I am debating whether or not it is the right time to finally discuss my opinion on the way everything was handled with Katrina. I feel like there are so many facets I would like to address, but I guess that is the luxury of having a blog I contribute to everyday. This all comes to mind because the last few days at school have been incredibly hectic. I got my eight new kids from the teacher who went back to her New Orleans school. I also have been thinking about the rebirth of the city after talking to Rachel regarding her upcoming Katrina relief project.
It has come to the point where Katrina doesn't come up in conversation more than ten times a day and I'm a little bit more able to put the whole mess in perspective. The first thing I'd like to discuss is the evacuation before the storm. There has been harsh criticism of Mayor Nagin, the Louisiana government and the Federal government. Did Mayor Nagin do everything he possibly could to avert the casualaties of over nine hundred New Orleans citizens? No. Was his response a complete and utter failure? No. I would like to initially give him credit for his competant overhaul of the "contraflow." In 2004, Hurricane Ivan was threatening the fish bowl city and people were given a voluntary evacuation. There are essentially three main evacuation routes out of the city. One could either take I-10 East or West or 55 North. The I-10 West route tended to be the most utilized due to the projected path of both Ivan and Katrina. The storms were predicted to move east so it made sense to head out west. Even though Ivan completely missed the city to the east, hundreds of thousands of people were stalled in hours of traffic on I-10. Contraflow's purpose was to reverse the three lanes of the interstate, making all six lanes go westbound. The undertaking of cutting off the exit ramps and guiding vehicles in an orderly fashion was a substantial task. In 2004, there was minimal communication between the police officers and the local government officials who were placing this plan into action. The mistakes made during Ivan, led to the successes of Katrina and in turn allowed anyone who had access to transportation and chose to leave the city could. I give Nagin and great deal of credit for making this mass exodus possible.
The problem with the way he handled the situation was his inability to aid those without transportation a means to get out of the city. His excuse for not using the three thousand public school buses at his disposal was two fold. He claimed that he didn't have anywhere to take the people and he didn't have anyone to drive the buses. I find the first part of the excuse unacceptable. Whether or not you have anywhere to deliver the folks seems inconsequential to the perrogative of getting those individuals to safety. The second part seems complicated, but with proper planning I believe that problem could have been averted.
While he did announce that those who went to the Superdome would need to bring their own supplies, this is another case where I believe proper planning could have allowed for necessary supplies to be ready for use during such a tremendous crisis.
My psychological diagnosis is that nobody could possibly be prepared for the devestation this Hurricane was capable of bringing. Wise people say that one should always prepare for the worse, but sometimes the worse is far worse than we can imagine. This is especially true when the mentality for the last fifty years or so has been that "the big one will come next year, not this year." No storm has ever submerged eighty percent of the city under water, so why should it happen now? Even though we had more warning for Katrina, I believe that 9/11 was a similar situation as would be any furture terrorist events. Even for Rita, Houston was not completely ready and they had just seen what had happened with Katrina. They are lucky that Rita did not grow and hit their city head on, becuase the results would have been just as disaterous. Houston, however, is not receiving the same criticism as New Orleans though because the storm didn't hit.
Week by week, the city of New Orleans seems to be coming back to life. While no major construction has begun, and debris is still being removed from the side of the road, restaurants, stores, and bars are all reopening one day at a time. The french quarter is back to normal even if their daily revenue will take months to return to its pre-Katrina level. Uptown still has some traffic lights out, some debris, and some unopened stores, but it will not require and major rebuilding. The places that suffered the greatest are the residential areas that were flooded and the projects in the ninth ward. Now those will take more than a year to be rebuilt. The residential houses will be built at the pace of the insurance companies and the projects will be at the pace of the government. I don't believe that anyone one knows how the projects will be reimagined and if they will be open to those impoverished individuals who need housing or will become sacrificed to the moeny flowing into it and restored for the utilization of the wealthy or the corporate. Tourism will eventually return because this city is too damn great to forget. It will never be shoved under the carpet. The schools will come back next year with an opportunity to resolve many of the corruption that scathed it, but I remain pessimistic.
My major fear of all of this, and perhaps it is premature, is what happens when a hurricane of similar or greater magnitude hits again next year. I truly believe that this will become an annual situation. The environment continues to suffer and these growing hurricanes are a small fraction of the consequences. We had over twenty two hurricanes this season and their is still one whole month left. They've even run out of names in the alphabet and have progressed to the greek letters. Wouldn't it be apprapo for the ultimate hurricane to be Omega. Isn't that some sort of movie reference to the end of the world? Anyway, what are people going to say when the government goes to funnel billions of dollars back into the city with the knowledge that this event could repeat every year, every five years, every ten years? I am not a proponent to giving up on it, but I could understand outsiders' concerns. I hope I'm wrong, but we'll have to wait a few years to see. All I know is that as of right now I am not going anywhere and I will continue to make this part of the country a better place.
When I become a superhero, I hope my heart is still in the right place.
To be continued...
