Hurricane Katrina/response

Opinionated Summary

George W. Bush's administration has been shameful in its lackadaisical response to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, and has compounded this shame by focusing their belated responses primarily on their own political power-reinforcement and self-congratulations.

The government's response has been widely described as a national disgrace, by critics inside the US and abroad. Such accusations tend to fly in any major disaster such as this — but in this case they do seem warranted: where was the contingency plan? There have been countless discussions of the inevitability of exactly this disaster (and worse) over the past few years, with plenty of warning that action was needed if it was to be prevented. Bush, however, is quoted as saying "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." This is clearly a serious indictment of his understanding of a well-known situation of long standing in the US Gulf Coast in general and New Orleans in particular.

It should be noted, also, that this administration has "repeatedly denied full funding for hurricane prevention and flood control" (siphoning much of the money off to pay for the war in Iraq), thus allowing a known problem to remain unaddressed until it was too late.

Links

• Katrina-related quotes from government officials and others
• CNN: Models predicted New Orleans disaster

Notes

• There have been rumors that Canada offered help, but that the help was not allowed to enter the country — details, anyone?
• Despite the shamefulness of this weak response, the Department of Homeland Security has apparently gone ahead with declaring September to be National Preparedness Month.