Hurricane Katrina:  A Post Mortem

 By

Barbara J. Stock

     Most of the survivors of Katrina are being cared for and are moving on to the homes of relatives or friends.  The horrific job of searching for and recovering the dead has begun.  The good news is that the early prediction of tens of thousands of fatalities appears to have been a gross exaggeration, but this is not new.  In the early hours after the attack on 9/11, it was predicted that there could be 30,000 dead.  Perhaps one thing that should be learned from both disasters is for politicians to stop making predictions and concentrate on their jobs. 

     Also on the good-news front is how Americans have stepped up, as they always do, to open their wallets, hearts, and homes to those in need.  The accusations of racism from people like Jesse Jackson simply have not been born out as Americans reach out to fellow Americans regardless of their skin color.   

     In fact, it seems as though the good people of all colors in Mississippi and Alabama have been overlooked in the stampede to render assistance to those in New Orleans to avoid the dreaded label of “racist.”  Many of them continue to wait for assistance and while their lives are not in jeopardy, they are no less traumatized by what they have been through.  One thing that I have noticed while watching television is that it is impossible to tell if someone is rich or poor when he is standing in front of pile of rubble that used to be his home and all he has left is the shirt on his back.   

     Unfortunately, as with any disaster, there are the shrill wails demanding answers to how this could happen and who is to blame.  There will be time to dissect the decisions of all those in power and American taxpayers have many questions. 

      There are many things that are already known.  Mayor Nagin failed miserably in providing the poor and elderly of New Orleans a means of escaping the city.  Governor Blanco also failed the people by dragging her feet on ordering an evacuation despite repeated warnings.  She complicated matters by refusing to relinquish her power to those on the ground who were equipped to deal with the crisis.  For reasons that defy logic, Blanco blocked assistance from being sent to people trapped at the Superdome and convention center.  

    The power struggle between the mayor, the governor, and the federal government cost lives.  One question that needs to be answered is this:  Did the hatred the Democrats have for President Bush cause the delays because a Democrat governor simply didn’t want a Republican president telling her what to do?

A more serious question that needs to be answered is where all the federal dollars ended up that were appropriated for Louisiana to repair and upgrade the levees.  Industrious people have investigated the amount of federal money given to Louisiana in the first five years of the Bush administration and compared it to the last the five years of the Clinton administration. Despite the finger-pointing at the Bush administration for “slashing” the levee funding, it was discovered that that the Bush budgets actually sent more money than the Clinton administration.  In fact, Louisiana received more Corps of Engineer monies than any other state in the union.  Yet, many of the levees were in disrepair and had not been upgraded to withstand a hurricane over a category 3.  One interesting fact that is rarely mentioned is that the levees that failed were the ones where the upgrade work had been completed. 

     Senator Mary Landrieu (D-La.), who threatened to “punch” the president, needs to explain why she stuck a $194 million dredging project for the Port of Iberia into an Iraqi spending bill when the need the dredging had already been shown to be unnecessary.  Perhaps Senator Landrieu is upset because lengthy federal investigations may reveal the corrupt, “business as usual,” kind of liberal politics that has ruled Louisiana for generations.  One reporter stated that the legendary corruption in Louisiana was “part of its charm.”   

     Perhaps the reason Senator Landrieu is so upset is the fact that much of her voting base in now in Texas and all over the country.  Without the poor Black population of New Orleans, she probably will not win in the next election. 

     Senator Landrieu needs to explain why millions of dollars were spent dredging waterways in the Mississippi for shipping and barges that are being used by fewer barges every year.  Why were millions spent on new locks for the levees instead of repairing the ones that were already there for a fraction of the cost of new ones and the money saved put towards upgrading the levees themselves?  Why has it not been reported that only nine months before Katrina struck, three members, two of them senior members, of Governor Blanco’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness were indicted for obstructing a federal audit of flood prevention expenditures? 

     Why are billions of dollars needed to restore wetlands?  All one has to do to “restore” a wetland is get out.  Nature will do the rest for free.   

      Americans should demand a complete accounting of their tax dollars that have been dropped into the black hole called Louisiana.  It would be interesting to know how many tax dollars ended up in the pockets of politicians and business friends of politicians like, for example, those who own dredging companies.   

      Why is a Republican administration being blamed for decades of failures and hundreds of thousands of poor Americans in cities dominated by liberal ideals and Democratic politicians?  New Orleans is a perfect example of how the liberal belief of “if you throw more money at a problem, it will be fixed” does not work. 

      Senator Landrieu and Governor Blanco should explain why this bastion of leftist politics has produced little more than a huge population of poor, mostly Black, Americans, who aren’t just being lazy, they honestly do not know how to fend for themselves.  Without access to their welfare checks, these unfortunate people are bewildered.   Americans need to take a good look at the faces of recipients of decades of liberal handouts.  Many of these people are so dependent on the government to provide for all their needs, that they have been robbed of all hope and dreams.  

      Johnson’s “Great Society” was supposed to solve the poverty problem, but instead it has created a larger problem.  Now, what the government can provide those trapped in poverty is barely enough to live, but these people accept it because they know nothing else.   

      Instead of teaching their children to do well in school so they can get one of the thousands of scholarships available to minorities for college, they apparently teach them where to go for government assistance.  Those parents who had hoped for vouchers to send their children to better schools, had those dreams dashed when the liberals vetoed the voucher plan. 

      Year after year, decade after decade of promises were given to the poor of America and never delivered by the leftists.  New Orleans is a perfect example.  Run exclusively by the left for decades, this city had one of the highest crime rates in America.  Per capita, New Orleans had more murders than New York City last year.  New Orleans has city block after city block of poor housing called the “projects.”  What kind of “project” were they, exactly?   

      If Americans are to get answers for what happened in New Orleans, we need to dig deep into the political structure of Louisiana and learn how federal tax dollars were spent and on what.  

      What the people of New Orleans need to ask their elected officials is why their lives are no better now than the day they were born.  Why should that city’s poor continue to vote for Democrats who for generations have done nothing to help them break the cycle of dependence? 

    The politicians of Louisiana are probably smacking their lips over the billions of dollars that will soon be pouring into their state. Governor Blanco was more interested in how much money she would get from the federal government after the hurricane than taking care of her citizens during the hurricane.  If Louisiana’s liberal and highly questionable brand of politics continues as it has in the past, the poor people will continue to suffer, the levees will remain inadequate, and the rest of the country will continue to pay for it all.