All I hear and read in the media recently is about how poorly and slowly President Bush responded to the hurricane. He spent 2 days in Texas that should have been spent in DC or the Gulf Coast. The majority of the National Guard and other forces didn’t arrive until a week ago. Other federal aid took a hell of a long time as well. It was embarrassing and deadly how long everything took.
What I really want to know, however, is why New Orleans or Louisiana didn’t have a decent plan on the local level? Rather, why weren’t they prepared for a disaster of this proportion when they knew it was likely to occur? Sure, federal help for a disaster of this magnitude was essential, but they should have had a plan to help its people within the first couple of days. New Orleans was literally a tragedy waiting to happen. From what I can tell, it seems that the mayor of New Orleans did a lot of complaining. And more complaining. In fact, I have yet to see a photo or read/hear about a story of him actually physically doing something about the mess. He even admitted on the radio last week that he had no idea what the governor was up to. All he could say is where the hell is the federal aid?
Who the heck elected this guy? I’m sure he’s a stand up guy in many respects, but why did he not try to go out and do anything? Or, if he did, why is the media not reporting it? Even after 9/11, New York mayor Rudy Giuliani was right there looking everything over, talking to his people. Mayor Nagin, however, was just bitching away.
New Orleans had plenty of time, PLENTY of warning that something like this could happen. But, time and time again they chose to do other things. It never was a priority because “it’ll never happen to us”. Same reason many people choose not to buy life insurance, health insurance, renters insurance, flood insurance, earthquake insurance. Same reason thousands of people stayed behind while the hurricane ravaged the city. (yes, I’m aware of the fact that money probably have a lot to do with it. That’s still no excuse for leaving a city completely open to disaster.)
Now the drains are opened and the city is slowly losing all of its toxic, polluted water. Great. Now the Lake and eventually the Gulf of Mexico is going to be swarmed with even more diseases, viruses and toxic infectious organisms.
The local government of New Orleans was a complete failure to rescue their people and plan for a better evacuation. The state government of Louisiana was a complete failure for a lack of quick response to do anything. And the federal government is an embarrassment in their response as well.
For shame, people.
