Time: Why New Orleans Still Isn't Safe

One of the best pieces I've read in a while.

http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1646611_1646683_1648904,00.html

 

I have a friend who went to New Orleans on vacation early this year. She said that there are still areas that are still disaster areas, places that FEMA has not gotten to yet. She showed me heartbreaking photos of obliterated houses, neighborhoods reduced to rubble.

 

And most of FEMA has been redeployed.

My buddy who works there has been gone for a long time...

 

While I appreciate that FEMA should have been better, or at least competent, isn't local leadership at fault?

 

That article hit things dead-on. No political b.s., just the straight angry dope. Sadly, we're coming up on the second anniversary, so there will be a lot of spin while various politicos on the federal, state and local level try to tell us what a wonderful job they've done in rebuilding the city.

 

Let's start with FEMA's lack of competence before, during and after Katrina before blaming local leadership.

 

I was making no political judgement whatsoever, abbott, just pointing out that the bulk of FEMA's people have left the area.

 

Without letting FEMA & Bush off the hook for not giving a shit about Americans in trouble, the local powers clearly are incompetent

 

Have you all read the story?

I think if you'll do that, you'll find it quite easy to assign blame. And singling out a particular group probably isn't the best choice.

 

There's a shitload of blame to go around. Federal and state.

 

It's not an either/or, it's everybody. And the story makes a compelling case on how we're making the same mistakes over again.

 

It's not easy to apportion blame, nor is it really necessary. But who's to blame? Pretty much everyone involved: local officials, U.S. reps and senators from the state, the Corps of Engineers, FEMA, etc.

Kudos to Bush for threatening a veto of a clearly stupid Corps bill that's in the works. It's one of the few times you'll hear me saying that to Bush.