New Orleans-“inspired”, Sklanskyesque little query

[Cyrus]

This is not a political question and it is not necessarily related to the N.O. catastrophe – only “inspired” by it.

Assume a natural catastrophe is imminent in New Orleans, e.g. a flood or a meteor collision, and you are the man in charge of doing something about the population to be affected. (You can be the mayor or the president, whatever, as long as you are the person making the ultimate decision about the subject at hand. Read on.)

You have to decide whether or not to forcibly evacuate the people from the endangered area.

(By “evacuating” it is understood “evacuating as many as technically possible”. Also, please assume a relatively orderly and safe evacuation, both for the evacuees and their properties left behind. An evacuation would still be, nonetheless, a tremendous and extremely costly disruption of economic activity and an event of social anomaly!)

The probability of the danger in conjunction along with the damage to be inflicted would weigh a lot on how you take your decision.

You may wish to consider only the number of dead if worse comes to worse, or to consider the number of E.D. (Expected Dead). E.g. If it’s a meteor which astronomers are saying is coming with a probability of around 85% and it will only damage a block of buildings in N.Orelans, the ED would be around {0.8 * avg.nr of people per building}. If it’s a flood which is coming with a probability of 40% but will kill around 10,000 people, if it actually comes in, then that’s an ED of around 4,000 casualties.

Here are the questions. Choose between 1 and 2 first and then answer question 3 :

1. Do you choose on the basis of the number of potential casualties, no matter what the probability of the catastrophe ?
2. Or, do you choose by pure and cold E.D. ? (Which is number 1 above weighed by the probability of the catastrophe.)
3. At what number do you force people out ?

How to answer question number 3 :
If you chose 1, you are to state the number of expected dead (E.D.) that will move you to order a forcible evacuation.

If you chose 2, you are to state the number of dead which a catastrophe brings if it happens, which you find unacceptable and thus are moved to order a forcible evacuation.

ATTENTION: In case some people dismiss choice number 1 too easily, please consider the case of a meteor that is coming with a very small but still significant probability to hit, for example, Topeka, Kansas : The probability, as given by the scientists, is “only” 0.1% but the effect will be to kill, if it happens, everyone within 1000 miles radius from the place of impact! The E.D. is about 0.001 * 120,000 people = a measly 120 people, but consider if you would allow even that small a probability of a meteor hitting your city without taking any action – which of course means evacuating all of Topeka! Your call…