My own take on the Katrina disaster has been that the task of evacuation, the maintenance of law and order, the necessary communication infrastructure, and the preparation for emergency shelters all fall to the state and local authorities. There's no conceivable way the federal government could manage these preparations at the micro level without grossly overstepping its bounds. The massive failures to plan and prepare for the storm and its aftermath - given this had been predicted since 1917 - falls squarely on the shoulders of Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco. Admittedly, FEMA bears responsibility for not acting sooner. The stunning display of ineptitude was evident soon after Katrina passed over and the bureaucrats at FEMA must fall on the sword for not stepping in where the local and state government had obviously failed.
But I recognize too that all the bickering back and forth over who must assume the lion's share of the blame is seen in a different light by everyday citizens, and that it has possibly created another point of view entirely:
Reported examples: The city of New Orleans left hundreds of school buses sitting in parking lots while the estimated 100,000 car-less citizens in the city were left to fend for themselves in evacuating. The suburban city of Gretna's police closed a bridge that provided a way out of New Orleans while the city itself was flooding. The Louisiana State Homeland Security Department refused the Red Cross permission to take food and water to the Superdome before the hurricane struck because they did not want to "encourage people to go there." FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, early in the disaster turned away Wal-Mart trucks delivering supplies, including bottled water.
These are not examples of inefficiency and ineffectiveness; these are examples of inanity and inhumanity. These are not examples of our tax dollars being wasted but being used against us.
Listening to talk radio makes it seem as if Katrina is making the reds redder and the blues bluer. It's doing both to me: turning me purple, and into a libertarian. I want disaster relief outsourced to a coalition of the Red Cross, Wal-mart and Lowe's. I want emergency housing given to the interfaith shelters and long-term housing to Habitat for Humanity. And I want a whole bunch of elected officials, Republican and Democrat alike, kicked out of office.
It's rare when I have no contrary opinions to an article here. This is one.
Posted by: Trent | September 29, 2005 at 09:18 AM