No doubt the response could have been better, but I don't think anyone could have done it perfectly.
I didn't hold MS up as a model of perfection; I offered it as a contrast to show that some of the messing up wasn't at the level of this administration ignoring the problem.
And it's relatively easy for us all to say, trailers with formaldehyde are terrible, but it's pretty hard to offer a better alternative that could have been deployed at that scale. (The bureaucratic delay is ridiculous, but it looks at least 50% state or local level to me.)
Apparently FEMA says they won't be doing trailers in the future, so it will be interesting to see what the alternative is.
ETA: Did I argue that Mississippi was so great? Or did I just argue that it was less dysfunctional than Louisiana in this instance? And I think the real issue that you see in rebuilding Mississippi doesn't have much to do with the federal gov't, unless you just support giving people straight up handout of hundreds of thousands each. A big part of the problem is not being able to get insurance to rebuild in places that it really doesn't make sense to rebuild if you're an insurance company looking at the flood plain and the land. The stuff that came back fast tended to be self-insured.
Last edited by UGAalum94; 02-14-2008 at 10:06 PM.
Reason: changing plane to plain
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