Government response to the devastated areas after hurricane Katrina swept through the Gulf was lackluster to say the least. Michael Brown, then-head of FEMA's effort in the area, admitted in a television interview that he was unaware of the New Orleans residents at the Convention Center. Brown and others in state and federal government claimed that they had no idea the damage would be as bad as it was. It was at this point that those in government responsible for the extension of aid and assistance to those affected by Katrina clearly had no access to television or radio broadcasts.
Two days before the hurricane made landfall, meteorologists and news commentators were predicting the extreme severity of the storm, the probable collapse of the levee system and pumps in New Orleans, and recognized the need to pre-position relief supplies such as bottled water, food and clothing. It took several days for any sort of federal response to reach the area, unless you count President Bush flying over the devastated landscape in Air Force One, shaking his head and mumbling something about the situation being "bad."
The length of time it took for federal aid to arrive was appalling; people and political pundits were confused and upset at this delay, so Bush dispatched Vice President Cheney to the Gulf states. Cheney was at home when his red telephone, which sits beneath a glass dome, lit up. Cheney knew the drill--the President was calling, and the news was not good. Approaching a sculpted bust of Donatien Alphonse Francois de Sade, he raised the chin of the infamous Marquis to reveal a secret button. A hidden door in Cheney's private study swung open, and the Vice President was off to conduct one of the most important public relations campaigngs in his storied career. Later, while Cheney was being interviewed in the ravaged aftermath of Katrina, a passerby off camera hollered "Fuck you, Mr. Vice President!" It was now evident that this situation demanded President Bush's involvement; this situation called for multiple photo opportunities.
Hugging residents and informing them of the nearest Red Cross aid station, the President was on the scene in New Orleans and Gulfport. Flanked by New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco, Bush deemed the efforts up to that point to be unacceptable. His appearance with state and local officials, however, gave the sense that the various levels of government were finally working together to put the situation right, some five days after the hurricane had passed.
In the meantime, head of FEMA's effort in the Gulf, Michael Brown, was told by Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff that Brown's effectiveness would be better realized if Brown were to leave the field and head back to the FEMA offices. The reasoning was simple: the U.S. was still in the midst of hurricane season, and Brown should be helping to deal with events that have not yet come to pass, rather than spearhead the greatest domestic relief effort in American history. Two days later Brown resigned his position under increasing criticism by and scrutiny from the media. Apparently Brown's curriculum vitae was padded in places relating to his potential and experience with disaster management, and parts were completely exorcised that had nothing to do with his new position at FEMA (most notably his ten years of work with an equestrian organization). Bush, shrewd operator that he is, appointed one of his assistants to conduct an internal investigation of "what went right and what went wrong" in the response to Katrina. The U.S. Congress held their own hearings (though they were boycotted by most Democrats), and it was there that Brown provided his explanation for the bungling of the relief operation: it was Lousiana's fault, and when Brown had said he didn't know that people were stranded at the Convention Center, he'd really meant to say that he
did know. He was tired, you see.
New Orleans will come back, slowly and in sections. Life-as-usual is already evident in the Big Easy, as seen on the news recently with the beating of an unarmed senior citizen by four New Orleans police officers. One police officer also shoved a member of the press against a car and screamed in his face. This is the same police force in which some 200 of its officers abandoned their posts after Katrina, and some were being investigated on charges of looting.
Bush has vowed that any number of ongoing investigations and hearings into the Katrina response will yield helpful information about how and how not to react to a crisis. We already know the phrase "timing is everything," so the various levels of government ought not wait for nearly a week before reacting. We're also familiar with the phrase "location, location, location" from the world of real estate--so we ought to recognize that building a city below sea level, along the coast and next to a huge lake, and protected only with an antiquated levee system, cannot be considered to be prudent urban planning. Furthermore, aid should be sent
to those who need it; semi trucks full of ice and water either sat idle in other states or were sent everywhere but the location it was needed. A now-famous story of the ice trucks tells of how they were finally dispatched after days of waiting--their ultimate destination was New Orleans. The trucks went from Wisconsin to Alabama to Georgia to Maryland, and there they stayed. The cost to taxpayers of this little sight-seeing tour was approximately $9,000. The trucking company was not lost--they were following FEMA's instructions. FEMA, by the way, stands for Federal Emergency Management Agency...as if you couldn't guess.
Now a new threat of a crisis looms in the form of H5N1, a new strain of avian flu. Health experts have suggested that this new strain of flu, though mostly confined to birds, could mutate, infect humans and cause a global pandemic. Scenarios of the 1918 influenza pandemic, which killed some 50 million people worldwide, have been provided by the scientific and medical communities to aid in some sort of response. The United States, seemingly oblivious to the history of World War I as well as the failed disaster response of a few weeks ago, admittedly has no sort of plan in place to handle a health crisis of this potential.
Political commentator Bill O'Reilly is a hateful shill for the conservative right--he would be a person that I would love to hate, if I were to accord him any sort of importance or gravitas in the world of media--but he did say something in the days after Katrina that resonate: "You can't rely on the government; you can only rely on yourself." Citizens are doing just that by stocking up on Tamiflu, an anti-viral that helps to alleviate symptoms of influenza. There is nothing to suggest that Tamiflu will do anything to combat a human mutation of H5N1, but, as with whistling in the dark, having Tamiflu in your medicine cabinet will probably make one feel more at ease. An effective immunization can only be engineered once the actual infectious strain is known. Making the antivirus--making enough of it for some 250 million Americans--and distributing it around the country will be a challenge indeed, and will take at least six weeks.
I'm currently reading Gina Kolata's book
Flu, about the 1918 pandemic. It looks at other outbreaks and crises of sickness and disease throughout history, and I was surprised to learn about the bizarre and apparently bungled approach government and medical science took toward the Swine Flu in 1976. I was three years old at the time and immunized against it, but at such a tender age was not aware of the consternation and controversy surrounding both the flu strain and the immunization effort. The book revisits questions raised at the time of the Swine Flu, such as "Does this strain warrant a national immunization project?" Certain medical advisors to President Ford said yes, or at least noted that if even a 1 in 100 chance of the strain turning into a pandemic similar to the 1918 flu exists, it would be politically foolhardy for the President not to endorse an immunization campaign.
In light of the reaction to Katrina, I'm not overwhelmed with confidence that much will or can be done with some sort of pandemic. Creating an antivirus is all well and good, but I'm not sure that six weeks is enough of a window of opportunity; half the nation could be infected and dying in that time. Experts from the WHO, CDC and NIH agree that we will face another global pandemic--it's inevitable. Experts from the Army Corps of Engineers, among others, knew that New Orleans levees would buckle and pumps fail under the force of a hurricane rated Category 4 or higher. Engineers knew that levees are more of a stop-gap measure than a solution, especially for a metropolis. City planners knew that New Orleans, built in a geographical bowl, on the coast, bounded by water and in a frequent path of hurricane activity, would eventually face its demise. Nothing was done to prevent the inevitable, and in the fervor of reconstruction I wonder whether the very recent and catastrophic events will give pause to those who wish to keep the locations of refineries and chemical plants where they currently stand (or recently stood).
"You can't rely on the government; you can only rely on yourself." These might be sage words if your concern is vacating a certain area for fear of flood, fire or tornado. If the threat is a pandemic, however, then the only way to help yourself, short of becoming a molecular biologist with your own laboratory and pharmaceutical factory, is to press your elected officials to do better than they've done in the past. As we've seen, both political short- and long-term memory have no room for anything of history.
ducers can simply direct the lens at the shrieking, blood-vomitting Skullface with the flamethrower. As recognizable as the gore and pyrotechnics is the 20- to 40-foot diameter of empty seats around Skullface--not even the beer or hot dog guy will come close.
