Astrodome too full to accept more evacuees - Hurricane Katrina - MSNBC.com

No Room at the Inn - The Astrodome is full at 11,000

Yesterday, FEMA was planning on putting 25,000 refugees from New Orleans into the Houston Astrodome. Today the Fire Marshall declared the building full at just over 11,000.

You might recall that I said yesterday that this plan is idiotic. You can't stick even 11,000 in a sports arena for any given time without having chaos. They need to set up a parallel processing system and give the people money and vouchers. Most of them will find their own shelter using a fraction of the resources that have already been allocated to relief. Those that can't find shelter can be provided for in a more in managable numbers in red cross shelters spread out across the region and country.

As I said before 1,000 volunteer travel agents can get the people dispersed within 24 hours of their arrival at transfer sites. The more people that are stuck at a single site, the more difficult it will be for the assimillation process to take care of them.

Local and National Homeland Security officials have erred repeatedly in trying to establish a top-down structure on a disaster that they can't even keep up with. They need to empower the victims and the people on the scene. Until they do so, the misery will continue.


Astrodome too full to accept more evacuees - Hurricane Katrina - MSNBC.com