Donate to help the victims of Katrina.
I have been avidly following the coverage. It’s so sad. In addition to feeling bad for the people who have lost homes or relatives and friends, I feel bad for all the people who went to the Louisiana Superdome or the New Orleans Convention Center – rapes, dead bodies.
I remember during and after 9/11 how odd it felt to have the whole country focused on the area where I lived. I’m sure media coverage is the last thing on the minds of most of the people of New Orleans right now, but I wonder if they find it strange that all of us are talking about levees and Lake Pontchartrain as if we encounter them every day. I had to go to the dictionary to make sure I was pronouncing “levee” correctly.
I was in New Orleans with UVa’s Virginia Glee Club in March 1998, part of a tour of the South. We were only there for a day and a half. We arrived in the afternoon and performed a concert at a church whose name I can’t remember. For breakfast the next day, I had a delicious beignet at Café du Monde. In the afternoon, six of us walked around the French Quarter (including a straight guy with whom I was deeply infatuated, an attraction that led to my finally coming out of the closet), and we six had a huge lunch at Galatoire’s. Two hours later, we had to meet up with the rest of the chorus for a group dinner. We were stuffed. That night, we all went out and partied, and the next morning, we left. It was a beautiful city.
I’ve been keeping tabs on Richard’s blog and the blog of his and Jonno’s host, Drew. There’s also this, which seems to include some posts from Richard (I think it’s the same Richard), and this.
The first sentence of today’s lead New York Times editorial begins, “George W. Bush gave one of the worst speeches of his life yesterday.” I think that’s a bit harsh, but maybe not. Although I wasn’t looking for crocodile tears or Clintonesque lip-biting, he was certainly less than inspiring. He seemed defeated. Rattling off numbers, he sounded like the FEMA director instead of the president. Then again, his first 9/11 speech was pretty awful, too. The man seems to have two responses to chaos: either he turns a blind eye to it (Iraq), or he is overwhelmed by it (New Orleans). I think his reaction is usually the former so he can avoid the latter.
He certainly lived down to his reputation this morning when he said to Diane Sawyer, “I don’t think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees.” Oh? Not anyone? He’s such a schmuck.
Anyway: once again, donate.
“Rattling off numbers, he sounded like the FEMA director instead of the president.”
I read this line over and over. It captures how I feel right now…
..whatever that means…
I’m in agreement on your assessment of Bush in a crisis. I certainly have a lot to say (not very much of it good) about the administration’s handling of this situation, both now and before it happened (FEMA has been gutted under Bush, and he is wrong that “no one could have predicted this.”
btw, I read somewhere that Bill Clinto was being interviewed, and said the same thing. Is he misinformed, or simply becoming a Bush apologist (he’s become pretty chummy with the Bush family of late – or so it would seem).
Alas, I’m holding-off on the more negative stuff until at least tomorrow (or perhaps next week), out of deference to time-frame appropriateness, etc.
Still, this is a good post you’ve done.
Take care.
this is mind blowing shit to watch…it seems so far from reality to have this happening in a city in the U.S., where this is now going on in N.O., LA for over three days. In this country, there’s always some massive coordinated response to crises and usually in a short amt of time. Unbelievable. The video footage of the Superdome and the Civic center, where there was a dead body slumped in a wheelchair that was basically just out there on the sidewalk? There was really absolutely no way at all possible to coordinate a massive evacuation from that place in a shorter span than 3 days? The uselessness of NOLA’s mayor is shocking too. Finally, I do feel really sorry for all those that have lost someone or something or are trying to deal with the fact that they just don’t know when or how this nightmare will end. Too hard to comprehend that this is actually reality right now somewhere.
The articles on the state of the people at the convention center are the worst I’ve read about the Katrina disaster. :(
I can’t help but wonder, as i watch CNN’s re-make of “MadMax: BeyondThunderDome”, if we’re truly ready for another 9/11.
rob@egoz.org
To be fair, although every government agency is screwing this up, I think what people anticipated was the overtopping of the levees by the storm surge, not the breach of levees. Today’s Times indicates that every disaster drill (including pre-Bush) had anticipated flooding of the city from storm surge, not from the levees failing…
But overall, the response from all quarters is just embarassing. This is why Giuliani was so good- he was decisive and led. No one is doing that here, and some people- the governor, for instance- are clearly beyond overwhelmed.
I loathed Giuliani, but he was able to inspire confidence in the population in the aftermath of the attacks. The Bush Administration doesn’t know how to do that.
cnn is reporting that the French Quarter is ok. http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/03/katrina.french.quarter/index.html
the cafe du monde seems ok too.
Having spent 54 years in “The South” each year we endure the hurricane season and with each passing year we become far too reliant on the weather experts to advise us when to evacuate. Only weeks earlier the news teams exaggerated the possible severe weather (Dennis) and created thousands of families fleeing for their lives. Then when we should all have been scared witless we were confident this would be another exaggeration. WRONG! Some of the blame rests with the reporting agencies creating hype for the numbers game. Sure the FEMA officials should have been prepared but weather is considered an act of God and can we as a nation be prepared for each and every act of God? We southeners have a strong constituition and are survivors. However; just as our nation responded to the crisis of 9-11 or an earthquake in California there will be response to the disaster in the Gulf areas that have been destroyed. Until work crews can clear the way for additional equipment to arrive the news stories shown will appear nothing is being done. Governor Riley declared Alabama a disaster immediately and we are still recovering from last year’s hurricanes. September is another month of the hurricane season and I am hopeful that the tropical storms that have already been assigned numbers fail to materialize into hurricanes.