Date: September 3, 2005 6:41:59 PM PDT
Subject: (2) Outrage at US Govt's Incompetence/Indifference/Arrogance
Editorial: This was not a test, and the nation flunked
From the Journal Sentinel
Posted: Sept. 3, 2005
The dikes were inadequate. So was the evacuation plan. Too many people stayed behind or were left behind. The aid has been slow in getting to where it is needed. Thousands are dead, many as a direct result of the hurricane, many others as a result of the aftermath and perhaps because relief came too slowly.
Officials are already debating who is to blame as bodies float in the streets of New Orleans. And while rescue workers try desperately to reach those in need, some of those in need are taking shots at the helpers.
How could it have come to this? How could a major U.S. city in this century collapse into chaos so completely, so quickly? How could federal, state and local governments have been caught so unprepared? How could civilized people in the richest country in the world descend into apparent anarchy with such ease?
Most disturbing perhaps is the image of the faces of those struggling to survive. The poor, the elderly, minorities. The community's most vulnerable bore the brunt of Hurricane Katrina. Why was that allowed to happen? Why wasn't more done to sound the alarm in those neighborhoods and to make sure that people had a means of escape and somewhere to go?
The immediate task, of course, is to restore order and help the survivors of Katrina's hammer blow to the Gulf Coast. Without order, help won't get to those in need. Authorities have already begun to do what is necessary to retake the swamped streets from the criminal element that has been looting, shooting and setting fires. But it's important to note that people who are taking food from grocery stores have simply been trying to survive.
As people in Wisconsin and elsewhere step forward to help those in need, there is still room to ask necessary questions. Indeed, it's vital.
"The results are not acceptable," President Bush admitted on Friday. He's right, but why was that? And what does it say for the nation's ability to cope with this and other disasters?
Bush most of all needs to answer those questions. Here's why.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich - someone with whom we don't often find ourselves in agreement - asked the right question: "I think it puts into question all of the Homeland Security and Northern Command planning for the last four years, because if we can't respond faster than this to an event we saw coming across the Gulf for days, then why do we think we're prepared to respond to a nuclear or biological attack?"
Gingrich is wrong about one thing, though. Officials - federal, state and local - didn't have just days of warning. They had years of warning.
They knew that New Orleans sat below sea level. They knew the immediate area was being carved into a maze of shipping lanes and developments that were destroying natural defenses - wetlands and barrier islands - against storms. They knew that the artificial defense system of dikes and levees was inadequate against a storm of this magnitude. They also knew that it was only a matter of time before a storm like this would come boiling up out of the Gulf. They knew all this, and it still happened.
One can argue that they didn't take the threat seriously. One can also argue that they took it seriously but just hoped that the disaster would happen on someone else's watch.
Yes, 80% of New Orleans metro area's 1.4 million people took heed and got out. But that means 20% did not. Many of those left behind were the ones with the least ability to get out on their own. That's not just a tragedy. That's an outrage.
There will be more pain and outrage as the nation moves forward. The economy will suffer from high prices of gasoline and natural gas. What does that say about the nation's energy policy and its continuing reliance on oil as a primary energy resource?
The country will have to find a place for the refugees now streaming from the affected areas. Even people who got out did not escape unscathed. Many are now dispossessed, having lost everything they owned.
Difficult choices will have to be made about where to rebuild and just what to rebuild. To many, rebuilding what was New Orleans is a no-brainer. For others, it seems utter folly to tempt nature and fate again by rebuilding a whole city beneath sea level in an area where hurricanes strike.
Some have also raised questions about whether the war in Iraq had an impact on preparedness and the response to Katrina. It's undeniable that Congress sliced funding for the Army Corps of Engineers' plans to strengthen the dike system.
Others note that 40% of the area's National Guard units are serving overseas. To be sure, the war in Iraq is not to blame for this disaster, but officials still need to answer questions about the country's ability to meet more than one threat and whether the war still continues to sap too much from the nation.
In Wisconsin, we need to look at what lessons we can draw from the disaster. Hurricanes don't happen here, but tornadoes do, as the Stoughton area was reminded again last month. Other disasters could happen, too. Some disasters could be man-made, as in terrorism. Are the area's emergency and evacuation plans adequate? Katrina should spur all governments to review their plans.
In the meantime, let us continue to provide whatever help we can to those in desperate need. But let us as a country also begin to answer the most basic questions left by Katrina: How could this have happened? What can be done to make sure that we're better prepared next time?
Because, make no mistake: There will be a next time.
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Four days for water--how long for answers
Ellis Henicam
NewsDay, September 4, 2005
Four days -- four long, horrible, violent, dispiriting, outrageous, inexcusable days.
That's how long it took for the first bottle of federal water to reach the desperate and thirsty people of New Orleans.
Cheers!
How many died in those four days? What unspeakable suffering did they endure? What scars -- to their health, to their psyche, to their future -- will they carry with them now? How much of the wanton street violence was fueled by the lack of food, water and basic human shelter for those four exhausting days?
And how many other human beings -- literally teetering between life and death -- are still stranded on balconies, rooftops and telephone poles in this blessed and cursed city -- hungry, thirsty and tired -- waiting, hoping, praying to be rescued by someone?
Those questions will keep us busy for the days, weeks and months to come, and they aren't even the hardest ones.
Friday, as the first plastic water bottles were arriving at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in downtown New Orleans, George W. Bush finally showed up in New Orleans, too. No, he didn't get to town any quicker than the fresh water did.
And the president didn't make a stop at the convention center or the Louisiana Superdome, where the human misery was packed in tightest concentration. He didn't risk meeting any regular folks on the street, as he had on the Mississippi and Alabama Gulf coasts.
People from New Orleans are not known for disguising their outrage. What an angry earful they would have given the president!
"This is a storm that requires immediate action, now," Bush said at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport before flying back to Washington.
Only now? How about three and a half days ago?
"The president is starting to grasp the magnitude of the situation," Mary Landrieu, Louisiana's always diplomatic senior senator, said through what sounded like gritted teeth.
Starting to grasp? Yes, it is about time!
The images are already unshakable.
A city left for dead. A federal government seemingly paralyzed. FEMA officials acting like they'd never been to a hurricane before. Dead bodies in the streets. Rescuers shot at. Ambulances carjacked. A levee system still busted open. An Army Corps of Engineers behaving like they'd never seen a flood. Looters striking groceries and pawn shops with equal fury. Law enforcement utterly overwhelmed. And a president, for four long days, all but invisible and mum.
The long list of questions is growing louder by the day. How much longer can they be ignored?
Would Washington have responded differently if the victims were middle-class and white?
Did the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan leave the National Guard too busy, too tired or too otherwise occupied to respond with adequate speed and energy?
Was it really such a good idea to put the once-swift-footed FEMA inside the mammoth bureaucracy of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security?
And how should we read the lawlessness? How widespread was it, really? Is there a difference between people stealing food and water for survival and those who grab Rolex watches and plasma TV sets?
How long will these poor people live in shelters or wander the South like modern Dust Bowl refugees?
And what will they return to? Will New Orleans ever be New Orleans again?
When Bush finally spoke in New Orleans, the city's frustrated mayor, Ray Nagin, stood beside him. But Nagin didn't step to the microphone.
Perhaps he'd had his say to a radio reporter a few hours earlier.
"You mean to tell me that a place where most of your oil is coming through, a place that is so unique -- when you mention New Orleans anywhere around the world, everybody's eyes light up -- you mean to tell me that a place where you probably have thousands of people that have died and thousands more that are dying every day, that we can't figure out a way to authorize the resources that we need? Come on, man."
You go, Mr. Mayor!
"I have no idea what they're doing," Nagin said. "But I will tell you this: You know, God is looking down on all this, and if they are not doing everything in their power to save people, they are going to pay the price. Because every day that we delay, people are dying, and they're dying by the hundreds, I'm willing to bet you."
Four excruciating days before the bottled water arrives?
"I don't know whose problem it is," the mayor said. "I don't know whether it's the governor's problem. I don't know whether it's the president's problem, but somebody needs to get their ass on a plane and sit down, the two of them, and figure this out right now."
Finally, belatedly, eventually, someone arrived. The figuring-it-out part -- well, that could take a while.
