Friday, September 2, 2005
Sheesh
Update: Keep in mind when sending money/resources that many are wary about the biggies (Red Cross, Care, United Way, among others) because they seem to distribute too little where it's needed and keep too much for administration. Strongly recommended are dedicated devoted orgs like Mercy Corps and the Salvation Army.
Hurricane Katrina is a natural disaster of monumental proportions exacerbated by humans' desire to build homes and hotels at the ocean's edge. The seas have always done this periodically to anything at or below sea level, everywhere. And by the way this isn't a political event, but the subject of modernizing the New Orleans levees was brought to (Saint) Clinton's attention years ago but polls indicated that water danger to a mainly poor highly tourist city wasn't interesting to voters so he passed on it. Since then everyone has been crossing their fingers that a "big one" wouldn't happen. Well, it did, as it was bound to do, given geography and meteorology. Furthermore, New Orleans isn't New York and doesn't have millions of people and tens of thousands of policemen and firemen to mobilize. New Orleans is a slightly deteriorating, tourism-driven smallish southern city with a smallish southern police force that didn't expect nor had been prepared for anything like this. Now it's time to bite a reality bullet. There aren't lots of roads in and out and the ground is still unstable and they've been flying day and night rescuing people but the water has to recede and people have to calm down before things can be assessed enough to decide what should and can be done.
For the record, Bush declared the entire area a national disaster before it even began raining. Which allowed FEMA and others to get resources and personnel ready and working immediately. There's buzzing all over the internet and in the foreign press about why it's taking so long to find everyone and clean things up and naturally they're saying Bush is too slow in responding. Which overlooks the fact that feds can't just move in and do things - they must get permission from the governor for everything. And it's simply impossible to do so much very quickly. Impossible. It's not possible to send hundreds of thousands of workers yet because the ground is still covered and wet. This is going to be a ghastly difficult and long job. If we can't go there to help, can't we at least shut up about blaming and focus on how to help and fix things, and send all the money and resources we can?
Hurricane Katrina is a natural disaster of monumental proportions exacerbated by humans' desire to build homes and hotels at the ocean's edge. The seas have always done this periodically to anything at or below sea level, everywhere. And by the way this isn't a political event, but the subject of modernizing the New Orleans levees was brought to (Saint) Clinton's attention years ago but polls indicated that water danger to a mainly poor highly tourist city wasn't interesting to voters so he passed on it. Since then everyone has been crossing their fingers that a "big one" wouldn't happen. Well, it did, as it was bound to do, given geography and meteorology. Furthermore, New Orleans isn't New York and doesn't have millions of people and tens of thousands of policemen and firemen to mobilize. New Orleans is a slightly deteriorating, tourism-driven smallish southern city with a smallish southern police force that didn't expect nor had been prepared for anything like this. Now it's time to bite a reality bullet. There aren't lots of roads in and out and the ground is still unstable and they've been flying day and night rescuing people but the water has to recede and people have to calm down before things can be assessed enough to decide what should and can be done.
For the record, Bush declared the entire area a national disaster before it even began raining. Which allowed FEMA and others to get resources and personnel ready and working immediately. There's buzzing all over the internet and in the foreign press about why it's taking so long to find everyone and clean things up and naturally they're saying Bush is too slow in responding. Which overlooks the fact that feds can't just move in and do things - they must get permission from the governor for everything. And it's simply impossible to do so much very quickly. Impossible. It's not possible to send hundreds of thousands of workers yet because the ground is still covered and wet. This is going to be a ghastly difficult and long job. If we can't go there to help, can't we at least shut up about blaming and focus on how to help and fix things, and send all the money and resources we can?
Labels: reflections, weather
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