Obligatory Katrina Post
I don’t watch much, if any, TV news, and I was working pretty hard last week in order to spring myself for my trip to Columbus, so the full effect of the disaster in New Orleans took longer to seep into my consciousness than it did for others more attuned to the culture.
It’s hard for me to excoriate the city, the Corps or whoever for not preparing to the nth degree for the worst possible case. I mean, I live here at ground zero for earthquake/volcano activity. I have a stash of food & water downstairs, a product of the Nisqually quake 2-3 years ago, but I’m not sure how complete it is. And I certainly haven’t gone to the expense of strapping my house to its foundation, or taken other precautions. I have carried earthquake insurance for the last 10 years or so, only because the bulk of my equity is resting (precariously, as it turns out) on a foundation that may date back to 1906.
My point is that I can’t blame anyone for being caught short by the severity of Katrina’s effects on New Orleans or the Gulf coast. I really can’t fathom the lethargy of the federal response, however, which is epitomized by the photo of GWB gazing out the window of Air Force One as he flew from the friendly confines of a sycophantic San Diego Navy audience to the friendly confines of Pennsylvania Avenue, using his reflection to practice just the right look of concern for the plight of theoretical humanity 6 miles below.
On my shuttle to SeaTac last Wednesday evening, I rode with a guy who was headed to Atlanta. He had family in New Orleans, including his mother in an assisted living facility. He’d heard that she was “alive”, or “safe”, I’m not sure which. As events unfolded, those designations seem a lot more precarious than they did then, and I hope he succeeded in locating everyone he was looking for. By comparison, my mission seemed very frivolous, but I went anyway, and my next posts will deal unabashedly with that frivolity.
