INITIAL REFLECTIONS ON KATRINA

The cranky old guy has some thoughts on the disaster that has descended upon the Gulf Coast, and the responses of us pathetic humans.

(1) This was a catastrophe of the first magnitude, certainly among the most devastating in American history. But the cranky old guy is not willing to jump on the bandwagon of the we-should-have-been-totally-prepared crowd. Yes, in an ideal world we—meaning governments and individuals—would be prepared for any eventuality. But the ideal world is not constrained by limited time and resources. Our real world is. We can’t be perfectly prepared for every disaster that descends upon us.

(2) That having been said, we could have been better prepared for Hurricane Katrina. Long-term, the preparation failures included the unwillingness on the part of successive Administrations and Congresses to provide funds for improvements to the levies surrounding New Orleans. Short-term, governments at the local, state, and federal levels all seemed to have been somewhat lax in pre-positioning personnel, supplies, and equipment for the recovery effort that was sure to follow the landfall of a category III-IV hurricane.

(3) But in the cranky old guy’s opinion, the most condemnable immediate failure resides with the federal government. By late Tuesday, anyone watching television coverage knew that human suffering of epic proportions was unfolding. Consequently, by late Tuesday a massive influx of federal resources, including substantial forces of the U.S. military, should have been on the move to the Gulf Coast. Yet it appears to have been several more days before the decision to commit these resources and forces was made. The failure to make that decision in a more timely manner should be counted near the top of the negative column in any list of the Bush Administration’s pluses and minuses.

(4) The Bush Administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina has something in common with the campaign in Iraq. In both instances, the Administration has been reluctant to commit substantial manpower. In Iraq, the failure to have adequate forces on the ground following the end of initial hostilities—when the mission was declared accomplished—turned a difficult task of establishing law and order and restoring the infrastructure into a debacle. On the Gulf Coast, the failure to have an immediate influx of manpower resulted in substantially greater, and unnecessary, human suffering than would have otherwise been the case.

(5) In the first hours and days after Katrina’s landfall, the media performed yeoman service in alerting the rest of the nation to the extent of the disaster. By the following Sunday’s talk shows, however, the media effort was actually threatening to take the edge off one of George W. Bush’s worst weeks. As the federal government and the nation focused on the enormous recovery effort ahead, the Sunday talking heads concentrated most of their efforts on playing Gotcha’ with Administration spokespersons. For example, in an interview with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer could pursue no subject other than “whose fault was it.” Chertoff had ample opportunity to give what is becoming the Administration stock response: it is a catastrophe of unprecedented proportions and our focus now should not be on recriminations but on the huge task ahead. By beating the subject of fault to death, the talking heads are making George W. a sympathetic figure to much of middle America.

(6) Finally, and on a lighter note, at least to people with a more secular bent, the religious interpreters are in action. The disaster is being proclaimed as the Almighty’s response to gambling on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, to the sins of New Orleans, to evil in general. Well, the cranky old guy is not adverse to such an interpretive approach. Only, as the cranky old guy looks around, he sees other things about which the Almighty might be irritated. How about this possibility: the Almighty is irritated because we put such an incompetent group in charge of the nation?

DSH