Thought I’d post my thoughts on the New Orleans catastrophic disaster (yes, that’s redundant, though sadly fitting). I’m even more distressed by this than I might be because Sarah and I were there nearly this time last year. It was hands-down my favorite vacation ever and, more importantly, I fell in love with that city. I seriously held thoughts of moving down there one day. Now…I’m sort of reconsidering, for obvious reasons.

What I do find horrible is this: Basically, Michael Brown, the head of FEMA — y’know, the organization that is supposed to handle all sorts of federal emergencies — waited five hours after Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the Gulf Coast before politely asking his boss — the Homeland Security director — to consider helping his organization to meet their responsibilities. Five hours! Who knows how many lives might’ve been saved had FEMA gotten its people into place five hours sooner. And then what does Brown do? He gets on the television and basically blames the local and state authorities for the horrible response — and New Orleans itself for not being prepared. It’s metaphorically like what Tom Tomorrow said: “New Orleans was wearing a short skirt and deserved what it got.” You can read the article here.

Speaking of which, just who held responsibility for disaster management or New Orleans and all of the victims of Katrina? Why our most favorite President of course!

“The President today declared an emergency exists in the State of Louisiana and ordered Federal aid to supplement state and local response efforts in the parishes located in the path of Hurricane Katrina beginning on August 26, 2005, and continuing.

“The President’s action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives, protect property and public health and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe.”

You can read the whole little statement on the White House’s web site. And note that this statement was made two full days before the Hurricane actually touched down. And what makes this whole debacle even more disgraceful? The federal government has had four years to prepare for another large-scale catastrophe. From a disaster-recovery scenario, there’s no difference between what some assholes are already calling the Great New Orleans Flood of 2005 and if terrorists had set off a dirty bomb in New Orleans.

So if, gods forbid, we get hit by another terrorist attack, we can count on our federal government to take their sweet time responding. Unless said attack occurred in a city populated solely by rich white men, in which case you’d have the full might of the White House there in the blink of an eye. Disgraceful.

JAB