An Ill Wind Named Katrina

Written by: BonnieBlueFlag



I watched Hurricane Katrina gather strength in the Gulf after hitting Florida as a category 1 storm. Daily I tracked the hurricane on the Weather Channel and the news channels. I could almost hear the glee in the voices of some in the news media, as they reported on the raging storm. As they anticipated the possibility that this would this be the one, the big one predicted to one day overwhelm and decimate New Orleans. Surely the same news reached all of Louisiana.

The news was slow, so slow in the month of August, that the reporters stuck in Crawford, Texas covering the President, delighted in having Cindy Sheehan to talk about. In between the moments when GW would hit the bike trails with Lance Armstrong, or go out and cut brush on his ranch in the hot Texas sun, they could go over to Cindy's Camp Crazy, and stir up a little trouble by reporting on Joan Baez or Martin Sheen.

You know, Martin Sheen, the actor who is not a president, but since he plays one on TV, he and his peers believe him to have actual knowledge, of every government diplomatic situation, foreign crisis, domestic policy and its ramifications.

Meanwhile, Hurricane Katrina was out there swirling around in the warm Gulf waters, growing stronger and bigger every day, and the voices of the reporters were growing too, becoming more and more shrill with the anticipation that this could be the story that would put them on the map. Many of them in Texas knew that they were in just the right spot to get there quickly, more quickly than the lucky reporters who had spent August somewhere else other than in hot dusty Crawford.

Hurricane Katrina appeared to be on a direct course to hit New Orleans. A hit just to the west of New Orleans would place that city in the greatest danger from the northeast quadrant of the hurricane. Katrina remained a category 4 hurricane status for some time, and then on August 29, Sunday night just before midnight, it jumped from a category 4 to a category 5 storm. Every man, woman, and child living in New Orleans knew that the levees had been semi-guaranteed to only a category 3 hurricane, including Mayor Ray Nagin (D), Governor Kathleen Blanco (D), Lt. Governor Mitch Landrieu (D), brother to Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu (D), along with Louisiana's junior Senator, David Vitter (R).



In an unprecedented move, President Bush declared a state of emergency for Louisiana and Mississippi, in advance of Hurricane Katrina's landfall, so that federal supplies and rescue teams could be employed as quickly as possible after the storm had subsided. The Louisiana National Guard by law was under the command of Governor Blanco, not President Bush. Governor Blanco had but only to ask for assistance from any other State of the Union, and additional National Guard troops would be there as soon as was humanly possible.

Neither the Federal government, nor any other State has the authority to send in troops of any kind to a State, without it being at the request of the governor of that State. Other States made offers immediately, even as far north as Michigan, but Governor Blanco either refused their help, or neglected to know her job description sufficiently enough to authorize their assistance. And surely Lt. Governor Landrieu (D), whose sister is Louisiana Senator Landrieu (D), could have gotten the word to Washington, DC, that the situation was dire, and perhaps she did, because President Bush implored Governor Blanco to issue warnings to everyone in New Orleans to evacuate immediately.

Meanwhile, New Orleans' Mayor Nagin, allowed 200 and some odd schools buses to be rendered useless by the flood waters, as they sat parked like a cluster of yellow daisies drowned by brackish seawater. Buses that could have been used by people with no other means of transportation before the storm and the flood, buses that could have been used later to move survivors from the Superdome to the Astrodome, to Baton Rouge, to anywhere away from New Orleans.

I haven't heard about much that was done for the people of New Orleans by their mayor, except that he moved into the Hyatt Regency Hotel, and then later made sure that hundreds of other people staying in the same hotel, were moved ahead in line at the Superdome to take buses out of New Orleans. Who knows how many black people died there on the searing hot concrete without food or water, when they should have been on those buses usurped by the black mayor's friends, relatives, whoever. And yet the main stream media has the gaul to play the race card against President Bush.

As usual, Jessie Jackson ran to the closest microphone to criticize everyone, especially President Bush for what had occurred in New Orleans. I would have had new found respect for him, if he had led a convoy of church buses to the Superdome to help with the evacuation, something that he could have accomplished with a few phone calls. But, he would rather waste time and resources in attacking others, and anyone other than Mayor Nagin, or a Louisiana Democrat.

Everywhere I turn I hear the same thing, that President Bush did not do enough, that he did not act quickly enough. I feel like I am in an echo chamber of lies and more lies, about who or what is responsible for the death and destruction in New Orleans.

Mayor Nagin is going about his days telling everyone that he has demanded that President Bush do this and do that, as if he not in the least responsible for what happened to the people in New Orleans. Senator Landrieu threatened to punch President Bush this morning on an ABC news show. The last I heard from Governor Blanco, she was calling for a day of prayer rather than for assistance from other Americans. Evidently, she has not heard that God helps those who help themselves.

Mayor Nagin should be out there on one of those rescue boats, telling his constituents that still refuse to leave their homes, that they must leave now. They might much more readily listen to him, someone they know and trust, rather than the frightening man in green camouflage dropping in out of the sky.

So many have been quick to criticize President Bush for having deployed National Guard troops to Iraq. Louisiana had only sent one-third of their total number of National Guard troops to Iraq, and 24 hours after hurricane Katrina struck, 7,000 soldiers were on duty from Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi. Meanwhile, Governor Kathleen Blanco failed to get additional troops from 17 other States that were waiting on standby, as she was entitled to do under an agreement that all the States have with each other. Instead she let the 1,500 police officers (many not active for a variety of legitimate reasons), try to control several hundred thousand scared, thirsty, hungry, desperate citizens. But, in her warped reasoning, this is all somehow President Bush's fault.



And still others have been quick to point out that President Bush did not give the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers the total amount of money requested in recent budgets, thus blaming him for the condition of the levees in New Orleans. No mention is ever made that while President Clinton was in office, he specifically stated that Louisiana and/or New Orleans would have to come up with one half of the money required to improve the levees!

Former New Orleans' mayor, Sidney Barthelemy (D), 1986 to 1994, and one of the founders of the Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus in 1977, said this week that while he was mayor, the Corps of Engineers had told him the levees where only good for a category 3 hurricane, but that the chances of a category 4 or 5 hitting New Orleans were very slim, that he need not be too concerned. Armed with information like that, just how much matching money could anyone expect to be earmarked, for the improvement of the New Orleans levees. Did the Corps actually tell then Mayor Barthelemy not to worry about a category 4 or 5 hurricane? We will never know.

Those of us who have grown up near the Mississippi River know the importance of the river systems to the commerce and economy of the entire United States. We also know that the Army Corps of Engineers are to blame for many of the flooded river towns in recent years. Our elected officials in Washington, DC, also know these things. They knew full well what could happen to our economy if the oil and natural gas could not get up river from New Orleans, or the barges full of coal and grain could not get down river to New Orleans, and both would need the businesses on the delta to buy, sell and trade those commodities.

In their misguided attempt to control the mighty Mississippi River, they have actually caused many of the problems. When the river chooses to change course leaving a river town high and dry, or to take a new course over acres and acres of farm land, they feel it is their mission to undue the decision that Mother Nature has made.

They have built levees to reclaim farm land from the river (while the government is paying farmers not to grow crops), constricting the river and leaving a town down river to flood, even though it never did before. So then their next project is to build another levee for the town that is now in danger of flooding. They have tried to use dams, locks and levees to bring the world's fourth longest (Missouri-Mississippi) River system into submission, something that can only be done until the next 500 year flood, which can come at intervals of one year, or the next category 5 hurricane.

The Corps of Engineers has a backlog of projects and money, and they always inflate the amount of money needed for a project, knowing that they will not receive the full amount requested from the U.S. Congress. Congress in turn knows the tactics of the Corps, so they never approve the full amount requested. A dangerous game that has developed, and been played by all parties involved, over the years.

Even if President Bush had not approved less money for the Corps of Engineers in the last budget, would the work on the New Orleans levees have been completed by August 29, 2005? No, and the work should have been done years earlier. Why did the people who knew the circumstance in New Orleans, take such tremendous chances with the lives and livelihood of so many other people?

Why was there money for a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, for three years in a row; a seafood plant in Oregon; an Alaskan statehood celebration; sidewalk repairs in Boca Raton, Florida, and Glennville, Georgia; upgrades to the Senator Ted Stevens Airport in Alaska; a film festival in Rochester, New York; a candy company in Illinois for the study of caffeine in chewing gum; bicycle paths in California, Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Wisconsin; $50 million for an indoor rainforest in Iowa; etc., etc., but not a dime for the New Orleans levees that we all depended upon?