You Will Die Before We Reach You
September 4th 2007 10:35
The poor and elderly should be moved out of harms way. This is the true lesson of the Katrina hurricane. We should use two criteria to evaluate evacuation zones. The first is: what is the likelihood of a disaster occurring? The second is: what is the likelihood that it will take longer than three days for authorities to get to the most difficult to reach people? Multiply these two probabilities together and we get a rough estimate of the places where it should be public policy to evacuate the poor and elderly. The 100 places in the United States with the worse overall scores should be evacuated as soon as possible. Furthermore, just as governments should not reward people for building in flood plains or on earthquake faults, governments should also not pay to put affordable housing in the most hazardous areas in America. In fact, in conjunction with the evacuation which should be done as soon as possible, we should engage in longer term planning. Zoning commissions in various municipalities should zone certain residential areas as being unfit for the poor and elderly. These areas would come from a larger list of the 1000 least safe places in America.
The poor and elderly should clamor for these changes most of all. During Katrina we saw the spectacle of poor people who did not have cars locked in an arena. After the bathrooms stopped working conditions were like being locked in an outhouse or cesspool. No human being in America should be treated that way. As for the elderly, when some of their care takers fled to higher ground it is still unclear what was or was not done to the old people who were stranded.
As a rough measure we can identify places where it might be hard to rescue people. Katrina again comes to the fore. Any location where natural or man made disasters are relatively likely would be one criteria. Take for instance, fault lines in major California cities. Another factor is geography. Help is much quicker to arrive when there are many maintained roads entering the affected areas from every direction. If you have an ocean on one or more sides then the disaster has to take out fewer paths before our emergency response would become suspect.
We might want places some locations higher on the potential disaster list even though we know of no conceivable natural and man made hazard because the paths for emergency response or few, or vulnerable or poorly maintained. For instance, if government is the first or only resort to rescue a group of poor or elderly people on an isolated island with little or no transportation, then government might want to discourage the poor and elderly from living there.
Let us enact a policy to protect people who otherwise might die before we can reach them. We should do this not just because it would be he compassionate thing to do, but also because in the long run it could save us time and money. Some might counter argue that people have the right to live where ever they wish. This might be true if such people are paying for where they live with their own funds and if they make their own arrangements for emergencies. If they expect taxpayers to foot the bill we have the right to at least discourage costly and potentially dangerous behavior.
As a rough measure we can identify places where it might be hard to rescue people. Katrina again comes to the fore. Any location where natural or man made disasters are relatively likely would be one criteria. Take for instance, fault lines in major California cities. Another factor is geography. Help is much quicker to arrive when there are many maintained roads entering the affected areas from every direction. If you have an ocean on one or more sides then the disaster has to take out fewer paths before our emergency response would become suspect.
Let us enact a policy to protect people who otherwise might die before we can reach them. We should do this not just because it would be he compassionate thing to do, but also because in the long run it could save us time and money. Some might counter argue that people have the right to live where ever they wish. This might be true if such people are paying for where they live with their own funds and if they make their own arrangements for emergencies. If they expect taxpayers to foot the bill we have the right to at least discourage costly and potentially dangerous behavior.
Fractal Moon
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