Welcome to the fall, as we cross another season off the calender. The summer has come, and gone: leaving its heat and warmth in the colors of the leaves, as they burn gold, red, and orange.
The time of the harvest is here, a period of renewing our natural covenat with the earth.
Autumn has a calming name, full of home and hearth,,, and danger.
At the beginning of Autumn, hurricane season is in full swing, with active tropical storms and depressions generated weekly.
While much ado was made about the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, little has been said about the other major storm, Hurricane Rita.
Rita made land fall on September 24th, 2005 and was the second strongest hurricane recorded by NOAA that year, and of all time Ironically, Hurricane Wilma, would even surpass Rita in intensity, leaving Katrina a distant third in the storms of 2005.
Rita is remembered for its challeneges to the Lone Star state, but is less remembered for the additional damage that it did to New Orleans, already battered by Katrina three weeks earlier. More flooding was experinced in the Big Easy, as parts of the 9th Ward expereinced a storm surge and cuased major reflooding.
Six other western Lousinana parrishes were also affected, along with ninecounties in Texas, two in Mississippi, and two in Florida. Tornadoes also occured in Arkansas, as a derivative of the storm
One of the most intereseting aspects of this hurricane was the evacuation of Houston. Called for by Mayor Bill White, some 3 million persons began to evacuate the city.
Many persons around the country began to revise and retool evacuation plans after Hurricane Katrina, especially in the mele that ensued over the rows of school buses were discovered in New Orleans- apart of the City's evacuation plan that never got activated.
But few remember the hundreds of thousands of persons who left Houston...and were stranded on the highway.
Grid lock was so pervasive that an 8 hour drive from Houston to Dallas was completed on avereage in 24-36 hours. Shortages on gas left many persons stranded and caused many complications.
Approximately 107 deaths occurred in the great trek from Houston, just along the highways alone.
The lesson here is that evacuation plans for major cities US cities are imperfect and need refining. Beyond this point the question remains- is it truly a possibility to actually evacuate millions of persons from a major US city?
Planners for these events need to consider the following:
Evacuation plans are moving targets, with many variables to factor. According to NOAA, an average of 3.6 hurricanes occur in September, the most of any month during hurricane season. Planning for hurricanes in the fall is a hidden challenge of autumn, especially for mass evacuations.
Rita serves as a lesson about planning for an evacuation; the best laid plans do not survive the realities of most situations.
Its irony, such verdant irony....
Five years after the terrorist attacks of September 11th, I begin this blog focused on matters of safety and security within the Detroit Area, primarily, and the world in general.
How ironic....
Five years ago, the preparedness of our nation was tested and found lacking. So much so that we would be dragged into a new era of thinking, newly birthed from the end of the Cold War. One where currency with out borders and information with out borders would meet threats without borders.
Detroit had been somewhat ahead of the curve, with challenges to the city with the OAS conference being in Windsor a year prior. Border security, potential terrorists- this time domestic, were planned for after the WTO debacle in Seattle, Washington. So plans were laid, and executed, so that a repeat of the challege to order was not seen here.
Detroit is also unique. We have an annual full scale exercise called Angel's Night, where the city is mobilzed at all levels, to combat historical fires on what was know then as Devil's Night. The unexpected consequence of this mobilzation, in addition to the reduction of fires within the city, was the cohesion built around community preparedness.
Indeed a culture of preparedness exist with in the Motor City, as city workers, businesses, community organizations, and families find countless ways to bond around elimination of a hazard- fire. Angel's Night became the rallying point for a community effort that keeps Detroits readiness at a high level.
Many items now common in the new era of public safety were staples of Detroits preparedness before 9/11. Having noted the annual full scale exercise, the use of incident command, EOC/ICS interface, and the interoperability matters were all being dealt within Detroit's Public Safety community.
The Motown is my home, and the source of pride for me. The challenges ahead, will be defined by the challeges behind us. We hope for better days, from the ashes we will rise....
Welcome Detroit, to the modern era of public safety. You are ready to meet it.
