Cabarrus Cheap Seats

This disaster got politicized way too quickly. I just thought it was the blogs and Bill Maher; but I read the paper and the cartoon was critical of President Bush. People are still dying; but those of us in our air-conditioned homes are holding a nationwide version of “Crossfire”. It makes me rather sad.

I’ve heard people on the Left actually blame the hurricane on Bush (via “Global Warming”), someone drew the “Intelligent Design” debate in, and there was that rapper saying that “Bush hates black people”. As for the Right, people are blaming a sense of entitlement, I heard one guy call the flooding victims scum, and then there’s all the racial mess. Normally, I’d link to it; but none of that is worthy of a link.

Appropriate Action and Appropriate Inaction

As for the response from Washington and Raleigh, they were both appropriate. Congress authorized $10.5 billion in aid, which is a decent starting number. Raleigh didn’t enact price controls on gasoline…which was brilliant. The only thing worse than buying gas at $3.50/gallon is waiting in line for an hour to buy it at $3.49/gallon. Kudos to our legislature for not prolonging the shortage.

However, I’m going to go outside of the usual scope to take a quick look so far at how leaders on the ground and in Washington are responding to this.

The President
Remember when this guy was president? That’s the kind of leader the country needs now.

The Mayor of New Orleans
We have met Rudy Giuliani, and you, sir, are no Rudy Giuliani.

The Louisiana Governor

[See Mayor of New Orleans comments]

The Director of FEMA

If our delegation in Washington doesn’t beat this guy to a pulp in a Joint Hearing, I’m candidate shopping. I’m serious, I’m thinking of something along the lines of Robin Hayes putting him in a CAFTA-made burlap sack while Elizabeth Dole hits him with the sharper end of her stylish “Kenneth Coles”. Nothing less will satisfy my anger at FEMA’s poor handling of this situation.

Leadership in Times of Crisis

A community that is struck with any type of calamity be it a natural disaster, terrorism, or economic hardship must have competent and capable leaders. That’s only the beginning, preperation is key. For instance, the NYPD and the FDNY had several emergency preparedness plans in place for any degree of calamity that would strick the City of New York. The NYPD has a counter terrorism squad that actually gathers intelligence from around the world, and rivals the counter-terrorism capabilities of the FBI and CIA.

It should be of little suprise that when 9/11 struck and a sizeable portion of the fire and police were immobilized or killed that they worked through it. True, there were reports of confusion; but the city was back on its feet is a matter of a couple of weeks. Thousands were saved because of the bravery of the people on the ground and the competence of the leadership. When an attack from nowhere struck with zero warning, they responded in a way that made us all proud.

Compare that to New Orleans. The hurricane path towards Louisiana was established at least 90 hours in advance. Lake Ponchatrain is 5,000 years old. The state of the levee system was well-known. The design parameters for “up to a Category 3 Hurricane” were well-established. Why didn’t the State of Louisiana and the City of New Orleans have a better plan? It was apparent that they didn’t have well-established evacuation routes, and the police training was nothing short of abysimal. From what little I’ve seen of the mayor and the governor, handling emergencies was “somebody else’s job”. I guess “Federalism” doesn’t work to well with the Napoleonic Code.

How to Handle This Tomorrow

Here’s the deal, it’s not going to do anyone any good trying to peg the blame on any one person or use this event to verify your political leanings doesn’t help the situation. A good friend of mine was involved in the initial invasion of Iraq. I was involved in many discussions about the necessity of the war, supporting our troops, etc. When he got home, I sorta though he would have some opinion of people by how much he “felt supported” while he was over there. In all honesty, when he was over there - he just wanted a clean pair of socks.

We’re in that same situation now. It won’t be until November that we can select who’ll be responsible for leading our cities and towns (with local emergency preparedness being one of their tasks) for the next four years. Ask yourself this question when you mark that ballot, “Is this the man (or woman) that I want dealing with FEMA if we have a hurricane here”. As for now, I’m happy to say that one of our local leaders is helping out. The City of Charlotte is offering shelter to 200 refugees at the Coliseum.

Relief Efforts

While many of us have already given to the Red Cross and other charities, I’d imagine that many of the local area churches are going to be putting together their own relief efforts. If your church is doing something, please share with the rest of readers in the comments section.