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Project Impact & Seattle
I love all the FEMA press saying how much Project Impact saved...
Let's take it by the numbers:
Quake Damage: $2,000,000,000 (billion)
Greater Seattle population: 3,000,000
Amount spent by Project Impact: $1,000,000
Savings? "FEMA has estimated that for every dollar spent in damage prevention, $2 are saved in repairs." (http://www.firefighting.com/default.asp?GoTo=namID1702)
So that means we saved two million dollars, or 1/10 of 1% of quake damage.
Part of the money went to upgrading 260 private homes -- let's see, that's at best 1 of every 3,0000 residents.
[b]"Seattle’s quake measured 6.8, compared to the one in India last month that hit 7.3.
There was a single death from a heart attack in Seattle versus thousands dead in India."[/b
]
Duh. Earthquake scales are logarithmic -- a 7.3 is nearly 5 times the power of a 6.8! That's a big difference!
"A perfect example is what happened, or didn’t happen, at Stevens Elementary School on Wednesday. As part of Project Impact, workers drained and secured an old 300-gallon water tank in the school
ceiling.
The tank ripped open during the quake.
“That’s 300 gallons of water that would have cascaded down on children and probably injured some of them,” Mullen said."
Sorry folks, it doesn't take federal money to do, and shouldn't FEMA telling you, that you tell your maintenance staff to remove equipment no longer in use, especially suspended equipment that may fall! It's called common sense.
Federal money shouldn't be spent on feel good pork for areas. Want to research and develop good and better ways for people to retrofit? Great. Want to spread the word and tell the communities what is will take? Great. Give local governments incentives to adopt and enforce better codes? It's stretching the limits of federalism, but it's still a wise expenditure.
Well, I guess from FEMA's perspective spending less than the cost of a single postage stamp per capita in the affected area, then get to claim credit for really reducing the damage is a good investment in PR. It's not a good investment in public safety or disaster preparedness.
[This message has been edited by Dalmatian90 (edited 03-06-2001).]
Let's take it by the numbers:
Quake Damage: $2,000,000,000 (billion)
Greater Seattle population: 3,000,000
Amount spent by Project Impact: $1,000,000
Savings? "FEMA has estimated that for every dollar spent in damage prevention, $2 are saved in repairs." (http://www.firefighting.com/default.asp?GoTo=namID1702)
So that means we saved two million dollars, or 1/10 of 1% of quake damage.
Part of the money went to upgrading 260 private homes -- let's see, that's at best 1 of every 3,0000 residents.
[b]"Seattle’s quake measured 6.8, compared to the one in India last month that hit 7.3.
There was a single death from a heart attack in Seattle versus thousands dead in India."[/b
]
Duh. Earthquake scales are logarithmic -- a 7.3 is nearly 5 times the power of a 6.8! That's a big difference!
"A perfect example is what happened, or didn’t happen, at Stevens Elementary School on Wednesday. As part of Project Impact, workers drained and secured an old 300-gallon water tank in the school
ceiling.
The tank ripped open during the quake.
“That’s 300 gallons of water that would have cascaded down on children and probably injured some of them,” Mullen said."
Sorry folks, it doesn't take federal money to do, and shouldn't FEMA telling you, that you tell your maintenance staff to remove equipment no longer in use, especially suspended equipment that may fall! It's called common sense.
Federal money shouldn't be spent on feel good pork for areas. Want to research and develop good and better ways for people to retrofit? Great. Want to spread the word and tell the communities what is will take? Great. Give local governments incentives to adopt and enforce better codes? It's stretching the limits of federalism, but it's still a wise expenditure.
Well, I guess from FEMA's perspective spending less than the cost of a single postage stamp per capita in the affected area, then get to claim credit for really reducing the damage is a good investment in PR. It's not a good investment in public safety or disaster preparedness.
[This message has been edited by Dalmatian90 (edited 03-06-2001).]
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