What’s Next, Blame Or Learning From Mistakes?

The media controls what we know and don’t know about current events. Finally they’re concentrating on what actually went wrong in the months preceding hurricane Katrina. It seems there were ample warnings from reliable sources this wasn’t going to be the average hurricanes season. The media is doing a job now they should have done months ago. Warn the residents of the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts to prepare for unusually harsh hurricane season.

Blaming isn’t going to do much to correct the frailties in the system. Congress needs to address the issue of first response to natural and manmade disasters, Their needs to be a way for the federal government to take charge in such situations it’s obvious cities and states don’t have the expertise to properly manage needed services in such cases. Homeland security needs a new leader Secretary Michael Chertoff is about as incompetent as one man gets. Under the current leadership, homeland security are making their plans to deal with yesterdays problems. They aren’t looking into the future. The department needs someone like John Bolton who has what it takes to stand up to the bureaucracy and make it function, a person who sees through the denials and excuses. Someone who knows how to run a railroad as the saying goes.

We’ve become a nation of talkers and no doers. This government’s failure in handling the disaster along the Gulf Coast is monumental including President Bush. He’s been in Washington long enough to know you can’t trust the bureaucracy to get things moving. The first avenue of defense for any bureaucrat is denial. If they don’t see a problem then none exists. It started when someone asked, who told Betsy Ross to put the stars in a circle on the new flag. The cover-ups have been ongoing ever since.

Last evening watching interviews with politicians from the New Orleans area I was amazed at how those in charge had neglected the population left in New Orleans, a population without transportation. It obviously came from not having any workable plan other than telling people to leave the city, they told them to go to the Superdome and they’re on their own. The Mayor of New Orleans says he was waiting for FEMA to send busses. According to the minimal evacuation plans, the city had drawn up in advance the city busses and school busses of New Orleans and surrounding area where the busses FEMA had designated to send. The Mayor says he was lacking authority. Lacking authority seems to be the first line of defense for most that are now being challenged for not performing.

Every major city in America is subject to some kind of a disaster. FEMA should be separated from Homeland Security and go back to being a separate department. FEMA should be the first responder with the authority to organize and administer every area and controlling all activities in a disaster zone. In a disaster, FEMA should have the authority to circumvent the powers of governors and mayors. This would take some work on the part of congress and the courts. An unpopular move that isn’t likely to happen.

The Constitution is the law of the land, this is no longer 1789, there’re some things the constitution doesn’t deal with. Building a city of one million on on quicksand is one of those things.

For some reason many of our cities are built in the shadows of potential disasters. How many American cities could withstand a tsunami the extent of the one that hit Indonesia? If Mount Hood, in Oregon [an inactive volcano] were to erupt it could wipe out Portland, Vancouver, and Salem. San Diego north to San Francisco is a potential disaster area. Jackpot Nevada may be the only safe place in America. This is why America needs a national first respond team. Security, can no longer be entrusted to politicians making political decisions.

Will hurricane Katrina be a lession learned, or just the same old, same old? God help this government if nothing gets done. Three more years and it won’t be Georges’s fault any longer. The next president won’t fair so well.