Let’s can the "blame game" and all pull together
Posted by: McQ
The QandO Blog
Thursday, September 01, 2005
All Katrina, all the time ...
That's what appears to be on the news horizon for quite some time. And, for a while, deservedly so. I mean when's the last time a major American city was to be completely and utterly evacuated?
But we're what, 5 days into it and already the carping and political pot-shots are beginning. Is there a utility in doing so that I'm missing? Or should we, as a nation, be pulling together and trying to help those in New Orleans and the surrounding areas survive the ordeal?
We had a commenter here, for instance, ask:
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why did the President not send army trucks or buses to transport the people without cars out of New Orleans before they died? Why not on Saturday, or on Sunday? Why is there still no transport? Why did the most powerful and richest nation in the wolrd not send more than a handful of helicopters to get people off the rooftops and from the attics? what is taking him so long?
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Come on folks ... a little common sense, please. Army trucks aren't magic and they don't float. In case you missed it, New Orleans is flooded. And it takes time to mobilize, position, organize and launch massive SAR operations. They just don't happen at the snap of a finger.
While we all obviously want to see our fellow Americans rescued as quickly as possible let's "do the logistics". This isn't a video game where you punch a button and everything you need is there.
On the political side, we see some on the left loading up big time (note I said "some" to all those commenters who are going to feel compelled to talk about broad brushes), absolutely hell bent to use this opportunity to again savage their favorite target, George Bush.
Sid Blumenthal (former senior adviser to President Clinton) had to go all the way to the German publication Der Spiegel to condemn the President and the administration ... even before the first funeral is held for the dead of New Orleans. Of course Blumenthal has never been one to consider holding his tongue out of respect for anyone, especially if there's a political hatchet job to be done. He's also not one who's particulary worried about a factually complete presentation when political hay is to be made.
Here's what Blumenthal says:
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A year ago the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed to study how New Orleans could be protected from a catastrophic hurricane, but the Bush administration ordered that the research not be undertaken. After a flood killed six people in 1995, Congress created the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, in which the Corps of Engineers strengthened and renovated levees and pumping stations. In early 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency issued a report stating that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S., including a terrorist attack on New York City. But by 2003 the federal funding for the flood control project essentially dried up as it was drained into the Iraq war. In 2004, the Bush administration cut funding requested by the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for holding back the waters of Lake Pontchartrain by more than 80 percent. Additional cuts at the beginning of this year (for a total reduction in funding of 44.2 percent since 2001) forced the New Orleans district of the Corps to impose a hiring freeze. The Senate had debated adding funds for fixing New Orleans' levees, but it was too late.
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In today's Atlanta Journal Constitution, the following was pointed out:
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"We've been on this trajectory for about 15 years. We're seeing increasingly bigger disasters and increasingly higher losses," said Kathleen Tierney, director of the Natural Hazards Research and Applications Information Center at the University of Colorado.
Disaster and emergency experts have warned for years that governments, especially the federal government, have put so much emphasis on disaster response that they have neglected policies to minimize a disaster's impact in advance.
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Those warnings weren't just delivered on Bush's watch. This problem wasn't just identified in 2001. Fifteen years puts this right in old Sid's lap as well, since he was a part of the former administration. And to the numbers well:
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Louisiana's elected officials were quick to seize on the disaster to press for long-requested federal financial assistance in shoring up Louisiana's coastline. The coastal wetlands erode at a rate of 24 square miles a year and expose south Louisiana to increasing danger.
Until recently, efforts to squeeze coastal protection money out of Washington have met with resistance. The Louisiana congressional delegation urged Congress this year to dedicate a stream of federal money to Louisiana's coast, only to be opposed by the White House. Ultimately a deal was struck to steer $540 million to the state over four years. The total cost of repair work is estimated to be $14 billion.
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"Long requested federal financial assistance?" How long, Sid?
"Until recently"? How recently, Sid?
But here's the point. The project is "estimated" to be 14 billion. 14 billion. With a "B". It was in the beginning stages.
Why?
If this was such an urgent project in the terms Blumenthal couches it, why were the 100 year old pumps and 100 year old levies still a 100 years old when he was where he could help make it the priority he now claims it is?
Why is it we know the estimated cost now, but apparently had no idea when Blumenthal was advising the White House? And if we did, why wasn't anything done?
Blumenthal never mentions the barrier islands which were so badly eroded in 1965 by Hurricane Betsy. New Orleans and the state of Louisiana has been asking for help to reverse that for years. If protecting New Orleans is such a huge failure for this administration now, why, in the 8 years Blumenthal had to make it a priority, wasn't anything done for those islands when he could have advised the Clinton administration to do so?
It's easy to lay back, and in the safety of the foreign press, take political pot shots in the wake of a disaster. But the fact that Blumenthal was a part of an administration which apparently did next to nothing for New Orleans when it could have leaves one less than impressed with his poisonous monday morning quarterbacking at this point. This threat didn't just materialize for New Orleans in the past 5 years. It was there during Blumenthal's 8 years as well.
Has there been a failure to take the threat to New Orelans as seriously as it should have been at a federal level? Obviously, although I'm not sure even a completed project would withstand a Cat 5 hurricane.
What's the utility of taking political pot-shots now? Other than being in extremely bad taste (something Blumenthal's noted for anyway) it has none.
It's time to pull together folks. That doesn't mean you can't criticize the rescue and aid effort, suggest better ways of doing things or, actually pitching in and helping (or donating).
But politics and propaganda just aren't appropriate now.
In an editorial today in the Washington Post they said:
Congress, when it returns, should rise above the blame
game and instead probe the state of the nation's
preparation for handling major natural catastrophes,
particularly those that threaten crucial regions of the
country.
Agreed. It appears, on the surface, we weren't prepared for the magnatude of this storm's violent devastation. However, given these are once in 100 to 500 year storms, I'm not sure what precident we had to guide us. Obviously we need to reassess that after we deal with this disaster.
But the "blame game"? Let's can it for now. Believe me, there'll be plenty of time for that later and we'll be right in the middle of it.
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