Today (yesterday at 11:30 pm actually) is the anniversary of the beginning of one of the greatest governmental failures of the entire United State’s history.
Wikipedia has a great write up on Katrina.
The greatest thing I think we learned from that disaster was the grand ineptitude of government. Many arguments can be made where the failures are rooted and the partisans will bicker endlessly. One thing is for certain, though, and that is government cannot be trusted, especially when it comes to disaster relief.
I feel sorriest for the souls reaching for handouts in the days after the disaster. They are the ones who actively depended on the government and the government left a lot of them to die.
Don’t get me wrong, though. I would be quite thankful if the government helped me get on my feet after a huge disaster. The difference is, I am not going to “ride out the storm” and then expect the government to swoop down and rescue me.
While I am thinking of it, one of the most outlandish claims from the left came from Randall Robinson at the Huffington post saying that people were eating corpses to survive only 4 days after the worst of the storm had passed. Robinson has since retracted his claim but I recall reading the original post and the comment when unnoticed by the editors for quite some time. Talk about fear mongering.
Tags: blanco, bush, government, Katrina, Louisiana, Mississippi, nagin, New Orleans
A year down the road from Katrina, there are a number of lessons we can learn from this disaster:
1) Have your own plan: If you’re living in an area where natural disasters are the rule rather than the exception, you should forget about relying on the government and have your own plan for emergency supplies and evacuation. If you’re short on resources, it may involve putting away a little at a time until you’re self-sufficient. This advice can also be applied to the pending “natural disaster” of social security going bankrupt. The less you rely on government (city, state, or federal), the better off you will be.
2) When disaster strikes, look at it as a long-term opportunity: Before the Great London Fire in 1666, the city was a mess of narrow streets and wooden buildings – a fire trap waiting to happen. Although it took many years to rebuild, the end result was a greater city, with wider thoroughfares and safer buildings. Rushing to rebuild New Orleans as a quick fix to win votes will almost certainly result in another disaster when the next big one hits. But there needs to be a long-term plan.
3) Redesigning a city means nothing if the community isn’t redesigned: Pre-Katrina New Orleans was a social disaster even before the hurricane hit, with rampant dependence on government handouts and drugs. Last April, Bill Cosby challenged the residents of New Orleans to rebuild the community as well as the city. Some of those who were evacuated to other parts of the country witnessed what life can be like when there’s hope. Whether the Big Easy returns to its disfunctional past will depend on how many of those people bring that hope back with them. I wish them well.