Katrina
> as well as to report on
> any essential policy changes, they will have an
> extensive agenda before
> them. It could include the following questions:
>
> 1.. Why were the levees built and maintained
> without regard to the impact
> of a storm surge of this scale, and specifically,
> why was the 2004 model
> that predicted 10-15 feet of water in New Orleans,
> as a result of hurricane
> flooding, ignored?
> 2.. Why was the pre-event evacuation of the region
> so incomplete, without
> attention being given to citizens of the city
> without means of
> transportation?
> 3.. Why was the Louisiana Superdome opened to
> provide 'safety' to between
> 10- 20,000 persons without even minimal provision
> being made for such basic
> needs as sanitation, food, shelter, water, medical
> needs and human security?
> 4.. Why in the current search and rescue operation
> is minimal reliance
> being given for the use of rescue boats to
> supplement helicopter rescue
> operations?
> 5.. Why are the extensive resources of the Office
> of Foreign Disaster
> Assistance (OFDA) not being used?
> 6.. Why did it take six days before international
> assistance was
> requested? And finally,
> 7.. Why did any disaster plans that might have
> been available for fully
> predictable severe hurricane winds accompanied by
> fully predictable severe
> flooding fail so miserably?
> While working in forty five disaster situations
> within developing countries
> in over thirty five years, I have never seen
> anything approaching this level
> of governmental failure in any country, however poor
> and undeveloped. While
> Mercy demands any action to reduce further human
> suffering, Justice demands
> that responsibility for failures be assigned and
> policies be reviewed to
> avoid further "acts of criminal negligence"
>
>
> Yours sincerely
>
> Professor Ian Davis
> Resilience Centre
> Cranfield University,
> UK
>
>
> Home address:
> 97 Kingston Road
> Oxford
> OX2 6RL
> UK
>
> Home Tel: 44 (0) 1865 556473
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "CACH Info Ctr" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Monday, September 05, 2005 4:50 AM
> Subject: Re: Day by day graphics, chrono of Katrina
> & New Orleans
>
>
> > Talk about your political diatribe...
> >
> > Offers of assistance CAME from Canada and a dozen
> or more other nations -
> > voluntary OFFERS of assistance.
> >
> > A number of those offers - Venezuela's included -
> have political overtones
> > not even worthy of discussion.
> >
> > Your last paragraph is outrageous on its face and
> does little to further
> > the
> > discussion of natural hazards and disasters to
> which this list is
> > ostensibly
> > dedicated.
> >
> > Be well, stay safe.
> > Charles
> >
> > C. S. Thomas
> > Managing Director
> > CACH International Ltd Co
> > "Planning to Keep You in Business"sm
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Natural hazards and disasters
> > [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> On Behalf Of Ben Wisner
> > Sent: Sunday, 04 September 2005 23:36
> > To: [log in to unmask]
> > Subject: Day by day graphics, chrono of Katrina &
> New Orleans
> >
> > Dear colleagues,
> >
> > I am not sure how many of you have seen the New
> York Times online section
> > that provides day by day satellite images, maps of
> New Orleans with
> > flooding, fires, etc. marked, and notes on
> response.
> >
> > See
> >
>
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/national/2005_HURRICANEKATRINA_GRAPHIC/
> > index_02.html .
> >
> > Humans are good at ordering disorder, or, at
> least, going through the
> > ritual
> > motions. This slick graphical display -- and
> there is no denying it's
> > usefulness -- seems somehow rather futile
> nonetheless. The city is now
> > almost empty except for occupying troops and stray
> animals and the dead
> > (no
> > doubt now in the thousands). The genie is out of
> the bottle.
> >
> > The U.S. has finally asked Canada, the EU, and
> NATO for assistance:
> > disaster
> > diplomacy, as Ilan Kelman would say. Cuban
> doctors are standing buy, and
> > there is an offer of more Venezuelan oil, but that
> is probably too much
> > for
> > the Bush administration.
> >
> > Condoleza Rice has vehemently denied that racism
> played any role in the
> > lack
> > of plans for evacuating New Orleans' poor,
> predominantly Black population
> > (some 112,000 households known from the U.S.
> Census to be without private
> > automobiles) and slow response. Well, that's her
> job in the WHITE house,
> > isn't it?
> >
> > Ben Wisner
> > [log in to unmask]
> >
>
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