For one thing, after hearing the same story over and over and over it tends to bore the shit out of me.
I was reading the online version of the Virginian Pilot today, however, and came across something that those who are pointing fingers in the wake of Katrina need to pay attention to:
Perspective on Isabel arrives, two years later
By KERRY DOUGHERTY, The Virginian-Pilot
© September 8, 2005
Embarrassing, isn’t it?
All the kvetching we did a couple of years ago after Hurricane Isabel.
Woe was us.
Most of us didn’t have power. For about a week!
There were hardships, too: No hot showers. No cold beers. No air conditioning.
Trees were down. Houses hit. Streets flooded. But people weren’t stranded on their rooftops waiting for rescue.
Katrina puts it all in perspective.
If anything good can come out of this miserable storm, maybe the next few times authorities order evacuations, people may actually leave.
Then again, maybe not.
With time, even the chaos of Katrina will fade away. And we’ll be back to the fiction that government can take care of everything.
Nothing could be further from fact.
Hurricane Katrina wasn’t just the perfect storm. It was the perfect storm, accompanied by a harmonic convergence of governmental ineptitude.
At every level.
Let’s start with the city of New Orleans, shall we?
It’s unfathomable that officials in a city with the topography of a salad bowl – and more than 77,000 households without cars – would make virtually no effort to drive people out of town as a Category 5 storm was buzz-sawing up the gulf.
Instead, the city invited those who couldn’t flee to walk to the Superdome. Apparently they were supposed to bring their own provisions.
Do you suppose any of these municipal Mensa members ever walked a mile lugging a gallon of water? Do you think they’d ever done it while carrying babies and hanging onto toddlers and dragging all their worldly possessions with them?
That decision was beyond stupid. It was deadly.
It’s inexplicable now that we’ve seen aerial shots of hundreds of swamped New Orleans buses neatly parked in rows.
NBC estimates that those school and city buses could have shuttled 13,000 to safety before the storm struck.
Somebody someday is going to have to explain why that didn’t happen.
Things were no better at the state level.
No one seems to know why the governor of Louisiana didn’t activate the National Guard days before the hurricane hit. Maybe she hoped some kind of voodoo magic might keep her state safe.
Then there is the embarrassing Federal Emergency Management Agency. Headed – surely not for long – by Michael Brown.
As the storm chewed up the Gulf Coast, “Brownie” was a busy man. You couldn’t turn on the television news without seeing FEMA’s chief giving reassuring interviews.
By nightfall Brown looked appropriately concerned and bedraggled.
All that nose powdering. Those studio lights. It can wear a man down.
The hero of the hurricane? Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore. Every time you see his beret with those three gold stars, you know there is at least one person with a brain – and a heart and common sense – in charge in New Orleans.
Maybe he’ll run for vice president in 2008. On a “Take Charge” ticket with Rudy Giuliani.
Not likely, though.
So there are only a couple things we can do: Give generously to charities helping hurricane victims. Prepare thoroughly for our next storm.
And if authorities say it’s time to leave, get to high ground and take someone who doesn’t have a car with you.
Even if you aren’t in line for a direct hit. Let’s not forget that this hurricane ravaged Mississippi and parts of Alabama as well as New Orleans.
Come to think of it, those were Mississippi linemen who got the power back to my neighborhood after that squall called Isabel.
Oh, how we complained. Oh, how lucky we were.
Reach Kerry at (757) 446-2306 or kerry.dougherty@cox.net.
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