On one hand, I’m glad the television news coverage has left its anchormen braving the storm phase. On the other hand, that’s a bad thing, because it signals that there’s rising damage and emergency from the post-hurricane floods in Louisiana. At this point, now that best case scenario has slipped away, one can only hope for progress in saving lives, housing flood refugees and slowly getting major population centers back to some semblence of order.
It’s worth pointing out that from a policy perspective, this kind of disaster was hardly unpredictable. A friend pointed me to an interesting piece from Risk & Insurance magazine in 2000 that attacks the short-sightedness of municipal expenditures:
Shoring up homes has become a thriving business in the city… As homes list and sink, companies jack up the homes or provide fill to even the ground. All of the efforts seem like a bandage approach, thinks Penland. "It would cost a billion or two dollars to make the levee 30 feet high. A major flood with loss of life could cost $10 billion. What’s wrong with this picture? If we know the worst-case scenario is billions and it would take a billion or two to prevent it, why don’t we do it? I don’t think anyone’s thinking about it.
It’s not exactly moral hazard, but we certainly could learn how to manage risk and expenditure better - and to translate the issues into the political realm better.
Meanwhile, there’s the looting. Atrios points out the racial double standard in the media coverage. To which I’d add a plea: can’t we reasonably distinguish between looting for guns and high end consumer goods and looting for food and basic supplies? I mean, it’s not like there are a ton of stores open in the city. Besides, do you think that those bags of ice or diapers are going to be any good after the waters recede? The breakdown of social order is not a good thing, but people should keep things in perspective.
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