Staying for the storm

 Well, you know, once again, here we are.

And not a minute to spare, either. 

Mayor LaToya Cantrell on Friday said that with little time left before Hurricane Ida reaches Louisiana, residents should get ready to hunker down and ride out the storm.

She told a news conference there wasn't enough time to establish the highway contraflow procedures necessary to move all residents out of the city before the storm's expected landfall Sunday afternoon. 

"We are not calling for a mandatory evacuation because the time simply is not on our side. We do not want to have people on the road, and therefore in greater danger,” Cantrell said. 

She reiterated that New Orleanians inside the city's levee protection system are safe, but said that residents outside of the levees were under a mandatory evacuation order and should get out as soon as possible.

There are a couple things to say about this.  The first, I suppose, is that the mayor is correct about the timing. Calling and executing a mandatory evacuation that activates the city assisted service and highway contraflow system takes far longer to accomplish than the basically one day they had to throw it together after getting a bead on what this storm was going to do.  During the Saturday afternoon press conference, a Washington Post reporter hit LaToya with a dumb hypothetical "what would you have done if everything was different" question.  She handled it okay by talking nonsense in turn. But expect more of that kind of thing if something goes wrong over the next 48 hours.

This does not mean the city has done a terrific job being on top of things. One of the Cantrell Administration's biggest weaknesses is its inconsiderate treatment of its working class residents and that has again been on display in the pre-storm planning. It doesn't do very many people any good to call for "voluntary evacuations" without also making sure that they have the time and certainty necessary to plan those trips. On Friday, the mayor recommended voluntary evacuations for anyone who might feel they need to get out.  “If you have medical needs or wish to voluntarily evacuate on your own, now is the time to start,” she said.  However, no one heeding the mayor's call at that time was given any certainty that they were in fact free to go, nor were they given any guidance for when best to return.  City offices had not yet been closed.  The public schools were still in session.  If you were a parent, a teacher, or a city employee looking to voluntarily evacuate, you had none of the information you needed to do that.

A city executing its emergency plan should have closures and estimated re-opening dates already in place by the time it issues any sort of evacuation order. It should set the standard also for private businesses responsible for dismissing employees and guaranteeing their return as well.  But, because the Cantrell Administration views workers as problems rather than as people, none of this happened.  There's no doubt the mayor is going to come in for a lot of unfair criticism from bad faith or just plain ignorant commenters from outside of the city. That always happens in these situations. But she also will receive far too much credit from local libertarian types who share her abusive boss mentality. Hopefully the stakes of this remain in the realm of the frustrating political rhetoric we're used to seeing happen around this administration and do not extend to anything that actually affects life and death during the emergency. 

But the default implied position of policymakers is as close to, "y'all are on your own" as they can possibly get away with.  At several moments during her press conferences over the past few days, the mayor has stressed this talking point. 

“What we learned during Hurricane Katrina is we are all first-responders,” Ms. Cantrell said. “It’s about taking care of one another.”

She seems to enjoy that one.  And it sounds kind of nice at first run.  It's colored with the suggestion of community spirit and mutual aid.  Those are laudable values for the public to promote among themselves. But when you hear the government charged with actually providing these services use it as an excuse to fob off its responsibility, it becomes something more sinister. Ultimately what we are being told is not to expect help from a regime that does not respect its end of the social contract. We are expected to obey orders we are not given the tools to fulfill.  

Evacuating is hard enough as it is. It's definitely not the right call for every person. It can be dangerous for many reasons. Perhaps your vehicle (if you have one in the first place) isn't in highway shape. Perhaps you don't have anywhere to go and stay.  Hotels are expensive. Gas is expensive. Running off into an open ended trek into the unknown is really not something you want to do unless you absolutely have to. People who don't live through these events might not understand this. 

We've decided to stay this time and I think our reasons  for staying now are good.  I have a strong bias toward staying through almost any storm but there are still some factors to consider in order to get to that decision logically. Here is how that breaks out. 

1) Can the levees handle the storm surge?

It's about 11 pm on Saturday night while I'm typing this.  The latest track forecast is bringing the storm closer to New Orleans than it has all day. Yeah we're a bit worried about that. But what has not changed at all has been the storm surge modeling. The prediction there has consistently called for 7-11 feet along Lake Borgne and 5-8 feet in Lake Pontchartrain.  The flood protection system protecting New Orleans is supposed to be able to handle 25 feet.  The system ("in name only") that failed during Katrina was far worse and Katrina's surge was over 20 feet.  Anyway, even if we do not have the utmost faith in the new system, it's well within reason to expect it will do the job. 

2) What about the pumps?

Again, the storm surge is the big worry with any hurricane. But the more familiar sort of flooding we've had to deal with in recent years is caused by our fabulously dysfunctional drainage system. Over the last few days, we've been repeatedly assured by the SWB wizards that they expect to supply sufficient power to the pumps running on an improvised combination of the recently repaired Turbine 5, the somewhat undersized Turbine 6, and a series of temporary generators and frequency changers.  PLUS they just might still be able to revive our old friend Turbine 4 in the nick of time which would be very exciting indeed. They say they don't absolutely need it but sometime a turbine wants to be a hero and who can deny it that chance.  

Now maybe SWB is full of shit about all of this. It wouldn't be the first time.  But there are some mitigating factors.  It's worrisome to be on the "wet" side of the storm, and Ida could drop over 10 inches on us.  But it's worth noting that Ida isn't expected to stall over us so that rainfall projection is a maximum.  And under those circumstances, hurricane rainfall isn't as likely to cause the kind of flash flooding that a typical summertime thunderstorm does around here. Very likely, the pumps can handle it. Most importantly, our street has only flooded badly from rainfall once. And even then all we had to do was move the cars up onto to sidewalk for a while. So, again, as far as we are concerned, it's reasonable to expect we can handle whatever street flooding might occur in the event of a pumping failure. 

3) The winds will go whoooosh, though!

Yes, this is the scariest part.  Especially now that we might get some intensity in the city.  But most likely we won't see any sustained winds here exceeding tropical storm range. The gusts will be higher than that and it will probably be a bit rough at times. But if you can tolerate a little excitement, then it's still a better deal than the massive headaches that come with an evacuation.  That doesn't mean there is no danger. There is a chance of damage to the building. But even then, I prefer to be where I can keep an eye on things; seal up a broken window, put a bucket under a leak if need be. 

4) The power will go out

That does suck.  After Gustav in 2008 we were without power for a week.  After Zeta last year we were down for a few days. It's uncomfortable being without a/c in late August. But we know how to do it and are ready.  Are we ready to do it for three weeks?  Hell no! But we do welcome the fight we're going to have with Entergy if they are serious about that.

Anyway that all adds up to staying in town for us.  Not everyone will have come to the same conclusion and that is fine.  Different people have different situations that will cause them to answer the above questions differently.  But we're still here, us.  Just after midnight on August 29th appropriately facing down another catastrophic hurricane.  They are saying the first effects should be noticeable in the morning. I'll try to update then.