Thursday, September 1, 2005

Predictable Catastrophe "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did anticipate a serious storm. But these levees got breached. And as a result, much of New Orleans is flooded."  Thus said our oft-surprised president about the disaster - such an understatement - down south.  I'm done feeling numb and stunned.  Now I'm angry.  It doesn't take much work to see that this disaster was entirely predictable, and yet the federal government was still caught flatfooted.  FEMA predicted this catastrophe as one of three likely disasters that could hit the country back in mid-2001.  (The other two cited disasters were an earthquake in San Francisco and terrorist strikes on New York City.)  The Houston Chronicle described this event in eerily prescient detail - 250,000 residents stranded, 20 feet of water flooding the city, and the economy of New Orleans grinding to a halt. Southern Louisiana produces one-third of the country's seafood, one-fifth of its oil and one-quarter of its natural gas. The city's tourism, lifeblood of the French Quarter, would cease to exist. The Big Easy might never recover. No one saw it coming?!  Your own agency saw it coming, while you were trying to find ways to get Saddam Hussein. And unfortunately, the fiasco in Iraq has cost a lot of unforeseen cash - whoops, didn't see that coming either - which led the federal government to cut funding for shoring up New Orleans' levees.  Oops.  The mess in New Orleans is infinitely worse because of a clear lack of leadership.  This can also be laid at the feet of the Bush administration, thanks to a new "wait and see" policy which forces the state and local governments to struggle on their own with disasters until they find themselves "unable to manage" on their own.  In essence, by declaring the Katrina disaster an "incident of national significance," the federal government has signaled that they're sitting on their hands unless they're needed.  Hey, hello?  You're needed!  The mayor of New Orleans has put out an SOS.  He'd send a goddamn invitation, but they're running short on paper these days.  Once again, I find myself feeling the emotions I did after September 11th, watching Rumsfeld and Cheney and Bush and Ashcroft try to comfort the nation.  I keep thinking, "I don't trust these people to protect us."  Finally, I can't help but be appalled and not at all surprised by the racial dynamics coming out in the news.  Salon and others have made much of two photos posted on Yahoo News, where black citizens were labeled "looters" while white citizens raiding stores were described has having "found" bread and milk.  Yeah, found.  Just like Columbus found America.  Just like Sam Houston found Mexico.  Whatever.  I've seen this coming for days since the first time I saw ABC focus on black men while talking about looters.  It's disgusting, but really, I'm not surprised.  6:09:36 PM     Speak up!  []