Disaster Response: Then and Now
The Bush Administration’s weak attempts to justify its sluggish and poorly coordinated response in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina by calling it a “natural disaster of mythic proportions” didn’t cut it in 2005. Nor would it have passed muster in 1906, following what was indeed a ‘mythic’ disaster – the San Francisco Earthquake. In fact, FEMA would have done well to take a page from the competence and speed of the emergency response rendered to the Bay Area a century ago.
April 18, 2006 marks the 100th anniversary of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. The devastating tremors and the ensuing fires killed at least 3,000 people, left three-quarters of San Francisco residents homeless, and cost several billion inflation-adjusted dollars. In connection with the official commemoration of this noteworthy centennial, Local 3 California compiled an impressive body of archival materials that document the important role members of our Union played in rebuilding San Francisco into the magnificent city we know today.
In reviewing these materials, one cannot help but contrast the responses of elected officials then and now. One would think that 99 years of technological advances would have made the Katrina recovery far more efficient than the Bay Area. And yet . . .
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| Less than a day after the quake, Congress met to approve a massive emergency appropriations bill. The War Department immediately ordered all available trains to head for California to aid with relief. One of the trains, dispatched from Virginia, was the longest hospital train in American history. |
The day after Katrina made landfall, President George Bush spent his afternoon eating birthday cake with Senator John McCain. That evening, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld attended a Padres game in San Diego. And while hundreds of buses were desperately needed to evacuate survivors, FEMA did not formalize its bus evacuation plans until five days later. |
| As soon as the San Francisco quake ended, western Army and Navy elements immediately converged on the city to assist, without any direction from Washington. In less than a month, more than 10 percent of the active Army had joined in the relief effort in San Francisco. |
It took two full days for National Guard troops to arrive in New Orleans after Katrina came ashore. The regular Army and most members of the Louisiana National Guard, were on active duty in Iraq, and simply unavailable to lend assistance. |
| Food aid and shelters were rushed to San Francisco after the quake – within a week, the Army had shipped every single tent that it owned to the Bay Area. The grounds of the famed Presidio Fort were quickly converted into a neat and orderly tent city. Within weeks, the Army Corps of Engineers was busy building temporary shelters, while the federal and local governments funded a series of union-built “refugee cottages.” |
New Orleans survivors waited days for food and water in the fetid, dark, and unsafe Superdome. More than six months after the hurricane – there is still not enough temporary housing available for all of the Gulf Coast residents who want to return and rebuild their houses. Those who do not have the money to pay for temporary housing have been prevented from rebuilding. |
| Just a few short months after the earthquake, San Francisco was in the midst of a construction boom. Within 18 months, the city boasted more office space than it had prior to the disaster. The city government, in cooperation with the business community, labor, and state and federal governments, set out to ensure that San Francisco would rebound from the tragedy bigger and better than ever. |
More than six months after the disaster, the reconstruction of New Orleans has yet to begin, abated by thousands of ruined, abandoned houses awaiting demolition. The plan for New Orleans’ future that has been embraced by city leaders envisions a much smaller city – a tourist destination rather than a vibrant metropolis. |
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In 1906, no television cameras were present to document the horror and no telephones or satellites allowed San Franciscans to appeal for aid. The telegraph lines were mostly destroyed. The automobile was a glint in young Henry Ford’s eye and there were no interstates to transport supplies into the city, or evacuate the homeless out. President Teddy Roosevelt couldn’t fly over the fires in Air Force One – in fact, the trip from Washington to San Francisco would have taken nearly a week by train. But in spite of the relative technological poverty of the times, San Francisco and the United States rebounded from the disaster with a degree of commitment, efficiency, and determination that has been sorely lacking in the wake of Katrina. It’s up to all of us to ask what we need to change in our society, so that we can regroup and follow in the footsteps of our 1906 forebears.
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