Lessons Learned in a MuseumFollow

That and people back then had a lot less crap and a lot more space to put debris.

Maybe the area affected by the Hurricane is a lot greater then the earthquake? Hence moving stuff outta New Orleans means moving a lot more stuff outta the surronding area?

Wondered that after the 9/11 attacks, too.

The Pentagon was built in sixteen months. Construction started (amusingly?) on September 11th, 1941; ended on January 15th, 1943.

The Pentagon Renovation Project, underway since 1998, aims to provide a structural upgrade as well as some aesthetic changes to the building. Original target date for completion was 2014 (sixteen years to renovate a building constructed in sixteen months). Currently they're shooting for 2010.


Wedge 1 took from 1998 'til 2003 to get everybody moved back in, but that's largely because an airplane was dropped on it. Work was nearing completion at the time of the attacks (some people had been moved back into Wedge 1 effective February 2001). Because of the destruction, the renovation project was put on hold in order to rebuild.

The Phoenix Project (rebuilding the recently-renovated-and-destroyed Wedge 1) was, officially, complete in one year's time (Sept 01 to Sept 02). However full occupancy did not occur until February of 2003.


Just amazes me the renovation and repairs take so bloody long when it was faster to build the thing from scratch, during wartime, without the use of things essential to the war effort.

Here in Canada we call that 'Government Make-Work Opportunities for People who Aren't Qualified to do Anything Useful'.

Buncha leeches.

Here in Canada we also think that Iamadam is a crappy poster.

I'm sure the code for buildings has become a lot more stringent. I'm sure whatever they are doing in the pentagon is high tech. I don't know about the whole Union thing that Sora brought up but, I was under the impression that people contract Union jobs because non-union construction blows. Generally speaking union jobs cost more, so you better be getting something for your money. I’m also pretty sure building something from the ground up is easier than renovating existing property, especially when operations still need to be run out of the pentagon.

I think that's the biggest factor. It's pretty quick and easy to build something when there's no one using the space already. You see this in the private sector as well. You can build a brand new building in less then a year. But minor renovations once the building is occupied takes forever.

Even beyond occupation of the building and the need to work around the people there, it's a basic engineering cost analysis fact that the earlier in any project you make changes, the cheaper and faster it is to implement that change. Changes made before construction begins are cheap. Changes made during construction are more expensive and time consuming. Changes made after construction is done are incredibly expensive and incredibly time consuming. That's just the way things work.


As to the "then versus now" with the Fire and the Hurricane, I think there are a number of factors.

First off is the separation of damage. A fire destroys a set area and nothing else. A hurricane pretty much damages everything even if it didn't destroy everything. You don't just have an area totally destroyed, but everything outside that area is untouched. You've got progressive areas of more and less damage. That's got to be a heck of a lot harder to deal with.

Secondly, I agree with the idea of contract labor, safety regulations and all of that. It's pretty likely that back in 1906, every able bodied person just lined up and helped clear debris (and probably got paid a basic day wage for doing it, which, given the number of people likely out of work due to the fire, worked out pretty well). Today, we don't do things like that. It's all going to be done by contractors and heavy equipment, which the average joe isn't going to be qualified to use, much less even be near. Not sure if this is truely "progress" or not...

Finally, there's certainly a difference in attitude over time as well. The people back in 1906 had to work hard to survive. The idea of putting in a days labor to earn your bread wasn't alien to them. Today, you'd be hard pressed to get even a small percentage of people to do any manual labor, no matter how unskilled they are at anything else. I honestly think that a lot of the reason New Orleans is still a sucking cesspool (not that it wasn't before the hurricane!) is that most of the people are standing around waiting for the government to come in and magically make their world a better place. A century ago, they would have gotten off their butts and done it themselves, but today, they don't. That's kinda sad IMO.


I don't put all the blame on the local people though. It's a general change in government over time as well. In the last century, we've significantly changed the role of the federal government in all areas. Back then, there was still mostly the idea that each city and state managed it's own issues, with the federal government only getting involved in federal issues. It helped out during emergencies by sending in Army personel to help out and sending some relieve funds, but I'm betting that 90% of the funds and work to rebuild back then was all collected and generated locally. The local businesses put in the money. The local government managed relieve work and efforts. All of them worked closly and locally to get things going again.

Since that time, we've federalized a lot of things. The upside is that there's a much large pool of funds to draw on for emergencies. The downside is that local businesses and governments already feel that the bulk of the taxes paid went to the federal government, so the federal government should be responsible for fixing things when they break. I don't really agree with that attitude, but it's certainly reasonable. I'm not sure of the exact percentages, but at a guess I'd say that back in 1906, somewhere close to 90% of the taxes you'd pay one way or another went directly to local government, with a small amount going to the federal level. Today, that's pretty much reversed. So those who are taxed rightly feel that they should recieve more from the federal level and expect the federal government to shoulder the bulk of the burden in this case. Certainly, local businesses are going to be more willing to shell out their own money to fix the local infrastructure if they haven't already been taxed heavily by the federal government specifically to provide for that infrastructure.


This sort of thing is exactly the problem with federalism that most Libertarians warn about. Heh. Not sure I 100% agree with the Libertarians, but on this score they do seem to have a point.