Decision ‘08

Two Years On…

Well, of course you realize that two years ago today Hurricane Katrina hit. This particular disaster has resonated longer than most: besides the death and destruction, it had two unusual factors, both only evident in retrospect: it nearly destroyed a city and a presidency.

Now, I scoffed at the criticism of Bush in the aftermath of Katrina - after all, scientists have known for decades that New Orleans was living on borrowed time, and no president prior to Bush had seen fit to do anything about it, either. But I was wrong. Katrina did stick to Bush, and it made it acceptable to criticize him across the board. Before Katrina, people hesitated to come out against the war. After Katrina, it was suddenly acceptable (hell, even desirable) to criticize the president.

As for New Orleans, I never visited before Katrina, but I went earlier this year and I have reservations to go back in the very near future. I like the city…I know it has MAJOR problems (it had big problems before Katrina, and they are many times worse now), but I hope it will continue to find its legs. It’s a city with a lot of heart and soul, and I think it is a unique part of America that we can’t afford to lose.

So here’s to you, Big Easy, and may you get bigger again and may life get easier…

8 Responses to “Two Years On…”

1 too many steves Says:
August 30th, 2007 at 8:39 am
Your well wishes are noble but simply symbolic. At this risk of running afoul of the Blogger Comment Code-of-Conduct I offer you this link:

http://www.reason.com/news/show/122221.html

Read it and weep.
2 Fargus Says:
August 30th, 2007 at 9:38 am
Part of the problem, as I’ve heard it, is the allocation of the money. Not just having trouble spending it, but that a lot of it is specifically allocated for recovery, but not for rebuilding. It’s just a cluster**** of massive proportions, really.
3 too many steves Says:
August 30th, 2007 at 10:10 am
It truly is a (expletive deleted). The libertarian in me says “Well, why do you expect better from large, loosely-coupled bureaucratic organizations of human beings”? Because you’re an idealist, not a realist, that’s why.

Even more saddening and maddening is the publication, in the June 2003 issue of Civil Engineering magazine (titled “The Creeping Storm”), of the fact that the government, via the Corp of Engineers, knew the levees around New Orleans would not protect it from a storm like Katrina (category 4/5).
4 Gulf Coast Bandit Says:
August 30th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
steves: Even worse is that Katrina was a Cat 3 at landfall and was not even a direct hit on New Orleans…
5 too many steves Says:
August 30th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
Was it really? Good lord. Have you read the chronology of the government’s actions following Hurricane Betty that hit New Orleans in 1965? In the context of what happened in 2005 those actions border on criminal.
6 peter Says:
August 30th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
I recently learned that in 1918, there was an influenze epidemic which killed fifty million people worldwide, and caused the average lifespan in the US to drop by twelve years.

My fear is that a government which can’t manage the reconstruction of New Orleans would be completely blindsided in the event that another pandemic strikes mankind.
7 too many steves Says:
August 30th, 2007 at 3:30 pm
I too wonder if democratic human institutions are capable of acting efficiently on the grand scale needed to respond to a massive crisis. Setting aside the philosophical/moral question of whether the other US communities have an obligation to help those in New Orleans, a more fundamental question may be “can we act”? So far the answer appears to be “no”.
8 Gulf Coast Bandit Says:
August 30th, 2007 at 6:06 pm
steves: No, I haven’t, it was long before my time, but I’ll check it out.