Hurricane Katrina

August 29th, 2006 7:01 am by  ebohls

We will be dealing with a few other anniversaries about a third of the way into September, of course, of course, but we must certainly also be mindful of the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which made landfall in Louisiana one year ago today (although it existed as a storm between August 23 and 31, 2005).

I remember laughing at first at it and the coverage thereof on the television as just another example of weather porn. It was only later after we got back from the beach that it really started to sink in what a horrible fuck-up it all was, from the federal down to the local level.

But especially, especially at the federal level, after what we thought and could have reasonably expected, after 9/11, that the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the newly-created Department of Homeland Security would perhaps manage the emergency and keep the homeland secure. And they very much did not. They just simply failed.

Oh, now, I absolutely believe that the President and Secretary Chertoff and Director Brown were all well meaning surely. No Kanye West crap for me, thank you very much. But they weren’t especially competent in all this. And we again reasonably expect at least competence from the officials duly sworn, and paid, to manage and secure during emergencies.

So today let us remember and honor the thousands dead and missing.