Monday, September 05, 2005

...Katrina and us

It’s 2:00 am and I can’t sleep. I think we’ve all been bombarded with just too much info the past few days and I know, I’m in overload. I don’t think we’ll ever get back to "normalcy". Actually, we will, it will just take time. I still can’t fathom an entire city being evacuated. It’s like something out of a science fiction story, a post apocalyptic wake up call.


In the past few days we’ve seen the worse in human beings and we’ve seen the best. Hearing of rapes and sniper fire during this terrible event is certainly numbing. However, you are also hearing stories of shear human will and survival. I prefer those stories and have shed many a tear while watching them. God bless each of the victims of Katrina.


We won’t know the extent of the devastation for months, most likely years. The burden of housing and education on the surrounding states alone is going to be enormous. FEMA and the Feds are going to take a beating in the months to come. The media will try to "blame" someone for this disaster, despite the fact that that no one is at fault. Two terrible catastrophes back to back. How do you even simulate a practice run for that?


If aid could have arrived faster, I don’t think it was because of race and poverty of the people in the affected area, as many are trying to promote. It is government bureaucracy at it’s best. All this "coordination" causes delays. Some delays were surely justified and some not. Obviously, you can’t move trucks into a flooded city; however, you can air drop supplies. It is very true that you can’t expect to evacuate 23,000 from the Superdome in a few hours, but you can target nursing homes and hospitals first. You can’t put the National Guard on every street corner, but CNN and Fox managed to get to those corners. Why is that?


I have feeling that the Salvation Army, Operation Blessing and the Red Cross had their acts together a bit better than Homeland Security. Isn’t that scary? (I do like Mr. Brown of FEMA, he lays it on the line pretty well without all the BS…Mr. Chertoff lacks some credibility as he tries to paint a better picture than what the situation is, in my opinion.)


PS to the man in England who said that America, the most powerful country in the world, fell to its knees because of this disaster...You haven't learned anything about us for the past 229 years, have you?