Quote:
Originally Posted by SWTXBelle
This is something which bothers me about Katrina. It wasn't the hurricane as much as it was THE FAILURE OF THE LEVEES which resulted in so much destruction and loss of life.
Also, let's not forget that men and equipment which would normally have been availble through the National Guard were not - they were in Iraq.
And the destruction of the natural wetlands "buffer" through ill-advised policies.
I amazed at this point that anyone thinks Bush should be off the hook regarding Katrina. Not that ANYBODY - mayor, governor, etc. - should be . . . I'm still mad about Katriana, in case you couldn't tell. AND I'm a former chairman of my campus College Republicans/election judge for GOP - hardly someone you'd expect to be a Bush hater.
Now back to your regularly scheduled thread.
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It's not on the regularly schedule thread, but New Orleans is interesting to think about.
There's plenty of blame to throw around, and your mentioning the levees is a really good example. Look at their history and how long a better system could have been implemented. I don't think I'm trying to get Bush off the hook completely, but his role is limited compared to the dysfunction and mismanagement by the elected representatives of the people of Louisianan and New Orleans over the years, for instance, and yet, we don't hear as much about that or at least I don't. Maybe it's a reflection of where one is in the country.
I think people look at the scale of the destruction and want to assign blame because it makes them think that we can control and master elements of nature in the future. We really can't and it's a lesson we've learned over and over again, usually in individual cases but here collectively.
To tell you the truth, New Orleans, as a city essentially constructed at or below sea level next to Lake Pontchartrain, the Mississippi River, and the Gulf of Mexico, had a pretty good run before disaster struck, really, and there's probably a certain amount of hubris involved with assuming we could keep it from flooding forever.
Apparently if you live on the Mississippi Gulf coast, you just kind of have to accept that a major storm may come along every thirty or so years and destroy almost everything. And weirdly, other than complaints about the slow pace of rebuilding infrastructure like sewers, you don't hear anyone blaming the government for the destruction by the storm itself. I wonder what the difference is? (Generally, I think people favorable compare the response of the government to Katrina with the response to Camille. )
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