U.S municipalities have not done enough disaster preparedness to be ready for a catastrophe "gorilla," Mitch Landrieu, lieutenant governor of Louisiana, told a meeting of claims professionals in New Orleans Monday.
Discussing the aftermath of the response to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Landrieu told the 10th annual ACE claims conference that the problems of command and control that developed were the same problems spotlighted after 9/11 in New York. He suggested that when someone tells you there is a "gorilla around the corner" you may believe there is preparedness "until you face it and see it." In Landrieu's view, "few communities have drilled enough to be ready for the gorilla."
The lieutenant governor said that, in the case of New Orleans, the biggest problem was communications among the rescue organizations — there was no "interoperability." The question now, Landrieu said, is "Are we smart enough to fix it?"
He said New Orleans residents reacted negatively to comments that they should not rebuild a city that is below sea level, when they see constant building in Florida just a few feet from ocean front locations that are easily impacted by storms. "We take risks in this country," he noted.
What is wrong about the rebuilding in New Orleans, he noted, is that Congress is only willing to reconstruct levees to withstand a Category 3 storm (which is sustained wind speed between 111 and 130 mph on the Saffir-Simpson scale) when meteorologists are predicting a decade of high storm activity.
Landrieu said Louisiana is handicapped in its rebuilding effort because, unlike other parts of the country that get back 50 percent of the money generated by natural resource areas, Louisiana gets only two to five percent of the resource money generated in oil and gas. New Orleans is important, he added, because 20 percent of imported goods to the United States come through the Port of New Orleans and go up the Mississippi, as does 20 to 30 percent of the nation's energy supplies and 30 percent of the seafood.
"This place [New Orleans] is going to come back," Landrieu promised, despite total destruction of property in a land area seven times the size of Manhattan and the eradication of 40,000 small businesses in Louisiana.
Small businesses are struggling, but no major businesses have failed, and tourism — the state's number two industry — has recovered to a level about 45 percent of its pre-Katrina level. The lieutenant governor said it had taken Louisiana tourism three years to recover from the setback to travel after 9/11, and this latest disaster will probably take as long. He noted that Mardi Gras and the New Orleans Jazz Festival were held and officials believe the Superdome will be functional by September in time for the New Orleans Saints' new season.
"We got hurt, but we're not dead," he commented.
This article originally appeared in The National Underwriter P&C. For the complete article, please click here.
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