Katrina - A Year Later - Where’s the Beef?
Anger. Frustration. Political hypocrisy.
I am searching for leaders. Are you?
This anniversary is a time of shame for America. We have been the kings of foreign aid for decades but this nation’s worst municipal calamity is still not even close to being resolved. I’m heartened by the network reports of overwhelming volunteerism in the 72 neighborhoods of New Orleans, but I am outraged and incensed at the ongoing failure of local, state and federal governments to get their acts together.
The lives and future of Americans are in the balance.
Katrina relief seems more of an urgent crisis now because one year will lead to another and an endless climb up a steeper treadmill to get a great American city out of its suffering.
WHY ISN’T THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT DEMANDING AN EVEN BROADER EFFORT TO BRING REAL LIFE BACK TO THE PEOPLE OF THE GULF.
WE ARE SPENDING UPWARDS OF 50 MILLION DOLLARS EVERY SEVERAL HOURS IN THE WAR.
Protecting America is not just about defense. It is about social and personal security in the war zone that Katrina left.
What makes me so angry and frightened is the realization that this tragedy could have happened anywhere. My town. Yours.
The people of New Orleans and other sites in the Gulf deserve more from all of us, but especially from the government. It doesn’t matter who is in power. Government is still not taking care of business.
And voter outrage is just beginning. No wonder the Governor of Alaska lost his own party’s primary to a political newcomer last week.
Larry,
I lived in Gulfport, MS for nearly four years, and my wife rode out Katrina in our house just 10 miles East of the eyewall as it passed (I was in Arizona in the process of beginning a relocation started before Katrina).
I spent the five weeks immediately after landfall on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and I must say that I grew weary of the country’s fascination with New Orleans. Seldom did the rest of the country hear of the goings-on in Gulfport, Biloxi, Waveland, Bay Saint Louis, Ocean Springs, Long beach, Pass Christian along the Mississippi coast. These cities and towns were devastated DIRECTLY by Katrina - not due to the failure of a sorry system of levees.
As I helped to figure out our own future, I was touched by the national outpouring of assistance to the area. Power and Tree companies from around the country and Canada rushing to help in a time of need. The leaders in Southern Mississippi are to be commended and not condemned. Most of the mayors and councils in the area were newly elected and faced with the impossible task of rebuilding. I remember Brent Warr (Gulfport Mayor) being asked by a national media-type for his feelings regarding the ’slow response by the Bush Administration and FEMA’, and the mayor made it very clear that he was not going to play the ‘blame game’, but get about the business of recovery and rebuilding. This attitude pervaded the MS Coast, which is why you see so much more progress there than just West of the border with Louisiana.
Sure, there is much to be done, but there will be for some time - perhaps years. The resiliency of the folks on the MS Coast defies description, and shows what determination can do, in spite of the ’slow moving’ government.
I look at the lack of media exposure of the day to day recovery efforts in Mississippi as a mixed blessing - we didn’t have the time to get caught up in the hype or blame mentality - we just got down to taking care of ourselves.
Mississippi had plans for evacuations, then plans for ‘what if’. Watchnig Harrison County Emergency Services coordinate search, rescue, recovery and rebuilding when facilities, utilities and other resources that were scarce at best was awesome, and should be an example for other coastal communities or areas prone to natural catastrophes to emulate.
By the way - I grew up in suburban Philadelphia, and always enjoyed you on Action News, and I am glad that you are thriving! Best of everything to you, sir, and may God Bless You!
Spike Lee’s “When the Levee’s Broke” is a good insight to the everyday problems that those devasted by Katrina. I give a nod to reporters such as Brian Williams, Shepard Smith, and Anderson Cooper who set off an alarm that there was a major problem. It’s funny to think that we were quick to give a multi billion dollar contract to Haliberton to rebuild Iraq. So, we can’t do that for ourselves? I can’t sleep at night with the thought that a war-ravaged country that we invaded gets better treatment than a hurricane-ravaged city. Now that Hurrican Ernesto is on its way, all that we can do is pray that the worst doesn’t happen to us.