We are now in Katrina+óGé¼Gäós Second Crisis, according to Van Jones and James Rucker, writing in Tompaine.com on 28 August (http://www.tompaine....). Despite the incredible outpouring of personal private giving, the arrival of faith-based groups to help re-build, the charitable donations of time and substance past all reasonable expectations, much of New Orleans is still devastated, half its population has not returned, at least a third of the hurricane trash has not been removed, and it is fair to say that many of the people are worse off today than they were twelve months ago.
Bob Scheaffer on Face the Nation (http://www.alternet....) pointed out that Hezbollah is handing out US dollars to war victims (up to $10,000 each, I hear) but the US government still hasn+óGé¼Gäót delivered the money appropriated down to the victims of Katrina one year later. Only $117 million of at least $25 billion in federal aid has reached the city, while federal investigators determined that roughly $2 billion in taxpayer money was wasted in no-bid contracts and disaster aid to people who did not need the help. No wonder that an AP-Ipsos poll reported that fifty-seven percent of Americans polled said they felt at least somewhat strongly the country was ill-prepared - up from 44 percent in the days after the storm slammed ashore on Aug. 29, 2005. (http://www.guardian....). "The Guardian," reporting the poll, quoted Norma Guelker, 55, of Bay St. Louis, Miss., who still lives in a FEMA trailer after Katrina flooded her home with seven feet of water: +óGé¼+ôShe says there's no way the government is ready. Blaming Bush, she said:+óGé¼GäóThere's no reason for him to be concerned about the people who live here. They're not the people who vote for him.+óGé¼Gäó"
Dr. Ivor van Heerden, Deputy Director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center had offered an evacuation plan to FEMA well before Katrina struck, according to Greg Palast in a special report drawn partly from his book +óGé¼+ôArmed Madhouse.+óGé¼-¥ The Doctor+óGé¼Gäós report recognized that 127,000 residents did not have cars and could not evacuate on their own, despite what FEMA+óGé¼Gäós official plan envisioned. That plan was developed by an outfit called +óGé¼+ôInnovative Emergency Management,+óGé¼-¥ headed by Madhu Beriwal, who had no experience in hurricane evacuations--- but was a major Bush donor. FEMA told Dr. Van Heerden to get lost, and if he persisted, his job would be at risk.
According to Dr. Van Heerden, FEMA knew at Monday at 11 o+óGé¼Gäóclock +óGé¼+ôthat the levees had been breached+óGé¼-¥ because they took videos; the White House knew by midnight Monday, but withheld the information. As a result, at least 1,500 people and New Orleans drowned. Mr. Palast asked FEMA for a copy of the IEM evacuation plan; it was not available; not even IEM could lay their hands on it, nor could they give Palast the names of all the various cities for which they claimed to have had experience developing evacuation plans. Guess who the Bush Administration has hired to +óGé¼+ôfix+óGé¼-¥ the failed evacuation plan? Why, IEM, of course.
Keep these figures in mind: 1,836: Estimated death toll from Katrina;1 Million: Number of people displaced by the storm--- 200,000 remain in temporary refuge; 73,000 still are in FEMA trailers (according to Palast, New Orleans lost a higher percentage of homes than Berlin lost in World War II). About 80% of New Orleans went under water, up to 20 feet in some places. We are told that loss of the wetlands barriers contributed greatly to the flooding; at least 2.7 miles of coastal marshes and wetlands are needed between New Orleans and the open Gulf to reduce storm surges by just one foot+óGé¼GÇ¥- yet the evidence is that 48 football fields of still existing wetlands disappear per day.
It+óGé¼Gäós past time to acknowledge that what we have here is a massive failure of the so-called conservative philosophy and world view. Not only cannot the Republicans govern, they do not want to. George W treats America like a private fiefdom of the Bush dynasty, passing out plum satrapies and cushy jobs to palace hangers on in a story of nepotism and cronyism run rampant. America appears to be viewed as a rich province open for plunder.
We saw similar attitudes back in 1927, another time when New Orleans was flooded, and corporate-dominated Republican government basically did nothing. Then, American voters responded. Interestingly, the disaster gave rise to Huey Long who developed a populist program which said government should work for the common man. When he tried to pay for some of his programs by taxing the big oil companies (which even then were devastating Louisiana+óGé¼Gäós landscape) he was mysteriously assassinated. But most of his ideas were reincarnated in Franklin Roosevelt+óGé¼Gäós New Dealand Harry Truman's Fair Deal.
Are we in 1927 again? Or will Bush bumble on, buoyed by sentiments like those outlined in the second paragraph above. It+óGé¼Gäós pretty much up to us.
A year ago, Katrina made me shockingly emotional. It hurt to feel so helpless to assist those in need, people who in the midst of the storm had no way out of its path, who didn't have food, water, medicine, anything, afterwards. It still does. Watching the media coverage the past few days, it has bought all of those feelings back - anger, confusion, sadness, fear - and has made me realize even more why we need to return to government that is truly compassionate, not just filled with "compassionate" conservatives. People who aren't just in it for themselves, or for big corporations. But instead, people who are in it for eachother.
Thanks for posting this, and for others who read it (I know I've gotten wordy). It's so important that we remember Katrina, and remember the response, as we consider what will happen this fall, and in 2008, and beyond. And it's a reason that we have to consider how our candidates feel about not just issues, but about people, and about helping people. Are they in it for the right reasons? Are they leading because they believe that government has the ability to do great things for its citizens? And will they do what they have to do, working every day, to make sure that it DOES those things?
Sad thing is that there is no electricity or water service to this day in the Ninth Ward. Those are two fundamental building blocks to modern civilization. If you do not have those two things, no one will build. At least the folks who bring you the computer game SimCity have that one figured out. Add that in combination with an insurance industry trying to be fickle and a government agency (FEMA) that is gutted and run over, and this is what you get. Sure, you can be upset with the State and Local governments for their failures, and they have had their failures. There comes a point, however, when state and local governments have met their limits and cannot go any further. This is where the federal government steps in (or is supposed to step in). At this point, I am disgusted with their reaction and their defenders for attacking people who have suffered trauma few will ever see.
10 MORE WEEKS!!!
Thanks for this outstanding diary Teddy.
Once officially in power there is no hesitation about plundering the country, sending our troops and treasure overseas to generate profits for the elite, and the hell with it. Waste America's substance in what seems to the common herd to be an unnecessary war; the elite are safe and making money.
If America falls into third world country condition, no matter; the elite have invested in China and India and elsewhere, and won't hesitate to decamp when it appears prudent, once America's resources are exhausted. And, once the American peasant has been reduced to penury, maybe they'll be more amenable to discipline and stop whining for wage increases because they'll be so grateful for any morsel the elite may care to give them.
I didn't use to be this way. I was even at one time a vigorous republican. But the situation just overwhelmed me.
>First, say the Republicans, it was the local Democratic mayor and governor who screwed up, "all those school busses" should have been used to evacuate folks; the response to disaster has always been first local; see how good a job Republican Jeb Bush did in Florida with FOUR hurricanes etc.
>Second, "those people" didn't try to help themselves; they sat on their fat lazy behinds and waited for some one to help them in typical low class (read “blackâ€Â), feckless welfare queen fashion.
Both are spot-on... except for your pathetic race-baiting comment.
Ray Nagin took millions in federal money to shore up his levies, and instead of using it where it was intended, he wasted it. But now it's GW's fault when Nagin's incompetence comes home to roost. Brilliant analysis there, Teddy. You're a freakin' genius.
In another example of Bush Company's lack of planning, remember that the crony appointee, Innovative Emergency Management, could never produce copies of their foolish evacuation plan, nor could any first responders or local governments in Louisiana. It's had to implement a secret evacuation plan, now, isn't it? As usual with the Bush crew, they threatened the whistle-blower, Dr. Van Heerden, when he challenged the original evacuation plan he saw, and also when he made noises about inadequate levee height.
What's even worse, from my point of view residing in a known terror-target area (near the Pentagon) the Bush ineptitude in planning and follow-through gives me no confidence for future disaster planning, whether its a terror attack or not. We seem to have a government of photo ops and no substance.