Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

A friend of mine, Batman, is currently living in South Korea, where he's teaching English. He communicates with the rest of us through a bulletin board, and he complained today that news is slow to filter into South Korea. "What the HELL is going on in my country?" he asked.

One friend answered, " Hurricane. Big one, in the Gulf Coast. Ineptly run evacuation, ineptly run emergency aid. Hundreds, if not thousands dead. More dying. Massive property damage. New Orleans largely destroyed, or at the very least submerged. Thousands of refugees, many presently relocated to Houston. Seemingly worse every day. That's a condensed version, of course."

Unfortunately, this summary was too accurate. I watch plenty of news, because of my work, and I don't have the luxury, as my friend The Cheshire Cat did, of not watching the news yesterday. His wife, The Paper, had told him not to, so as not to give himself an aneurysm.

For me, like for many Americans, worse than the destruction by Hurricane Katrina was the fact that government at every level, local, state and federal, failed the citizens of New Orleans, and that it was primarily the poor who suffered.

I don't know whose heads are eventually going to roll over this, but knowing George W. "Stand by Your Man" Bush, likely nobody of consequence, even though many are laying the blame on Michael Brown, director of FEMA, whose agency is supposed to do nothing but handle disasters.

Some of the blame must also be placed on local and state officials, who should have expected to take some steps to deal with the disaster before the feds could step in. But apparently, not all the plans that were laid were even enacted and you had, say, 2,000 school buses sitting in a flooded parking lot instead of having been moved to higher ground so they could be used for evacuations.

We should also look at the number of requests made to fix the levees over the years and how many times the funding was not delivered in favor of, say, emergency appropriations for Iraq. Not to mention that some estimates place about half of the Louisiana National Guard overseas right now instead of at home where they could help.

One agency no one will fault is the U.S. Coast Guard, because they were enacting their prime directive, rescuing people. They didn't need orders from any slow-footed bureaucrats; they did what they always do. If you see someone in or near the water who needs rescuing, you rescue them. If the New York firefighters were the heroes of 9/11, the Coast Guard are the heroes of the Gulf Coast.

If the disaster and the slow response weren't enough, then you have politicians left and right putting their size 10's in their gobs. I mean, Republican Dennis Hastert, the House Speaker, actually said, "It looks like a lot of that place could be bulldozed," to which former President Bill Clinton responded that, had they been in the same place when the remarks were made, "I'm afraid I would have assaulted him."

My friends and I were discussing Clinton's response, and I said, "This is why I voted for him twice." The Court Wizard, usually one of the most conservative of our group, volunteered that's why he, too, had voted for him twice.

Leading the federal government is not a take-home quiz. If you can't think on your feet, you should not be in a position of power. Cronyism and contacts will not save you when your agency should be making quick decisions.

But as the blame game begins, let's keep a couple things clear.

First of all, disregard party politics. Both sides will point fingers, the Democrats insisting it's the federal government to blame, which is by and large Republican. Naturally, Republicans will point the finger at Democratic local and state leaders. But regardless of party affiliation, it's individuals we're looking at here. And if individuals messed up, they should face the music.

I mean, was anyone talking about party politics when Lt. Gen. Russell Honore of the U.S. Army came in and started kicking butt and taking names, restoring order to New Orleans? (What a Dickensian name, by the way: Honore, bringing back some honor to those people in dire circumstances). Nobody cares or needs to know his political affiliation because he's doing his job. So before we point fingers at the people who aren't, remember, they're on both sides of the aisle.

But we do also need to look at the deeper sociopolitical implications. Many people have said that perhaps there would have been quicker action if New Orleans weren't so heavily populated with poor African-Americans. For example, rich communities in California which are predisposed to mud slides tend to receive a pretty quick response. Those allegations need to be examined.

As The Cheshire Cat put it, perhaps the FEMA evacuation plans should have involved transport other than, "Please get into your Lexus, purchase gas on your platinum AmEx, and drive out of town."

We also can't forget that the logistics of this disaster were far different than the normal hurricane disaster, where floodwaters are expected to recede after a couple days. Speculation has been that the reason they were so ill prepared at the Superdome was because they only expected to be there about 12 hours until the storm blew over and then send everyone home.

But there have been articles written in New Orleans for years which city officials had no excuse not to be aware of, predicting exactly this sort of crisis, should a big hurricane hit. The point is, you can't simply prepare for the best case scenario; you need to prepare for the worst that can happen. Then if you don't need it, you're golden. You've got more than you need.

And don't get me started about how our international allies are coming in short on hurricane relief, probably in many cases due to politics at home revolving around the Iraq war.

Personally, ugly as it is to say, this nation has only itself to blame. I don't see how anybody who watched the debates between Bush and Kerry before last fall's election could be surprised he would do the "deer in the headlights" stare and wait for someone with more working brain cells (like Honore) to come in and pick up the pieces.

I think it's shameful, too, that after the evacuations were underway and order being restored, somehow families were separated and shunted to different parts of the story. It would be one thing if the family members were rescued from different parts of the city, but these were people loading buses from the same centralized areas.

As many will say on both sides of the political aisle, now is not necessarily the time to assign blame; now is the time to get something done. I personally donated to both The American Red Cross , which is running shelters for the evacuees, and The Humane Society, which is rescuing and caring for stranded pets. I strongly recommend anyone reading this page do likewise, even if you come across it months after the initial disaster. That help will continue to be needed.

With that said, I have only one more thought to share, a lighter moment from a press conference this afternoon with New Orleans emergency officials. When asked to contrast this mission with his previous missions, Honore said, "Well, we normally try to go break things. In this case, we are trying to fix things."

Add to his good-natured practicality the fact that Honore is refusing to forcibly eject New Orleans residents from their homes, a directive from the mayor which is not only impractical but also violates the national policy for military assistance in national crises, and Honore deserves a field promotion, I swear. Thank goodness there are some Americans, like the general, stepping in and taking control of a disastrous and shameful situation.

Copyright 2005 by Alyce Wilson

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