Understanding Katrina
9/13/05
Hurricane Katrina physically overwhelmed New Orleans, and mentally overwhelmed everyone. The answer to why everyone was mentally overwhelmed can be found (as can the answer to everything else about human endeavor) in Parkinson’s Law.
Though most famously known for the proposition that "Work expands to fill the amount of time available for its completion", The Law contains many other equally salient observations. The one that explains what has gone on since Katrina blew by is "The Finance Committee will spend the most time considering the smallest expenditure". When ordinary people sit on a committee charged with the responsibility of allocating the resources of an organization, they will approve or disapprove a long term lease, or a change in a pension plan, or the acquisition of a new computer system after a brief presentation and a few moments discussion, because they really have nothing in their background to enable them to appreciate the overall ramifications of what they are supposed to be considering.
When the next item on the agenda, though, concerns the company picnic, or the purchase of new furniture for the lobby, they all weigh in, and the discussion and heated disputes may go on into the night, and perhaps be carried over to the next meeting. This is because that is something that they have encountered before, and feel confident that they know best about.
When New Orleans was suddenly under water, no one had the least comprehension of the scale of the disaster, or the least notion of how to deal with it. Those in the worst position to cope with the concept of what needed to be done were those whose intellectual capacity and experience were so slight that they did not know that they did not know. This, of course, included the news media, whose function is not to solve problems, but to look around them and tell others what they think is important about what they see. Since no one had ever seen an entire major American city flooded, no one had any basis in reality for assessing the relative importance of what could be observed from any given observation point.
Therefore, since the newsmedia was "on the air" and words had to be uttered on a continuous basis before, during, and after the hurricane struck, the words that came out had to be based on experiences that were much, much smaller in scope, and that were completely inadequate to help explain and report what was going on in real time. For the media to try to relate the effect of the sudden destruction of all the homes in New Orleans on "homelessness" to the homelessness that they had been reporting on for decades was not useful, and was misleading. It was like a prediction of how far an elephant could jump made by someone who had spent his life observing fleas. Some things just don’t scale up.
Also among those who did not know that they did not know was the Governor of Texas, whose heart went out to the wretched souls in New Orleans and declared that they could come to Texas. He was, after all, a Texan, and Texans have a firm belief that everything is possible in Texas, and that its capacity has never been tested. The wretched souls came, and less than a week later, the Governor had to say that Texas was full.
The same lesson had already been learned by those who had found out that 50,000 people rooting for the Saints in the Superdome is not the same as a far, far lesser number of people trying to live there 24 hours a day.
The problem is, that when people have experienced dealing with a disaster affecting 5, 50, 500, or 5,000 people, they think they have a grasp on how big a problem they are facing. When the number is 500,000, instead of 5,000, they think "Boy, this is going to be a lot tougher. This is going to be more than twice as tough as 5,000." It’s not twice as tough. It’s probably not even just 100 times as tough. That magnitude moves it into an entirely different category. It is in the realm of the response to Pearl Harbor, but in a time frame compressed from months down to hours.
Among those who did not know, but knew that they did not know, were the professionals who had a career in responding to emergencies. They knew what it was like to function in a disaster scene, and they knew that some disasters were worse than others, and what the effects were on the body and mind of having a disaster continue over a period of time, but even they could not know of the effects of a disaster in which a series of life and death decisions might go on for a month or more, or whether anything they were going to do would help. Would there be power – ever? Would the pumps work? Was it possible to assemble a sufficient flotilla of boats to rescue people before they starved?
These are things that can’t be computer modeled to any effect, because, even if an experienced paramedic was the computer wizard that created the model, when it was created it would still be only a computer model. To be helpful in the future, that model would have to be implemented. Backup power and backup pumps would have to be created and located outside of New Orleans and placed on stand by. The boats would have to be built and parked somewhere along the banks of the Mississippi. And this would have to be done for all of the other disasters that could be computer modeled throughout the country.
And legislation would have to be passed and implemented, over the objections of those who would object. Legislation had been passed to build higher, stronger levees that would have prevented exactly what happened to New Orleans, but it was stopped in the courts by environmentalists that were concerned about the possible affect on species of animal life.
The miracle, and it very possibly was a miracle, that so much has been accomplished when the whole thing had to be made up without any reservoir of applicable experience, is truly amazing.
Hurricane Katrina physically overwhelmed New Orleans, and mentally overwhelmed everyone. The answer to why everyone was mentally overwhelmed can be found (as can the answer to everything else about human endeavor) in Parkinson’s Law.
Though most famously known for the proposition that "Work expands to fill the amount of time available for its completion", The Law contains many other equally salient observations. The one that explains what has gone on since Katrina blew by is "The Finance Committee will spend the most time considering the smallest expenditure". When ordinary people sit on a committee charged with the responsibility of allocating the resources of an organization, they will approve or disapprove a long term lease, or a change in a pension plan, or the acquisition of a new computer system after a brief presentation and a few moments discussion, because they really have nothing in their background to enable them to appreciate the overall ramifications of what they are supposed to be considering.
When the next item on the agenda, though, concerns the company picnic, or the purchase of new furniture for the lobby, they all weigh in, and the discussion and heated disputes may go on into the night, and perhaps be carried over to the next meeting. This is because that is something that they have encountered before, and feel confident that they know best about.
When New Orleans was suddenly under water, no one had the least comprehension of the scale of the disaster, or the least notion of how to deal with it. Those in the worst position to cope with the concept of what needed to be done were those whose intellectual capacity and experience were so slight that they did not know that they did not know. This, of course, included the news media, whose function is not to solve problems, but to look around them and tell others what they think is important about what they see. Since no one had ever seen an entire major American city flooded, no one had any basis in reality for assessing the relative importance of what could be observed from any given observation point.
Therefore, since the newsmedia was "on the air" and words had to be uttered on a continuous basis before, during, and after the hurricane struck, the words that came out had to be based on experiences that were much, much smaller in scope, and that were completely inadequate to help explain and report what was going on in real time. For the media to try to relate the effect of the sudden destruction of all the homes in New Orleans on "homelessness" to the homelessness that they had been reporting on for decades was not useful, and was misleading. It was like a prediction of how far an elephant could jump made by someone who had spent his life observing fleas. Some things just don’t scale up.
Also among those who did not know that they did not know was the Governor of Texas, whose heart went out to the wretched souls in New Orleans and declared that they could come to Texas. He was, after all, a Texan, and Texans have a firm belief that everything is possible in Texas, and that its capacity has never been tested. The wretched souls came, and less than a week later, the Governor had to say that Texas was full.
The same lesson had already been learned by those who had found out that 50,000 people rooting for the Saints in the Superdome is not the same as a far, far lesser number of people trying to live there 24 hours a day.
The problem is, that when people have experienced dealing with a disaster affecting 5, 50, 500, or 5,000 people, they think they have a grasp on how big a problem they are facing. When the number is 500,000, instead of 5,000, they think "Boy, this is going to be a lot tougher. This is going to be more than twice as tough as 5,000." It’s not twice as tough. It’s probably not even just 100 times as tough. That magnitude moves it into an entirely different category. It is in the realm of the response to Pearl Harbor, but in a time frame compressed from months down to hours.
Among those who did not know, but knew that they did not know, were the professionals who had a career in responding to emergencies. They knew what it was like to function in a disaster scene, and they knew that some disasters were worse than others, and what the effects were on the body and mind of having a disaster continue over a period of time, but even they could not know of the effects of a disaster in which a series of life and death decisions might go on for a month or more, or whether anything they were going to do would help. Would there be power – ever? Would the pumps work? Was it possible to assemble a sufficient flotilla of boats to rescue people before they starved?
These are things that can’t be computer modeled to any effect, because, even if an experienced paramedic was the computer wizard that created the model, when it was created it would still be only a computer model. To be helpful in the future, that model would have to be implemented. Backup power and backup pumps would have to be created and located outside of New Orleans and placed on stand by. The boats would have to be built and parked somewhere along the banks of the Mississippi. And this would have to be done for all of the other disasters that could be computer modeled throughout the country.
And legislation would have to be passed and implemented, over the objections of those who would object. Legislation had been passed to build higher, stronger levees that would have prevented exactly what happened to New Orleans, but it was stopped in the courts by environmentalists that were concerned about the possible affect on species of animal life.
The miracle, and it very possibly was a miracle, that so much has been accomplished when the whole thing had to be made up without any reservoir of applicable experience, is truly amazing.