PAUL KRUGMAN: Katrina All the Time

[kevinmc]

Two years ago today, Americans watched in horror as a great city drowned, and wondered what had happened to their country. Where was FEMA? Where was the National Guard? Why wasn’t the government of the world’s richest, most powerful nation coming to the aid of its own citizens?

What we mostly saw on TV was the nightmarish scene at the Superdome, but things were even worse at the New Orleans convention center, where thousands were stranded without food or water. The levees were breached Monday morning — but as late as Thursday evening, The Washington Post reported, the convention center “still had no visible government presence,” while “corpses lay out in the open among wailing babies and other refugees.”

Meanwhile, federal officials were oblivious. “We are extremely pleased with the response that every element of the federal government, all of our federal partners, have made to this terrible tragedy,” declared Michael Chertoff, the secretary for Homeland Security, on Wednesday. When asked the next day about the situation at the convention center, he dismissed the reports as “a rumor” or “someone’s anecdotal version.”

Today, much of the Gulf Coast remains in ruins. Less than half the federal money set aside for rebuilding, as opposed to emergency relief, has actually been spent, in part because the Bush administration refused to waive the requirement that local governments put up matching funds for recovery projects — an impossible burden for communities whose tax bases have literally been washed away.

On the other hand, generous investment tax breaks, supposedly designed to spur recovery in the disaster area, have been used to build luxury condominiums near the University of Alabama’s football stadium in Tuscaloosa, 200 miles inland...........

http://freedemocracy.blogspot.com/2007/08/paul-krugman-katrina-all-time.html

[KeepItReal]

1. Never forget. ONE part of the government *did* immediately serve the people. The U.S. Coast Guard.

"In Katrina's aftermath, the Coast Guard rescued or evacuated more than 33,500 people, six times as many as it saved in all of 2004. The Coast Guard was saving lives before any other federal agency--despite the fact that almost half the local Coast Guard personnel lost their own homes in the hurricane. In decimated St. Bernard Parish east of New Orleans, Sheriff Jack Stephens says the Coast Guard was the only federal agency to provide any significant assistance for a full week after the storm. Coast Guard personnel helped his deputies commandeer boats and rescue thousands. So last week, when two representatives from the U.S. Government Accountability Office came to ask how he would fix the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), he had his answer ready: "I would abolish it," he told them. "I'd blow up FEMA and ask the Coast Guard what it needs.""

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1122007,00.html

"Hurricane Katrina wiped out Coast Guard stations in Gulfport and Pascagoula, Miss., and looters wrecked part of its New Orleans base. But that did not stop the Coast Guard from sending out rescue helicopters and cutters on dangerous and exhausting missions to save lives and clear waterways after the hurricane ravaged the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/05/AR2005090501418.html

[pnwmom]

2. Thanks for the reminder, KeepItReal. n/t

[Skittles]

3. they were amazing

they sometimes make those rescues look so easy but the skill and dedication required is incredible

[Doctor_J]

4. Krugman's best yet

And the bar is pretty high on that

[tom_paine]

5. Unfortunately, I believe BushPutinism is, in fact, the New Amerikan Way

I keep trying to believe it isn't so, but the evidence keeps mounting.

[Hekate]

6. Kickin' this

:kick:

[MasonJar]

7. Bush is the zenith of destruction and disorder. New Orleans levees

should have already been rebuilt in the correct way and the city should be revitalized. If we can spend 10 billion a month to kill innocent people, we can spend enough to restore New Orleans, America's most cosmopolitan and worthy city. NO is truly a grand city and had the busiest port in the country. But DO NOT REBUILD on the WETLANDS.