Katrina Revisited

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Yesterday marked the first anniverary of Katrina's landfall. One might imagine, by the tone of this administration's rhetoric, that the Gulf Coast had all but recovered. The dedication foresworn to the people of New Orleans, the promises made in Jackson Square, the funds that are in the pipeline...a reader from Mars might be led to believe that much has been rebuilt and that, regardless of what else still remains to be done, our government has taken the necessary steps to ensure a complete recovery.

Alas, they would be mistaken. they would not know about the millions...nay...billions...of dollars wasted and frittered away through fraud and misappropriated funding . They wouldn't be aware of the no bid contracts wherein costs were doubled and often tripled for both labor and supplies. They would not know that many of the devestated areas of New Orleans were still veritable trash dumps, that there was, in many cases, a moratorium against new construction so long as the levees were not capable of protecting the city in the worst case scenarios. They would not know that almost half of the businesses had not reopened, that only three out of eleven hospitals were up and running, that the availability of functional schools with funding and teachers was drastically lacking. They would not know that as many as half of the citizens of New Orleans had not yet returned. The diaspora may be permanent, as long as our elected leaders refuse to address the poverty and class disenfranchisement that contributed to this horrendous tragedy.

There are those who remark that the recovery in Mississippi has far exceeded that of Louisiana and New Orleans. There are two facts they conveniently omit...that the Mississippi coast was essentially wiped clean removing the critical step of cleanup which is dramatically NOT the case in Lousiana. New Orleans devestation was more accountable to the levees that failed than to the hurricane itself. The other critical factor that goes unmentioned is that pesky problem of levee reconstruction which is under the auspices of the U.S. Corps of Engineers. More than one person has remarked on the bureauocratic shortcomings, the red tape, and the outright incompetence regarding the Corps. Until a bona fide plan emerges, new construction and reconstruction will remain on hold.

One other consideration regarding New Orleans must be entertained...the Mayor, Mr. Nagin, must carry some of the weight for the sluggish progress and for being more engaged with politics than with the recovery. His outlandish public statements, his obfuscation of blame and his mismanagement of city affairs have certainly not worked towards a positive end. He has NOT proposed a cogent and viable plan. One must concede that the empathy the public felt for the Mayor in the aftermath of the disaster has all but eroded in the face of his daily actions and antics.

A national television news station solicited ideas as to what the legacy of Katrina would be. One person remarked that we would hopefully learn not to build in unsafe areas. Another suggested that we should have more effective methods of weather prediction. The two most common responses, however, focused on two specific areas. The first is the incompetence regarding our ability to react to disasters, both natural and man made, at all levels of government...local, state and federal. Twelve months have elapsed and what have we learned? What changes have been made? A significant lesson we should have learned is the importance of communication. It would seem to be a no brainer that the ability for all first responders to communicate with each other should have been one of the major changes undertaken. This never occurred because those bandwidths are owned and administered by private broadcasting companies and both Congress and the executive branch are loathe to regulate those companies, probably for fear of losing financial support for political agendas. No changes have been made in this regard. We are no better prepared than we were on 9/11 or in the weeks during Katrina's devastation.

The other most commonly recognized legacy is the obvious disparity regarding race and class that still exists in this country. It was extremely apparent the days and weeks right after the hurricane but, as is often the case in the modern world...out of sight, out of mind. Our concern regarding this deploreable condition waned with each passing day. Unless something is put in our faces, we tend to forget or neglect or are consumed by revisionistic policies. Regardless...no matter how much we forget, or neglect, or revise...the problems will not go away. As a matter of fact, the more we ignore the situation, the more it festers until the inevitable happens. The end result is the suffering of the innocent and the concommitant struggles to end intoleramce, oppression, marginalization and disenfranchisement.

It must be our goal to remedy these inequities. We can go on and pretend that we ARE well prepared. We can proceed under the assumption that racial and class discrimination do not exist. We choose either of these paths, unfortunately, at our own peril.

trickster108