Wednesday, September 07, 2005
So Who's Running This Outfit, Anyway?
Man, is there a lot of finger pointing going around Washington over this Katrina disaster or what? Both sides of the issue seem to be a little off the chart, the blue-staters a bit too accusatory towards the White House, the red-staters a bit too apologetic. The truth of the matter is:
This is a fuck up of monumental proportions, pholks.
At all levels - local, state - federal, nobody was as prepared as they should have been. But this fuck up has been waiting to happen for decades. New Orleans didn't become exceptionally vulnerable to a major hurricane just since George Bush took office. It's apparently been ignored through several administrations.
That said, I'm guessing the following conversation never took place:
"Mr. President? I hate to pull you away from your well-deserved vacation of riding horses and clearing brush, but we have a problem brewing in New Orleans.
Awright, but can it wait until after my batting practice with Mark Texeira?
"Perhaps, sir, but it does involve massive property damage and loss of innocent human lives."
Well then, I'll cut practice short. How's 4:00 this afternoon?
"I'm sure that will be fine, sir. Oh, and it also involves disruption of about 1/3 of the nation's domestic oil supply."
WHAT? Why didn't you say so in the first place? Gimme that report. Tell Texeira to go home. Lessee here.....Category 5 hurricane.....headed straight for New Orleans....below sea level....storm surge......man, this looks important.
"Yes sir, we have a number of reports on file outlining the potential for disaster here. This 2001 report lays it out pretty well, but it seems nobody read it."
Awright then. Get me that FEMUR feller on the phone.
"Sir, a femur is a leg bone. You must mean FEMA."
Whatever. Get him, too. But I wanna talk to Mike Brown first. We didn't hire him away from the International Arabian Horse Association to become FEMUR director for nuttin; y'kno,
"But sir, we didn't hire him away. He got fired because he sucked at supervision. He's an estate lawyer with no experience whatsoever at disaster preparedness or response."
Hmmm. OK, let's drop the cowboy-hat-wearing Texas bumpkin routine and get busy. This doesn't sound good. This guy running FEMA obviously doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground. I'd better take full charge here. Fire up Air Force One. We're going to Washington. Tell Brown to get his ill-prepared ass down to New Orleans pronto, and to take all of his best advisers. Make sure he has these reports so he can read them on the way down. Tell the Mayor and the Governor down there to get their best people together with Brown, and let's see what we can do to get ready for this thing. This report here says the hardest hit area will probably be poverty-stricken. We can't just tell those people to evacuate, we have to provide a way for them to do so. Says so right here in this report.
"But sir, where will take all these people? There could be tens of thousands!"
Hell if I know, but we gotta get them out. How about Houston?
"But what if the storm turns, and hits Houston? We just carried thousands of people into the path of a Category 5 hurricane."
Says here in this report Houston is much better situated to hold off such a storm. It's above sea level. We'll deal with that when it happens.
"What about Governor Blanco? She hasn't asked for our help. We're supposed to stay out of it until she asks."
Bullshit. Get her on the phone. Now. We're coming whether she asks or not.
Well, unfortunately, that conversation apparently never took place. It should have.
