Summary Of Katrina Disaster

As I’m sure you all know, the main stream media is giving wall-to-wall coverage of Katrina. The blogosphere is also providing plenty of coverage, with some of the best known bloggers actually getting directly involved in the relief efforts down on the coast. Most certainly, this is the biggest disaster to hit the U.S. in history. Therefore, all the coverage is warranted.

I thought I would make this post about Katrina, and try to move on to other things. It is a horrible disaster, and we all need to know what is going on, and understand how over government agencies are (or are not) responding to this disaster. That being said, I think there’s some fatigue to all the coverage. I’m not going to promise I won’t post about what’s going on along the Gulf Coast again, nor that I won’t continue calling your attention to the ways that the government failed us…but I’m going to try to move on to some other things.

I live in Tampa Florida about eight blocks from the Bay. A storm like the one in New Orleans would flood my house, so I’m not being callous to this situation, nor trying to forget it. How the recovery efforts are being managed is of keen interest to me, and how people are coping with the disaster is something I will most likely someday benefit from. So I am most certainly paying attention, and being sympathetic, but I’ll leave the coverage to people who are actually there.

I do want to point out some issues. The Republicans that are attempting to stay loyal to W are pausing only long enough to take one foot out of their mouth as they put the other one in. We all know about Santorum commenting to some kids in the Astrodome that losing their home, and being displaced to another state with nothing must be like Summer Camp. If its so cool, why wasn’t he staying there.

I’ll never get over the fact that W could rush back to Washington early from a previous vacation to sign the stupid Teri Schaivo legislation, but couldn’t bring himself to head back to D.C. early to be prepared for the worst natural disaster to ever hit the U.S. And don’t forget his mother’s comments about the people in the Astrodome…how they were under-privileged anyway, so this was all working really well for them. The absolute arrogance of this family astounds me. I hate to wish ill on anyone, but I hope they go broke someday, so they can get a taste of what the real world is all about.

Then, of course we have obviously allowed the administration to use FEMA and DHS as a place to repay a lot of political Debt’s, and have put in a bunch incompetent inexperienced cronies to run the most important government agency. At least Mike Brown finally resigned today. It was very obvious that FEMA’s current administration was ill prepared and late in responding. They can try to place the blame wherever they want, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out they were simply unprepared.

Someone found their 2004 schedule for disaster exercises. Of 222 exercises run, only 2 dealt with hurricanes, and one of those dealt with a hurricane combined with a terrorist attack. I know, terrorism is much more glamorous than hurricane relief, but guess which one has affected more Americans.

One of the primary claims by the Administration was that they couldn’t move into the area because the Governor of Louisiana hadn’t yet declared a state of emergency. That is just a plain bold-faced lie. That had been done two days before landfall. Although I don’t think it matters anyway, an experienced FEMA team would have prepositioned resources, and if the official declarations hadn’t been made, they would have called the Governor with instructions.

I guess its just the lies of Karl Rove and his henchmen, trying to shift the blame that really pisses me off, but I get even more aggravated when I realize that people hear the crap and believe it absolutely…without any question.

They have suspended most all the rules governing government procurement, and Katrina is just another boondoggle for Cardinal Cheney’s friends at Haliburton.

And we can’t let pass all the big religious right wingnuts blaming it all on gay people and the Southern Decadence celebration. I’ve gotta tell you, if that’s who God really is, I want no part of him. (Never mind that the site of most of Decadence wasn’t flooded.)

So, now, hopefully on to other things…always remembering the people that are suffering.