If you're tired of reading about peoples' opinions on Hurricane Katrina, you can just skip this entry.
What I keep reminding people is that it could have been worse. What we have now is a bowl of disease where 480,000 people used to live, a city which stood for 300 years in the deep South, but it could have been worse. A warm front of dry air from the Midwest averted the worst-case scenario, bumping the hurricane down to a Cat 4 and pushing if off of a direct hit right before Katrina hit the coast. In this scenario, the storm surge would have risen to 28 feet, swamping the entire city right then and there.
We also have an oil spill of an estimated 160,000 barrels. (By comparison, Exxon Valdez was 250,000.) If this region wasn't already dangerous enough, there's also a very serious oil spill to contend with.
We have money and resources coming in from all over the world, and tens of millions of dollars in donations. I gave the Red Cross $50. I would have wanted to give more, but I don't have a lot to spread around.
But what I'm waiting for now is the federal indictments of criminal negligence, and civil suits by the townspeople brought against the city council. These politicians have been fattening themselves and their careers on short-term pork barrel re-election projects for decades, and now the chicken has come home to roost in a very big way. The levees could have been built up to spec, but as one person put it (I don't have the attribution handy at the moment), the levees weren't politically sexy. Ain't that about a bitch.
Well, what's looking sexy now is your ass behind bars for a very long time, or fined to the hilt, or looking at the wreckage of a career as destitute as the city you let be destroyed in the name of sexiness. If I was a New Orleans city councilperson, I'd be holed up in an undisclosed location. Preferably on the other side of the world. Because the pendulum is swinging back.
One of my co-workers has lots of family down there. His brother lost a restaurant, and his two sisters each lost their homes. And this devastation is but a grain of sand on a beach full of similar stories. At least they got out alive. They weren't stuck in the rafters of their homes, starving to death, drowning, and wondering if Armegeddon had descended on the world. They didn't have to see dead bodies scattered around the Superdome, victims of disease, or violence, or both. They didn't have to brave the war zone, where people were getting murdered and raped in broad daylight because the police were overwhelmed. They're not the Arkansas National Guard, 300 of whom came back from Iraq to, essentially, enforce martial law. Those 300 have to face the reality of killing the same people they were fighting for only days before. How do you like them apples?
Oh yes, there will be accountability. The chickens have come home to roost.
What I keep reminding people is that it could have been worse. What we have now is a bowl of disease where 480,000 people used to live, a city which stood for 300 years in the deep South, but it could have been worse. A warm front of dry air from the Midwest averted the worst-case scenario, bumping the hurricane down to a Cat 4 and pushing if off of a direct hit right before Katrina hit the coast. In this scenario, the storm surge would have risen to 28 feet, swamping the entire city right then and there.
We also have an oil spill of an estimated 160,000 barrels. (By comparison, Exxon Valdez was 250,000.) If this region wasn't already dangerous enough, there's also a very serious oil spill to contend with.
We have money and resources coming in from all over the world, and tens of millions of dollars in donations. I gave the Red Cross $50. I would have wanted to give more, but I don't have a lot to spread around.
But what I'm waiting for now is the federal indictments of criminal negligence, and civil suits by the townspeople brought against the city council. These politicians have been fattening themselves and their careers on short-term pork barrel re-election projects for decades, and now the chicken has come home to roost in a very big way. The levees could have been built up to spec, but as one person put it (I don't have the attribution handy at the moment), the levees weren't politically sexy. Ain't that about a bitch.
Well, what's looking sexy now is your ass behind bars for a very long time, or fined to the hilt, or looking at the wreckage of a career as destitute as the city you let be destroyed in the name of sexiness. If I was a New Orleans city councilperson, I'd be holed up in an undisclosed location. Preferably on the other side of the world. Because the pendulum is swinging back.
One of my co-workers has lots of family down there. His brother lost a restaurant, and his two sisters each lost their homes. And this devastation is but a grain of sand on a beach full of similar stories. At least they got out alive. They weren't stuck in the rafters of their homes, starving to death, drowning, and wondering if Armegeddon had descended on the world. They didn't have to see dead bodies scattered around the Superdome, victims of disease, or violence, or both. They didn't have to brave the war zone, where people were getting murdered and raped in broad daylight because the police were overwhelmed. They're not the Arkansas National Guard, 300 of whom came back from Iraq to, essentially, enforce martial law. Those 300 have to face the reality of killing the same people they were fighting for only days before. How do you like them apples?
Oh yes, there will be accountability. The chickens have come home to roost.
VIEW 8 of 8 COMMENTS
lokischild:
Happy birthday!
sadpanda:
Yeah, I've just been busy with work lately 