Opinion: Why Irene Was Not Katrina

by Victoria A. Brownworth

 

The irony was not lost on me. Hurricane Irene was scheduled to make a direct hit on Philadelphia on the sixth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, one of the worst disasters in American history.

 

No one expected another Katrina on the East Coast, but then no one expected Katrina on the Gulf Coast. But every meteorological meter put Irene as a direct hit over land in North Carolina, New Jersey/Philadelphia and New York. What’s more, the East Coast isn’t true hurricane country (no tropical waters to stir the intensity), so the scenario of an actual hurricane–not a N’oreaster or a tropical storm–hitting the most populated areas of the country was beyond worrisome for local officials. When Hurricane Floyd hit here in 1999, it did extensive damage with flooding and winds. Yet Floyd had been downgraded to a low-level tropical storm by the time it reached Philadelphia.

 

With six million people in the Philadelphia area, millions more in New Jersey and 19 million in New York, the prospects were grim for serious disaster with Irene, which would be the first storm to hit land as an actual hurricane here since 1903.

 

I used to live in New Orleans and still have close friends there, so when Katrina went from being just another hurricane in a hurricane-prone region to the disaster it became, I was frantic for my friends. And then there was the aftermath, with reporters seeming far more in tune with what was needed than local, state or federal government officials whose job it was to keep people safe.

 

When it became clear that Irene was not going to be just another bad, N’oreaster-type storm, those images of Katrina came back with a ferocity that was unnerving. Once again the President–a different one this time–was on vacation. But that was where the similarities to six years ago ended.

 

Local and state government weren’t oblivious, nor were they afraid of asking for help from all quarters, including other state and local governments and the feds. Shelters were opened, states of emergency were declared, transportation was arranged for people without cars and mandatory evacuation orders were set for areas in New Jersey and Philadelphia that are flood-prone. 

 

Local TV news media stepped up–from Friday morning through Sunday night the local news stations were on the air with non-stop storm coverage. KYW3, 6ABC, NBC10 and FOX29 were all prepared. And at the height of the storm on Saturday and Sunday, if you still had power–or if you only had a radio–you had the information being fed to you minute by minute. Even if you were trapped, you didn’t feel alone.

 

Thus when the tornado warnings started coming in for Manayunk, Roxborough, Germantown and Mt. Airy late Saturday night, we knew to get to the basement. 6ABC’s longtime main anchor, Jim Gardner, noted that he and his family spent the night in their basement because of the warnings.

 

It’s been a dicey time in local politics. Many Philadelphians are displeased with Mayor Nutter for a variety of reasons, many of which have been beyond his control and others which have been entirely of his making (see Ackerman story on p. x).

 

But Nutter was taking no chances in Philadelphia. For the first time in Philadelphia history, disaster shelters were opened which were pet friendly, the entire public transit system was shut down including the subway and evacuations of flood-prone areas like East Falls, Manayunk and Roxborough were ordered.

 

No one was going to die on Nutter’s watch.

 

Meanwhile, Gov. Corbett ordered PEMA into place, declared a state of emergency and detailed National Guard troops for emergency evacuations and rescues. A massive number of state and local first responders were prepared for the worst.

 

Across the river, Gov. Christie wasn’t taking any chances with his people, either. On Thursday he began busing people out from the shore areas. By Friday mandatory evacuations were ordered, the barrier islands were closed to any traffic and the casinos were shut for only the third time in 33 years.

 

What was heartening for Pennsylvanians and New Jerseyans was this: Both governors are Republicans (traditionally outraged at even the thought of government intervention) and Nutter is a Democrat. And yet everyone seemed capable of a true bipartisan effort in a time of true crisis. When Irene finally ended there was going to be none of the “It was the Mayor’s responsibility!” “No, it was the Governor’s responsibility!” “No, it was the feds responsibility!”

 

Everyone was on the same page well in advance of the storm’s arrival.

 

There were some dicey moments, of course. There are always the people who put first responders in harm’s way because they know better than the meteorologists and the government about what to do in an emergency. And at Rowan University where 2,000 people were evacuated, there was anger among the evacuees that the food was just sandwiches and people had to go directly outside the building to use port-o-potties because the bathroom facilities inside could not accommodate the number of people. But at the same time, local residents brought food and games for kids and books for adults to the shelters before the storm was at its peak. There was far more of the best of people being seen than the worst.

 

What resonates now as the waters begin to recede and people start to assess the massive damage wrought by the largest hurricane to ever hit the East Coast–it impacted 65 million people–is how few people died and how hard local, state and federal officials worked in tandem to create a safe environment in a completely unsafe circumstance.

 

In Philadelphia, more than 350,000 people remain without power and are likely to for up to two weeks. Flooding has ravaged homes and businesses and public transportation is still sketchy due to blocked roads and downed wires and receding flood waters. But the loss of life was minimal.

 

It seems as if our elected officials did everything right, or at least made every effort to do so. Some are complaining that Corbett, Christie and Nutter over-reached. But better to over-reach than under-reach in a disaster.

 

What Pennsylvanians and New Jerseyans must consider for the future, however, is this: Scientists nationwide have noted that Irene was not a “natural” disaster, but one, like the blizzards of the past few winters, of man-made proportions. The role of global warming in the extremity of our seasons – the past few winters Philadelphia has had record-breaking snowfalls, and this summer we saw record-breaking heat as well as the wettest month in recorded history – can’t be dismissed.

 

Extremes of weather are now a commonplace in our region, which is traditionally the most temperate in the nation and not prone to tornados or hurricanes or even blizzards. The response to Irene was solid. But this storm should also be a wake-up call to local, state and federal politicians that evacuating millions of people is a heady, complicated and expensive prospect. We need to re-think and re-vamp for the future in which storms like Irene and the blizzards of the past few winters are no longer anomalies but the norm. If we don’t factor that reality into our local budgets and city and state planning, we may very well end up with a Katrina situation on our hands next time–because Irene may have been our first, but was surely not our last storm of the century.