100 Hours after Katrina

Well, it looks like NOLA thankfully has dodged a bullet (although we said that once before) and the Democrats fondest hopes for chaos seem weakened.

I had the impression that Gov. Bobby Jindal was much more in charge, and organized, for Gustav than Gov. Kathleen Blanco had been for Katrina – but then, Jindal didn’t need President Bush to call him repeatedly to beg the governor to call the National Guard.

Gad…the press might even have to go cover the GOP convention in Minnesota, now!

I thought we’d take a look at where we were three years ago.

First posted Sept 1, 2005. I hope all the links still work.

It has been – essentially – just about 100 hours since Katrina struck land. By the time some of you will read this, perhaps it will be 120 hours.

In 100 or so hours, several things happened.

At first, the world thought New Orleans had “dodged a bullet.” We awoke to stories that Biloxi and Gulfport had taken terrible hits but New Orleans had been more or less spared. The whole nation seemed to breathe a settling sigh, imagining that FEMA would be on hand in Biloxi and Gulfport, the usual emergency services and aid people would do the usual emergency service and aid things, folks would get their power restored in a few days or weeks, we’d all send small checks and life would pretty much go on as usual. Heck, even after Katrina struck, Cindy Sheehan and her folk were talking merrily about “heading out to Tom DeLay’s house” (yes, the press had already left the story enough to cover her, again) and President Bush was seen addressing troops and plunking a guitar thinking – as everyone did – that the worst of Katrina was behind us. (Aside- I miss Karen Hughes. And Michael Gerson. They need to be back at W’s side. Please.)

Then…pumps and levees – designed to withstand a fast-moving catagory three storm and its aftereffects – stopped working, and what had seemed a managable disaster became a catastrophe of a scope and scale unseen in the recent history of the United States of America. A city destroyed, smaller cities are in trouble, too, but New Orleans is lost.

100 years ago, a hurricane had destroyed Galveston, but it was a much smaller city than it is today. An earthquake had destroyed San Francisco, but again – the whole scale of things was smaller – downsized.

Let us keep a few things in mind:

Before Katrina struck, New Orleans and surrounding areas had been declared “disasters” by President Bush, who did so in order to expedite the delivery of monies and services needed to cope with what everyone believed would be a very bad storm. Actually, he did the same thing, last year, for Hurricane Charley, and was criticized for doing so by some, but that’s not important right now.

There will be plenty of time for blame – and there is plenty of blame to go around. But…not right now.

In hindsight, one may declare that residents should have been evacuated sooner – and yes, that sort of planning would have been prescient…assuming that everyone you wanted to evacuate would co-operate. Some people always believe they can ride it out.

And yes, it might have helped if the people in charge of New Orleans had put these buses in motion rather than allowing them to be stranded.

But it is easy to Monday Morning Quarterback. That’s the easiest thing in the world to do, and also the most useless, so let’s not do it – let’s focus on what actually happened, for a little bit longer – we were talking about how New Orleans had seemed to have dodged a bullet.

When the levees fell and hell was unleashed, those emergency folk who were in place were faced with a disaster that they’d simply never encountered before. No matter how “prepared” they might have been, they were not – could not be – prepared enough. Suddenly they were not dealing with a mere disaster, they had a true catastrophe on their hands. A catastrophe is not something easily, and neatly managed. It is horrific and sprawling and deadly and by its nature, a catastrophe brings nothing good, leaves nothing good in its wake.

There are some folks out there who seem to think that a sprinkling of pixie dust is all it would take to make everything better, and that the president is being stingy with the twinkles. And then there are some, on the air, over the radio, spouting nonsense like this:

“This President is never gonna do the right thing. I think somewhere deep down inside him he takes a lot of joy about losing people, if he thinks they vote Democrat or if he thinks they’re poor, or if he thinks they’re in a blue state, whatever his reasons are not to rescue those people…” – Air America’s Randi Rhodes

We’ll get back to that in a second. Meanwhile, let’s think – really THINK – about everything that has been done in a little over 100 hours:

Between 2,500 and 3,000 people have been rescued by the Coast Guard, National Guard and First Responders.

National Guard and Regular Army have deployed 50,000 troops…the biggest domestic relief effort in U.S. history after Monday’s onslaught by killer Hurricane Katrina.

The Navy is sending the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman to join an armada of vessels off the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.

The Air Force said it was adding a high-flying U-2 spy plane to the relief effort to take pictures to help relief efforts at the request of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The Army has put on alert roughly 3,000 active-duty ground troops from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to be prepared to deploy to New Orleans…The brigade-sized force, likely to be from the 82nd Airborne Division, would engage in crowd control and site-protection activities.

Pipelines are being restored and refineries are beginning to get back into operation.

Levee repairs are underway – reportedly one break has already been fully repaired as of this evening. See You Big Mouth You for Poop about Pumps which is very informative.

Refugees are being taken in in Texas, and the University of Texas, Rice University, Texas A&M, Texas State and Baylor University (and many other schools) are opening their doors to displaced students.

In other words, American generosity and pragmatic idealism is kicking in, as it always does. And things are going to get better. Things are going to get better. And I do think that within a week, as flood waters continue to receed, and the people who are trapped have been rescued, things will look markedly better than they do at this moment, because Americans will do the hard work of making it better – as they always do.

Chuck Simmins is keeping track of the Katrina Aid contributions, both corporate and private, and his reports are very heartening. Already combined contributions top $100,000,000.00 dollars, and that is basically from Americans, for Americans. (I must point out that my New York Yankees have ponied up one million dollars. Still very disappointed in Amazon.com – where I spend a lot of money – they are not on the list!)

Other countries are offering help, in a general sort of way. Truthfully, when you think about it – moral support is what we in the US could really use from other countries. Very few nations can – as we did in December to aid tsunami victims – send aircraft carriers to be used as floating hospitals and water dispenseries. Very few nations can really do much to help…but the moral support…that would be so very welcome and appreciated.

A generosity of spirit demonstrated by those nations who have benefited from the assistance of the US in bad times, that would help a great deal.

Speaking of generosity of spirit, let’s get back to Randi Rhodes and her rather hateful – and perhaps projecting – statement regarding President Bush. Considering that even his political foes – even people who really dislike George W. Bush – admit that he is the most authentically color-blind person they have ever met, considering that his cabinet and core advisors represent the most diverse collection of individuals – diverse in gender, race and sexuality – that have ever surrounded an American President, I think Ms. Rhodes has made a very foolish statement – a statement so extreme that it can only serve to undermine her own credibility while it provides very bad snacking to a group of listeners who could use some wholesome food for thought – something beyond rancid hate.

It has only been 100 hours. Maybe by the time you read this, it will have been 110 hours, or 120. In that scant amount of time, what more could any president do? What more could YOU do?

“The president’s policies are what caused this chaos,” is what we hear. Now, now…do we really want to go there, and discuss what president’s policies caused what terrible losses, and when? Let’s not. At least, not yet. There’s all kinds of time for that, later.

Something horrendous has happened – and often when something horrendous happens, things get worse before they get better. Horror and chaos tend to need to play themselves out before situations can begin to be steadied and repaired.

I was remembering how, when the tsunami struck, European leaders were praised to the heavens for getting before microphones and making noble statements and promising aid and promoting the UN as the best vehicle to deal with that terrible event. President Bush was castigated for not talking to the press, not making the noble, quivering-lip statements. Well, no, he didn’t participate in the media nicities…he was busy hob-nobbing with Australia, Japan and S. Korea, deploying American military and whatnot…he was, you know, taking action, action that brought real help to a stricken area in a matter of days instead of the weeks it took the UN to get there.

He is taking action, now – although it is action that many who hate him will not appreciate – the easing of clean-air restrictions in order to stabalize the price of fuel (and get it refined more quickly) things like that. Unglamourous things that need doing.

But it doesn’t really matter. No matter what the President did before disaster struck, no matter what he has done in the aftermath, no matter what actions he takes in the next three years, his actions will always be the wrong actions, they will always be politically motivated, and everything will always be his fault. That is just the way it is for some.

To his credit, Former President Bill Clinton understands that a president can only do so much. And when CNN, in a very crass move, tried to ambush President G. H. W. Bush on his son’s “failures,” he did the right thing. Good on ya, Mr. President!

The responsibility for the people of New Orleans belonged first and foremost to their Mayor, their Governor and their local leadership before it ever belonged to the American President and the Federal Government, and – as Clinton said – everyone thought New Orleans had dodged this bullet – then the situation changed.

I had written earlier today that I really want to believe that the press wants what is best for America. I still want to believe it. The press understands the power of images – hell, we do not see too many good images from Iraq for a reason, right? If the press wants to filter news on the war because they don’t believe in it, that’s one thing. It’s not right, and it dishonors our men and women who come home with very different sorts of stories than we hear in the press…but it’s “one thing.” If they begin to filter out images of hopefulness and heroism – if they downplay what is positive in the recovery efforts after Katrina, they will not only hurt the president they hate…they will hurt the nation – they will deliver a deep and lasting wound to America’s spirit, its pride and its soul. And that would be unforgivable. We need some more of this, please.

The sad people who sit around like self-gratifying monkeys, constantly working their hate, working it and working it, are longing for release – for an orgasm that can only occur upon the utter political, personal and (for some) physical destruction of a human being named George W. Bush. Until they have that destruction, and that orgasm, nothing else matters. Nothing. And nothing can be seen by them, except through the prism of that hateful desire.

I wish I could talk to some of these folks – really talk to them – but I know I cannot. I know they have no openness to hear anything I have to say. I wish I could ask them – and folks like Jack Cafferty and Katie Couric and others who take the very easy way of simply “blaming Bush” for everything, and who are simply running on hate – where has your hate taken you? Where do you think it will take the country? Assuming you still want what is best for America, do you think unrelenting hate is what she needs at this moment – that it can be the catalyst for recovery and healing in our nation?

I know of no therapy that brings about healing through hatred.

Hate tends to consume the hater, and I read some of the remarks some folks are making and think…are you so in love with your hate that you cannot let it go long enough to say “let us band together and put politics aside, for now…” because this really is not the time to drive political daggers – it is not the time to try to figure out if the traditionally Democratic leadership in this state or that contributed to a city’s unpreparedness and vulnerability. It is not the time to sit and seethe with resentment or guffaw in anticipatory glee about how “this will sink the Repugs in ’06!”

Do you not see what is wrong with thinking this way, at this time? Do you not understand that while people are dying, or being threatened with violence, when they have lost their homes, their schools, their families, their memories, their whole pasts – then it is perhaps a time for silence, and for a bit of prayer, and for regretting where we have all fallen short, and then it is time to simply open the heart, open the heart, and try to do what you can to help? Just help, without the harangue?

But…perhaps a heart shrivelled by unrelenting hate cannot be opened. How grievous that is to contemplate.

UPDATE: Varifrank has an excellent piece up touching on some of this, and asking people some hard questions – but saying it all much better than I.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has a long and link-filled post with interesting excerpts of information on the recent restoration on the levee which broke, and other matters – you’ll want to read it all.

Also, Popular Mechanics 13 myths about Hurricane Katrina