Katrina: A Rorschach Test

Bush had the good sense to call the area a disaster before it became one. He did this so that FEMA could get moving and be in place. When he did that last year in Florida the liberals said it was because his brother was the governor. This time they said he didn’t do it fast enough and they added a number of other typical complaints. At first it was believed that Florida and Alabama were to take the brunt of the storm so FEMA took position in preparation for that. When the storm shifted and hit New Orleans they also had to shift the focus of their preparations. All things considered I think they did a pretty good job.

When rescue workers attempted to get into New Orleans there was a problem. There were shooters who didn’t want them to help anyone. This allowed the Governor to call in active military personnel. I don’t have any sympathy for the shooters. Not one of them deserves a trial either. If you’re shooting at relief workers you should be blown butt over teakettle. It really is that simple. Those who don’t understand that are idiots. I just lived for a week or so under martial law. Don’t email me and tell me how horrible it was. I was armed and so were a lot of the people around here. Not one of us had our door kicked in, because we weren’t brandishing our weapons and making stupid comments. The only thing I noticed was they didn’t allow us to buy alcohol and there was a curfew. The rules were simple. If you’re out after this time we’ll have to assume that you’re looting and we’ll talk to you. People came and went during the curfew because some were working and some were doing relief work. Not one of them was dragged out of their car and beaten or shot for being out too late. . Those ‘evil’ national guardsmen were from all over the place and they were quite courteous. I can tell from reading some of the foolishness that some of these people (the polemics) would have pushed them to the limit and would have experienced the worst of it. It’s a Rorschach test. It doesn’t matter what you show some of these people, they will always see the same thing. Some of them have probably been arrested for arguing with stop signs on corners.

For those of you who have been reading all of the Posse Comitatus hoopla here is a rational discussion on the subject that was written in 2000. (http://www.homelandsecurity.org/journal/articles/Trebilcock.htm)

Those who always see the same thing, no matter what you show them, will miss one of the more important things that happened during this storm and its aftermath. The people down here discovered something very important. They discovered each other. For the first time in their lives the television didn’t work, the Internet was gone and there were no phones. People actually got out and helped each other. People, for the first time in years, actually slowed down because there was no other way to do anything. They sat on porches and talked with each other into the night

We sat and talked for hours, listening to the polemics try to make the entire disaster a race issue. Here are a few of the facts. New Orleans decided to go with the cheaper category three levees. The Army Corps of Engineers gave them a few options and that was the one the city chose based on the cost analysis. There have been several times when the city tried getting a tax increase to build bigger and better levees passed in local elections, but the people voted them down each time. So it really bugs me when I read some clown’s article where they say Bush was going to pay for the new levees but spent the money in Iraq instead. It was, and still is, a local issue. But then if the Feds decided to build the levees it would be “only to protect the infrastructure” and the polemics would be back to that corporate interest garbage. Like I said it doesn’t matter what they see, it’s always the same to them.

Ray Nagen, the Mayor of New Orleans, finally took the blame for not having acted quickly enough. There were twenty thousand people in The Convention Center that weren’t even supposed to be there, but they didn’t do what they were told and ended up in the worst of places. The reason it took so long for the relief to get to them was that these people who went to wrong place didn’t come out after the storm. All these people just sat there and waited for someone to come get them. Because they were in the wrong place and didn’t come out nobody even knew they were there for nearly two days. It takes seventy-two hours to evacuate that city and they only had forty-eight because the storm shifted. The RTA busses were destroyed in the storage facility when they could have been evacuated along with a lot of people. In the end busses from other places had to be brought in. Nagen complimented the Federal Relief and said that government had completely failed at the local level. It is rare to see an honest politician but in this at least, he seems to be one.

I’m going to write a little more about what we did during this time next week. But I’m going to close with a comment that should anger a few people. We live in a time when we’ve been told to be prepared for a terrorist attack of catastrophic proportions. It is apparent that we’re looking at a large number of people that couldn’t make it for five minutes. I suspect that is a pretty good glimpse at how prepared most of us are. Next week I’ll discuss correcting that and why we have a moral imperative to do so.

R.A. Hawkins is the author of "Through Eyes of Shiva", available through http://www.amazon.com/. Visit http://www.entropical-paradise.com/ -- Entropical Paradise - The Home Of R.A. Hawkins for more commentaries and editorials by R.A. Hawkins.

Comments are always welcome. Please send them to ra_hawkins@earthlink.net.

© 2005 R.A. Hawkins