Holland 1995: 500K people & 2 Mil. livestock successfully evac'd -48 hrs.

[elehhhhna]

"Watching events unfold in the New Orleans area I had flashbacks of the 1995 river Rhine and Meuse floods in Holland. Then, in just under two days aurthorities staged a forced evacuation of almost half a million people (total Dutch pop. is 16 million) and 2 million heads of cattle, pigs etc. It was the most orderly mass-operation I have ever seen.

I live near Holland's main disaster hospital AMC, which can effectively triple its capacity from 1,200 to 4,000 patients in 3 hours by opening up its six-story undergound disaster unit, and witnessed how hundreds of ambulances, army trucks and dozens of medicopters (including German and Belgian air-borne operating theatres) brought in hospital patients, people from care homes and the disabled from the disaster areas. Roads were closed to all other traffic, in hospitals across the country an overwhelming - and fortunatly unnecessary - number of staff and volunteers were on stand-by.

The material damage was incredible, but there were no casualties, there were three meals every day for every temporarily displaced man, woman and child, all cows were fed and milked, there was no looting. National public TV within days set up a disaster charity show which raised over 60M guilders (EUR 30M) to pay for damages not covered by insurance.

What I'm seeing on TV now is a third-world country with a government unwilling or incompetent to fulfill its tasks. I feel very, very sorry for the residents of the area.

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/002471.html

If i may add a correction--there were approx. 30 casualties.

[DemExpat]

1. Yep....my mother and father-in-law came to stay with us in a safe area

while those unable to move themselves were helped by social services/police/military.

And animals were all taken care of as well, as you stated!

THAT is how it should be done.

DemEx

[China_cat]

2. The lesson was learned from the flood

of 1953. That one was as bad in damage and death as what we've seen with Katrina and yet, even back then with more primitive methods, people did not wait as long for help or be denied it. And they refined their plans to keep it from happening again if they could and being as prepared as possible for it if they couldn't.

Dutch engineers had been working in New Orleans trying to help the people fortify for just such a disaster. Until the funding was pulled out from under the project.

[tjdee]

3. USA! USA!

The freepers and dittoheads are so busy shouting stupid shit like that they actually believe what rich Republicans tell them. They don't realize other countries have better healthcare, better disaster preparedness, etc.

This is a fucking embarrassment.

[melody]

4. heaven knows why Bush would listen to the Dutch

I mean half the frickin' country is below sea level. It's not like y'all would know anything about New Orleans. :sarcasm: