The Katrina Blame Game

September 2, 2005

 

As we watch in horror the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the stories evoke the full spectrum of emotions. Amidst the untold human suffering there are tales of individual courage and sacrifice that defy comprehension. Sure, there are stories of looting and raping and utter anarchy but there are countless heroes among the walking misery. Doctors, nurses and ordinary citizens rose to the occasion and helped their fellow man. Neighbors helped neighbors, some cutting through roofs to reach desperate victims who had fled to attics to escape the encroaching waters.

 

Flood-ravaged New Orleans deteriorated into a nightmare of stranded, hungry and dazed victims while thugs armed with AK-47s prowled the streets raping, robbing and killing, compounding the misery of those who had already suffered a lifetime of misfortune in the span of a few days.

 

From the very beginning, political opportunists blamed President Bush for the hurricane, claiming his environmental policies caused global warming which, in turn, caused Hurricane Katrina. Once relief efforts were under way, the cacophony of Bush-bashing reached a fevered pitch, blaming him for the delay in getting much-needed help to the victims.

 

Networks like NBC pounded the president with correspondents shrieking that nothing was being done. They reported incredulously that people were still at the Superdome and demanded to know why. Reporter Martin Savidge in his “Mr. Announcer” voice peppered a National Guard general with questions. “What took you so long?” he snapped, as if the guardsmen had been sitting in their barracks playing blackjack while people died. “Do you realize how hard it is to get in here?” the general shot back. Savidge let the general know that he had been there all week. The question I hoped the general would ask of Savidge went unasked. “Then why haven't you used your network helicopters that bring you in each day to get some of these people out?”

 

I may be alone in this assessment but I believe it was an ill-conceived plan to house people in the Superdome. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin launched into a profanity-laced tirade directed at the president for abandoning the people stranded at the Superdome. But who caused them to be stranded? I noted at the time of the evacuation that there were three or four inbound lanes of I-10 that were completely clear as evacuees clogged the outbound lanes. It would've made better sense to use those open lanes to run the thousands of city school buses and hundreds of city buses to take those unable to leave New Orleans to higher ground. Where would they have gone? Anywhere but in the middle of a city that every expert was warning would be 30 feet under water in a matter of hours. When Mayor Nagin was asked as the storm approached the coast what would happen to all those people in the Superdome if New Orleans was under water, he responded, “We haven't thought that far ahead.”

 

By the Friday after Katrina hit, the networks were screaming that the federal government was not doing enough. At the same time, I learned the Coast Guard had been plucking victims from their homes in Louisiana and Mississippi at a rate of 100 per hour. Over 10,000 in total had been saved.

 

I'm certainly not saying the federal government acted flawlessly but there's an assumption among many that any delay was on purpose. That kind of talk is unseemly and unconstructive. This is not a time to score political points. It's a time to come together as a country and help those who need it. The backbiting surely doesn't help in the effort.