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Disaster
August 29th, 2006On this day, I’m not much into reflecting. I don’t feel that there has been a pause since I arrived. I don’t know why I’d pause now, in the midst of the 2006 hurricane season.
I’m reading Disaster: Hurricane Katrina and the Failure or Homeland Security. I’ve read it all day yesterday, and I’ll finish it shortly. It is the first accounting of the Hurricane that I have read. I know now that much of the flooding came from the collapse of the flood walls on the canals.
Reading this book also explains whey Ashley is so adamant that the floodwalls were destoryed in a terrorist attack. In Disaster authors Christopher Cooper and Robert Block describe a brand new Department of Homeland Security that has taken control of FEMA, and taxed it’s natural disaster response resources to fund preparation for further terrorist attacks.
The DHS did not recognize that a major hurricane hitting New Orleans was a historic disaster, and did not respond with the fury that was required. We are fortunate to have our neighbor Texas, which dispatched more resources to Louisiana than FEMA, which was absent three days after the storm. We are fortunate for the intervention of Wal-Mart, which brought necessities to the National Guard at the Convention Center, when FEMA could not.
Upon reading Disaster, I feel that Michael Brown is a perfect scapegoat.
One Response |
but that also doesn’t absolve him of his responsibility, and after watching him on the news recently he seems awfully quick to blame the white house talking points — doesn’t change the fact that he upheld those talking points instead of taking ownership of his position and proactively working to fix the situation.
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