Cuts in public transportation mean more lives will be lost
What happened in Florida is horrendous and preventable. Millions of people were trying to escape as Hurricane Milton approached. Mile after mile of expressways were clogged with cars, and over a thousand gas stations ran out of fuel.
The Pentagon has close to a trillion-dollar budget. At least $175 billion has been spent on the U.S. proxy war with the Russian Federation in Ukraine. Another $18 billion has been spent on the genocidal war against Gaza and all of Palestine.
Yet the U.S. capitalist state is incapable of protecting its own population from disasters as capitalist climate change makes them all the more likely to happen.
What we’ve seen in Florida is a repeat of the same preventable tragedy that happened during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. At least 1,392 people were killed as President Bush let Black and poor people drown and die in New Orleans.
How are disabled people, prisoners, people needing dialysis treatments, going to survive the current hurricane? To the billionaire class and its stooge, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, all these people are expendable.
One obvious way to evacuate people would be to mobilize public transportation. Instead of Air Force planes being used to send U.S. troops to Western Asia, the aircraft would be used to carry thousands of people to safety. Commercial airliners could move many more, with free fares paid out of the misnamed defense budget.
Buses would be mobilized as well. Meanwhile, hotels and empty apartments — kept off the market to jack up rents — would be prepared to house families.
The labor movement could help organize this evacuation.
Where did the trains go?
A major way to evacuate people would be to use extra passenger trains. But railroad passenger service has shriveled.
Back in 1955, U.S. railroads owned 32,000 passenger cars. Accounting for dining cars and other equipment, this fleet could carry more than a million passengers in coaches and sleeping cars.
Amtrak currently has around 1,500 passenger cars. The commuter
railroad agencies have maybe another 2,000.
Railroads used to carry tens of thousands to special events. Just for the Army Navy Game traditionally held in Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania Railroad would run dozens of charter trains carrying football fans. (The Pennsylvania’s tracks between New York City and Washington D.C. are now part of Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor.)
Since railroad passenger cars are roomier than planes or buses, they would be especially needed to carry disabled and older people.
The CSX rail system is headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, and has nearly 21,000 miles of track throughout the eastern United States. Last year, it had revenues of nearly $15 billion.
The former railroads that formed CSX dumped their passenger trains back in 1971 when Amtrak was formed. CSX, however, has a fleet of 14 business cars that carry its executives in luxury.
Used in a relay of several trips, this equipment could carry thousands of people to safety. Why hasn’t CSX offered to use this equipment? Former CSX CEO John Snow was Bush’s Treasury Secretary while people died needlessly during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Capitalist cutbacks, including cutbacks in passenger trains, can kill. Despite U.S. economic sanctions, socialist Cuba evacuated 2.6 million people — nearly a quarter of its population — before Hurricane Ike struck in 2008.
We need what Cuba has, a socialist revolution.
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