Hurricane Katrina Part II - Who's To Blame
It's pathetic, but everyone who said now is not the time to play the blame game is doing just that. As predictable as our society can be, the blame game goes very much along political lines without both sides really listening to the complaints of the others.
Actually, there is a lot of blame going around. Some of it is right on target while other blame is misplaced or put upon certain groups too harshly. Just where does this blame belong?
The Federal Level
When private charitable and business organizations can give humanitarian aid better than our own federal government, one must start to really question why are we paying taxing? Sure the Bush Administration is all about the tax cuts to the wealthy Americans without thinking about the real life consequences on what it does to the 95% who are not among the wealthy class. A small percentage of the non-wealthy class is getting by comfortably while everyone else is barely getting by or not at all, yet this Administration argues all these tax cuts were designed to benefit all Americans. How?
The National Debt has grown immensely during the Bush years in part of 9/11 and in part of his inept manner of handling the economy. In theory, the tax cuts were designed to get the wealthy business people to create more jobs to make sure the poor would have the work so he could further make cuts to welfare and benefits for the poor. How did it work in reality, as opposed to on paper because people do not live on paper?
The well paying jobs have been exported overseas due to government encouragements and kick-backs to take these jobs out of our country and into places where they can get away with paying a sub-standard wage. Big corporations have indeed created lots of new jobs within the United States because of the tax breaks...McDonald's, Wal-Mart, K-Mart, and other service industries have created many job opportunities within their companies. Unfortunately, most of these are part time, without benefits, and very close to minimum wage. With the welfare to work programs, this means the poor people now have the option to work for barely minimum wage for a little bit of government assistance while spending more money than they have on daycare for children and other expenses related to working a job while benefits of health care, housing, and food are cut drastically.
What does this have to do with their fault of the hurricane? It is to show their lack of compassion and humanity to the lower classes of people. It has been a repeated pattern within this Administration. They do not concern themselves with things not in their own agenda's best interests. Unless it affects them directly, they do not care.
The state of Louisiana knew they were in trouble. They had a large amount of poor people who could not pay out the kinds of taxes needed to keep up with something that seemed insignificant to the Federal Government - repair of the aging dikes, levees, and pumps. It has been known for quite some time that a sustained category 3 hurricane or even a brief 4 or 5 hurricane would completely overwhelm the system causing a calamity. They asked for help, but instead of raising needed funds from the Federal level, the Feds cut funds.
This is what created the most dangerous part of the disaster. The hurricane was massively bad on its own, but neglect of the systems designed to control the flow of the water is what killed a lot more people who were stuck there. Had the government took more control over what was actually happening on our homeland instead of destroying the infrastructures of another country, perhaps they would have been able to oversee such details before it was too late. Fixing the problem would have been less expensive than trying to repair a whole city.
The Federal level blame game goes as far as blaming the poor people who chose to stay during the storm for putting themselves in harm's way. It is a Federal level problem why there are so many poor people. Without enough money pumped into the educational systems, or jobs, or housing, you get a poor class without the resources needed to dig themselves out of the hole they are in. It becomes a vicious cycle that lasts many generations. After awhile, people lose hope that things will ever get better and believe they live in a country that does not represent them nor care about their needs.
The hurricane proved their fears. When they were crying out for help, the Federal government dragged their feet. When journalists, private charity groups, and brave individual people like Sean Penn could roll up their sleeves and lend a hand on a drop of a dime, why could our own government not do the same?
And why should the Federal government insist on forcing people out of their homes which went relatively undamaged to become a burden on the system and displace others who truly are in need? There are self-sufficient people in parts of New Orleans who have a lot to lose if they leave. They are not in any immediate danger and are willing to get by with limited power, phone service and to boil their water. Why should they be displaced into shelters and become a burden to the already overcrowded system against their will?
The State/City government Level
Louisiana is known for its corrupt government. Everyone knows that New Orleans during Mardi Gras can be a very dangerous place to walk alone on the streets. There have been reports of kickbacks and bribery and nepotism among the state and local governments as well as mishandling of the budget and an ineffective police force.
Why should anyone raise an eyebrow when people want to point the fingers at them? After all, when they saw they were in serious danger, they did cry for help from the Federal government only to be ignored. The fault with them is what happened BEFORE the hurricane.
True, there was not enough money to be generated from the income of the citizens to fix the levee and pumps. They knew before the storm a hurricane of that size would virtually destroy the city. They had a few days notice that this brewing category 3 was turning into a vicious 5 while waiting out in the gulf. They had a few days to enact a plan of evacuation, but the problem is they did not have a very good plan of evacuation.
The roads were so crowded with people trying to leave that many gave up trying to leave and chose a shelter instead. Gas stations closed up early because they ran out of gas from the people trying to leave and those with no gas had no other choice but to stay. Some of the citizens were lucky to get through the mess of leaving while many others could not even think about embarking on such a journey in the first place. Why? Again, because they were poor and many lacked the means to access transportation out of the city.
A sufficient evacuation plan should have taken the poor into account as well as all other citizens. An emergency plan should have been rehearsed, or at least published and be made well known way before a disaster took place. People could have gotten out of the city faster if there were less people crowding the highways in individual cars and the city could manage buses to carry a lot more people out at a time with less space occupying the highway. There should have been many access points to catch a bus out of town to go to specific shelters in a safe zone which would have kept more families together. The hospitals should have been a high priority to evacuate first followed by nursing homes. And for the places within the city destined to be the last resort shelter should have been stocked for food, water and medical supplies as well as a team of law enforcement and medical workers to help with the crowd.
If the state/local government were really on the ball, they could have done a lot to prevent a bad situation leading to such a tragic circumstance. It was a lack of emergency planning that made a bad situation worse.
The People Themselves
Outsiders do not understand something about people who live on the East Coast and Gulf, they deal with the threat of hurricanes all the time. They are bombarded with so many scare news stories that when the news cried "wolf" one time too many and some blew off the warning to leave.
When people are accustomed to waiting out a storm and become immune to constant reports of danger, is it surprising they discounted warnings to leave the area, especially when the roads were too crowded to move anywhere and gas stations were closing up when running out of gas?
Of course, not everyone was even in a position to leave. Some had to make use of the local emergency shelter. Most tried to make the best out of a bad situation, but there was a criminal element among them that took advantage of the situation by raping and robbing people. When no help was coming fast enough, even the good people went into a panic mode instead of keeping calm. Thus the people engaged in looting what they could to survive while others just pillaged the town because they were angry for being forgotten.
Global Warming
There have been scientists stating the category 5 hurricane is a direct result of global warming. Had it not been for this condition in our atmosphere, the hurricane would have been a lot milder in nature. As the hurricane spawns and gathers its force from warm water, global warming has created a pool of very warm waters which are creating more and more hurricanes and a lot more powerful ones than in the past.
Many take global warming as a proven scientific fact not to be questioned. Others discount it as fluff science. Still, there is a point in between the two grounds. While the overall effects of global warming is more sensationalism than proven, there is cause for concern over what is being done to our environment.
Some will blame the government for global warming. It allows big corporations to get away with polluting in order to create more profits. They do very little with any form of initiative to create alternative energy sources. It relies too much on fossil fuels and coal without considering solar, wind or water power.
The government is not alone in this blame. It is the responsibility of everyone to conserve where they can. Why drive around in big SUVs or even worse, the Hummer? It pollutes the air and depends on too much fossil fuel. As a people, we do not make good use of the resources we have and waste it without a thought. Why not turn of the lights or televisions or other electric appliances that are not in use? Recycling now is too expensive because there is no key model on how to run a program efficiently. Other countries do it successfully, but in the United States it creates a monetary loss situation to handle the program.
While we, the people, have to own up to some of the problems with the global warming situation, our government should take the lead in doing something about it. We need to act now because when the atmosphere becomes so toxic, it will be too late to do anything about it when it is killing us all.
UCPFUL Ministries
Actually, there is a lot of blame going around. Some of it is right on target while other blame is misplaced or put upon certain groups too harshly. Just where does this blame belong?
The Federal Level
When private charitable and business organizations can give humanitarian aid better than our own federal government, one must start to really question why are we paying taxing? Sure the Bush Administration is all about the tax cuts to the wealthy Americans without thinking about the real life consequences on what it does to the 95% who are not among the wealthy class. A small percentage of the non-wealthy class is getting by comfortably while everyone else is barely getting by or not at all, yet this Administration argues all these tax cuts were designed to benefit all Americans. How?
The National Debt has grown immensely during the Bush years in part of 9/11 and in part of his inept manner of handling the economy. In theory, the tax cuts were designed to get the wealthy business people to create more jobs to make sure the poor would have the work so he could further make cuts to welfare and benefits for the poor. How did it work in reality, as opposed to on paper because people do not live on paper?
The well paying jobs have been exported overseas due to government encouragements and kick-backs to take these jobs out of our country and into places where they can get away with paying a sub-standard wage. Big corporations have indeed created lots of new jobs within the United States because of the tax breaks...McDonald's, Wal-Mart, K-Mart, and other service industries have created many job opportunities within their companies. Unfortunately, most of these are part time, without benefits, and very close to minimum wage. With the welfare to work programs, this means the poor people now have the option to work for barely minimum wage for a little bit of government assistance while spending more money than they have on daycare for children and other expenses related to working a job while benefits of health care, housing, and food are cut drastically.
What does this have to do with their fault of the hurricane? It is to show their lack of compassion and humanity to the lower classes of people. It has been a repeated pattern within this Administration. They do not concern themselves with things not in their own agenda's best interests. Unless it affects them directly, they do not care.
The state of Louisiana knew they were in trouble. They had a large amount of poor people who could not pay out the kinds of taxes needed to keep up with something that seemed insignificant to the Federal Government - repair of the aging dikes, levees, and pumps. It has been known for quite some time that a sustained category 3 hurricane or even a brief 4 or 5 hurricane would completely overwhelm the system causing a calamity. They asked for help, but instead of raising needed funds from the Federal level, the Feds cut funds.
This is what created the most dangerous part of the disaster. The hurricane was massively bad on its own, but neglect of the systems designed to control the flow of the water is what killed a lot more people who were stuck there. Had the government took more control over what was actually happening on our homeland instead of destroying the infrastructures of another country, perhaps they would have been able to oversee such details before it was too late. Fixing the problem would have been less expensive than trying to repair a whole city.
The Federal level blame game goes as far as blaming the poor people who chose to stay during the storm for putting themselves in harm's way. It is a Federal level problem why there are so many poor people. Without enough money pumped into the educational systems, or jobs, or housing, you get a poor class without the resources needed to dig themselves out of the hole they are in. It becomes a vicious cycle that lasts many generations. After awhile, people lose hope that things will ever get better and believe they live in a country that does not represent them nor care about their needs.
The hurricane proved their fears. When they were crying out for help, the Federal government dragged their feet. When journalists, private charity groups, and brave individual people like Sean Penn could roll up their sleeves and lend a hand on a drop of a dime, why could our own government not do the same?
And why should the Federal government insist on forcing people out of their homes which went relatively undamaged to become a burden on the system and displace others who truly are in need? There are self-sufficient people in parts of New Orleans who have a lot to lose if they leave. They are not in any immediate danger and are willing to get by with limited power, phone service and to boil their water. Why should they be displaced into shelters and become a burden to the already overcrowded system against their will?
The State/City government Level
Louisiana is known for its corrupt government. Everyone knows that New Orleans during Mardi Gras can be a very dangerous place to walk alone on the streets. There have been reports of kickbacks and bribery and nepotism among the state and local governments as well as mishandling of the budget and an ineffective police force.
Why should anyone raise an eyebrow when people want to point the fingers at them? After all, when they saw they were in serious danger, they did cry for help from the Federal government only to be ignored. The fault with them is what happened BEFORE the hurricane.
True, there was not enough money to be generated from the income of the citizens to fix the levee and pumps. They knew before the storm a hurricane of that size would virtually destroy the city. They had a few days notice that this brewing category 3 was turning into a vicious 5 while waiting out in the gulf. They had a few days to enact a plan of evacuation, but the problem is they did not have a very good plan of evacuation.
The roads were so crowded with people trying to leave that many gave up trying to leave and chose a shelter instead. Gas stations closed up early because they ran out of gas from the people trying to leave and those with no gas had no other choice but to stay. Some of the citizens were lucky to get through the mess of leaving while many others could not even think about embarking on such a journey in the first place. Why? Again, because they were poor and many lacked the means to access transportation out of the city.
A sufficient evacuation plan should have taken the poor into account as well as all other citizens. An emergency plan should have been rehearsed, or at least published and be made well known way before a disaster took place. People could have gotten out of the city faster if there were less people crowding the highways in individual cars and the city could manage buses to carry a lot more people out at a time with less space occupying the highway. There should have been many access points to catch a bus out of town to go to specific shelters in a safe zone which would have kept more families together. The hospitals should have been a high priority to evacuate first followed by nursing homes. And for the places within the city destined to be the last resort shelter should have been stocked for food, water and medical supplies as well as a team of law enforcement and medical workers to help with the crowd.
If the state/local government were really on the ball, they could have done a lot to prevent a bad situation leading to such a tragic circumstance. It was a lack of emergency planning that made a bad situation worse.
The People Themselves
Outsiders do not understand something about people who live on the East Coast and Gulf, they deal with the threat of hurricanes all the time. They are bombarded with so many scare news stories that when the news cried "wolf" one time too many and some blew off the warning to leave.
When people are accustomed to waiting out a storm and become immune to constant reports of danger, is it surprising they discounted warnings to leave the area, especially when the roads were too crowded to move anywhere and gas stations were closing up when running out of gas?
Of course, not everyone was even in a position to leave. Some had to make use of the local emergency shelter. Most tried to make the best out of a bad situation, but there was a criminal element among them that took advantage of the situation by raping and robbing people. When no help was coming fast enough, even the good people went into a panic mode instead of keeping calm. Thus the people engaged in looting what they could to survive while others just pillaged the town because they were angry for being forgotten.
Global Warming
There have been scientists stating the category 5 hurricane is a direct result of global warming. Had it not been for this condition in our atmosphere, the hurricane would have been a lot milder in nature. As the hurricane spawns and gathers its force from warm water, global warming has created a pool of very warm waters which are creating more and more hurricanes and a lot more powerful ones than in the past.
Many take global warming as a proven scientific fact not to be questioned. Others discount it as fluff science. Still, there is a point in between the two grounds. While the overall effects of global warming is more sensationalism than proven, there is cause for concern over what is being done to our environment.
Some will blame the government for global warming. It allows big corporations to get away with polluting in order to create more profits. They do very little with any form of initiative to create alternative energy sources. It relies too much on fossil fuels and coal without considering solar, wind or water power.
The government is not alone in this blame. It is the responsibility of everyone to conserve where they can. Why drive around in big SUVs or even worse, the Hummer? It pollutes the air and depends on too much fossil fuel. As a people, we do not make good use of the resources we have and waste it without a thought. Why not turn of the lights or televisions or other electric appliances that are not in use? Recycling now is too expensive because there is no key model on how to run a program efficiently. Other countries do it successfully, but in the United States it creates a monetary loss situation to handle the program.
While we, the people, have to own up to some of the problems with the global warming situation, our government should take the lead in doing something about it. We need to act now because when the atmosphere becomes so toxic, it will be too late to do anything about it when it is killing us all.
UCPFUL Ministries
posted by Callen Damornen at 12:07:00 pm
1 Comments:
While you're correct that many are blaming katrina's strength on global warming, hurricane experts have said repeatedly that we are currently in a very active cycle for hurricanes, and global warming does not play a role in it. The cycles last 20 to 40 years, followed by a "normal" cycle that lasts for 20 to 40 years. The 1900 hurricane that destroyed Galveston has been estimated to be a Category 5 storm and occurred before global warming during a previous active cycle.
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