Random Output
Learning from Katrina:
09/08/2005
An often-misquoted proverb of Robert Burns (To a Mouse) is more popularly remembered as "The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray"
It's eight days after Katrina hit landfall devastating parts of the Gulf Coast. In eight days we have seen the good and bad inherent in mankind. People reaching out to help one another are of course one of the bright spots in this tragedy.
Yet the dark clouds of this tragedy are far from gone. Eight days of watching this crisis unfold Americans realize with horror the depth and severity of the damage. With a estimated cost to set Gulf Coast back on it's feet in the neighborhood of 100 Billion, with the body recovery ongoing the blame game will blow with a gust almost equal to Katrina itself.
Sadly there is a lot of blame and it seems almost everyone has had a hand in it at some point. Look right, left, white, black, republican, democrat, from the bottom to the top. Once the worst of this crisis is behind us it will be time to ask some tough questions. Why were people reportedly living in homes as much as twenty-eight feet below sea level? Why did the emergency evacuation plans fail so miserably? Why did levies fail? Why was FEMA so slow to respond? Why was the Louisiana's National Guard high water equipped trucks and Hummers shipped off to Iraq?
The answer to many of these questions will likely boil down to two answers, money and priority. Full Emergency Preparedness is not a cheap proposition. It requires training, materials and manpower to put in place and maintain. You may recall the AAMCO commercial with Carl Perkins saying the line "you can pay me now or pay me later".
A hurricane with the force of Katrina was eventually a given. Given the economic costs alone emergency preparedness could have saved billions in damages much less the tragic loss of life. If no other lesson is learned to help prevent the next tragedy it might be this.
September 18, 2005:
I think it can be said that due to the events in the Gulf and especially events in New Orleans, we are looking at a shift in the political and social impacts.
On the political front I think it can be fairly said the President took a huge black eye. The Republican Party has stood for a lot of things over the years, but they have always sold themselves as the law and order, can do bunch. With the slow response and obvious cronyism exposed a whole lot of people who otherwise bought into that idea are now having second thoughts. The revelation that FEMA's top spot had been filled by a man who previous job experience was judging horses (a job he was asked to leave) has even conservatives shaking their heads.
On a social front Katrina held up a clear window. Those who bore the worst of Katrina and the flood afterwards were the poor, the black and the elderly. In America we don't like to think about is how often those words can be used to describe the same person. It's an affront to the myths we would rather believe. The storm itself did not care about such factors, but the preparation and response after the storm cannot make the same claim.