Disaster Relief
Are you tired of hearing about the hurricane yet? Too bad, because you're about to hear my two cents.
I've only been to NOLA once, about 3 years ago. Walking along the waterfront with my friend, I had the following conversation:
My friend: You know, this city is a big bowl. They say that if there's ever a direct hit from a hurricane, the whole city will fill up with water.
Me: That can't be true. That's like saying one day there's going to be a big earthquake and California's going to fall into the ocean.
My friend: No, I swear it's true.
As it turns out, that had been the conventional wisdom in NOLA for 40 years, and not a single person in a position to do anything managed to do a single thing about it. Certainly not the federal gov't, and definitely not their mayor. The only person I've seen on TV who is dumber than the mayor of NOLA is the Atlanta sheriff, whose incompetence incidentally was the proximate cause of a quadruple homicide at the Fulton county courthouse a little while ago.
And before you send me angry emails about how he really is a smart guy and he just doesn't speak well, keep in mind that that is the same excuse conservatives use to justify Bush's intellect.
I've only been to NOLA once, about 3 years ago. Walking along the waterfront with my friend, I had the following conversation:
My friend: You know, this city is a big bowl. They say that if there's ever a direct hit from a hurricane, the whole city will fill up with water.
Me: That can't be true. That's like saying one day there's going to be a big earthquake and California's going to fall into the ocean.
My friend: No, I swear it's true.
As it turns out, that had been the conventional wisdom in NOLA for 40 years, and not a single person in a position to do anything managed to do a single thing about it. Certainly not the federal gov't, and definitely not their mayor. The only person I've seen on TV who is dumber than the mayor of NOLA is the Atlanta sheriff, whose incompetence incidentally was the proximate cause of a quadruple homicide at the Fulton county courthouse a little while ago.
And before you send me angry emails about how he really is a smart guy and he just doesn't speak well, keep in mind that that is the same excuse conservatives use to justify Bush's intellect.
posted by il Gatto Grande at
2:04 PM
16 Comments:
yeah, that might be the most fucked up part of this whole tragedy: that people aren't really that surprised. i mean, people are surprised by the death totals and the mayhem and the extent of the property destruction. and people are understandably shocked by the governments incompetent and negligent handling of the rescue effort. but no-one is really surprised by new orleans flooding in the first place.
it just goes to show that, despite 9/11, america has retained it's foolhardy sense of invincibility. in that sense, america has long been like a bratty teenage bully.
after listening to his angry interview, i don't think the NOLA mayor is nearly as incompetent as the Fulton County Sheriff. He made some very valid points, pissed off but valid. on the other hand, the Fulton sheriff couldn't even make sentences. representing a major metropolitan center and not being able to communicate on the simplest levels...not good.
too bad more people don't read this blog.
I kinda thought that the mayor was pretty awesome. I bet that most people wouldn't be very eloquent had their city been destroyed and a large group of your citizens were dying...
I thought he had some balls to say what he did, althought the "lickity-quick" stuff was pretty funny. Never heard that one...
I also don't think that the mayor could've done more for the levees. The budget for SELA had been cut by 80% by the feds, I believe. Apparently, most of that went to homeland security. Ah, soak in the irony.
I think one major issue you are forgetting is we are asking VICTIMS to do these rescue jobs. There are people (like mayors, police cheifs, firemen, etc.) that are being asked to look for other people families when their homes are destroyed and quite possibly they don't know where their own families are. 9/11 was different. We still had infrastructure. There were policemen, firement, operators... In NOLA there isn't any of that. If the mayor wants to yell and scream, and point fingers then he can go for it. I for one am not going to judge someone's intellect while he is a victim suffering through major trauma.
Example: Would you expect someone to do an effective job of explaining rape prevention 24 hours after they themselves were brutally raped?
I'm not trying to be a hater on your opinion, I just think the emotional quotient of what these men and women went through was overlooked. He mentioned pleeing to the state, etc. for help in updating the levee system. It is not his fault that federal money was going elsewhere.
These are all points well taken. And while I certainly don't want to kick anybody while they are down, I do think it is appropriate to question the righteous indignation of public officials who did nothing to plan for circumstances that everyone knew were likely.
See, it's not like the mayor had a hurricane plan that turned out to be inadequate because no one knew the levees were going to fail. They already knew the levees were going to fail, anyone with even passing familiarity with NOLA knew the city was going to fill up with water, and yet there was no plan at all.
Dumping on a guy's smarts when he's in the middle of a tragedy is a bit of a low blow, but he's the one who convinced the city that he should be their leader - not me. The people who are running America's major cities are as bad or worse than Bush/Cheney because they sell themselves as the big man with the big plan and then they do absolutely nothing.
Feds: You've got CIA reports of increasingly active Saudi-supported terrorism? Fuck it; let's play golf.
Mayor: You've got a FEMA report showing our city be underwater after the next big hurricane? Fuck it; let's see if we can get my buddy a contract to not fix the potholes around here.
Once again it's the most vulnerable that the elected officials have failed, and it's a crime.
el gato grande: i don't know you, but i damn sure agree with you.
(except i do have love for mayor shirley and her snappy flower corsages.)
ooh, sorry. i meant il gato grande.
so, it's his fault that people have known this for 40 years? I think you tripped yourself slightly with that one. I think he should have fought harder as mayor shirley (whatever she has to do with this)did when the sewers in Vine City went to shit for the money. they could have splost-ed the money with little problem, if the fair people of new orleans (fuck all theis NOLA shit) had wanted that to happen. Also, the fact that New Orleans is the 5th largest port in the world makes this more of a federal issue than it may have been if, say, Athens alcohol poisoned itself into disaster status. so, I dunno if speaking "badly" qualifies one for stupidity. I mean Albert Einstein had a speech impediment. Perhaps you should run for sheriff of the City of Atlanta. I think that position has been vacant for something like eternity.
yeah, that dude has been mayor for 3 years and they or the state or the feds should have done something about them dang levees long ago. What about the sheriff, was it of clayton county, who badly invested county money and lost, shit, was it like 7 or 24 million bucks. that, with the exception of sydney dorsey, gets my dumbass sheriff pick. on other fronts, agassi may pull off the comeback. he and federer in the finals, mcmtl. I think federer will win another open.
1. now you've all experienced the logical prowess of 4KS's own mild mannered classicist, il gato grande.
2. jbd and il gato are sittin in a tree (or at least maybe they should be).
3. the mayor doesn't deserve any sort of singular blame, and i thought his tirade, while somewhat inarticulate, was genuinely impassioned. but he is one of a multitude of figures, in all levels of government, who should have done much more to protect from this very well publicized risk.
4. the "real tragedy" here is that my 4-day november conference at the marriot in new orleans is cancelled.* the new location: orlando.
*- i apologize if this disaster is too fresh (ie- ongoing) for those sorts of remarks.
oh, mcmtl--i don't even know the guy. don't be cheeky.
Oh snap, Kanye! I did in fact confuse Fulton County sheriff with the non-existent "Atlanta sheriff." I should have known better, having just recently had the opportunity to visit the Fulton County jail off Marietta Street. You know, the one that was just recently given back to the county. The feds had taken it out of the county's control because the sheriff had let the conditions get so bad that it was considered a violation of human rights. So yeah, sorry for the confusion and mad props to the sheriff on a job well done.
In other news, former mayor of Atlanta (or was it Fulton Co.?) Bill Campbell is gearing up his legal dream team to beat his racketeering charges. I'm sure there is nothing bad to say about all that.
So, to recap:
Our country's federal gov't= impossibly incompetent and evil in every way.
Our country's city governments= just ducky.
did anyone in this strand actually write that any sheriff in the atlanta metro area had done anything especially amazing. also, how are those federal pens holding up these days?
awwww, jackie barrett was the fulton county sheriff who mismanaged funds, so that probably has something to do with the jail being confiscated. also, haven't elected officials as well as some appointed officials proven to be corrupt on every level?
The Fulton County sheriff was, in fact, the cause of the levees breaking. Wait . . . I'm so confused.
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