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September 03, 2005
random hurricane thoughts and ranting.
There's been an interesting discussion going on on the Chicago Critical Mass list, about could some New Orleans residents have evacuated by bicycle. Something that had crossed my mind. Obviously not old people, sick, frail, or disabled people, and not necessarily children. As a person with no drivers' license or vehicle I know I would have needed to depend on family and friends who have these things and most likely would have saved my bacon.
Some involved in the CCM discussion went so far as to ask
"Would it make sense, say, for the government to mass produce
compact touring bicycles for the purpose of airlifting them into
disaster areas? Mandate a minimum number of public use bicycles in
every city for disaster evacuation purposes? Could this be more
effective than transport the people themselves? (i.e. the plane that
does the drop wouldn't need a runway, or even a pressurized hold)"
Its interesting to think about anyway,even if it sounds kind of goofy and improbable. And plus, maybe in this case it would have been better to drop blow-up rafts. But in advance of the water, I suppose people could have ridden to somewhere to get on buses or trains.
The thing about having a bicycle plan that I like is that doesn't involve sitting in traffic and/or waiting for some authority to come and get me, or tell me where to go. The latter having failed the most vulnerable people pretty well in this situation, sadly, it seems to me. But then, of course, where do you go if you have nothing and no one makes a place for you.
This is all projection, of course, because the thought of being helpless, sitting on my roof or in a crowded, collapsing stadium, makes me crazy. The idea of being vulnerable and sick (in my case not having the means to keep my diabetes under control, and god knows there must have been diabetics, there are thousands of us) well, I've said it before, it makes me feel panicky. Anyway.
There's no way to make sense of it all.
There is an interesting article at ZNet by Christian Parenti about How the Free Market Killed New Orleans.
Here is a good representative quote from the article~
"Bush's agenda is to cut government services to the bone and make people rely on the private sector for the things they might need. So he sliced $71.2 million from the budget of the New Orleans Corps of Engineers, a 44 percent reduction. Plans to fortify New Orleans levees and upgrade the system of pumping out water had to be shelved.
Bush took to the airways and said that no one could have foreseen this disaster. Just another lie tumbling from his lips."
Posted by pippypippy at September 3, 2005 02:49 PM