To The Rescue
After a sluggish response, A rush to help and rebuild
But that won't be anytime soon. Like the eerie satellite images of a week earlier that showed Katrina bearing down on the Big Easy, the eye of the refugee crisis was in New Orleans, but the wider storm is now radiating out across the region, with cities as far away as Houston, Baton Rouge, and even little Starkville in northeastern Mississippi, overwhelmed by the steady stream of the homeless and jobless. If it's true that Katrina made little effort to discriminate between rich and poor, it is also true that it was mostly the poor--and in New Orleans, mostly poor blacks--who either could not or would not flee and so suffered the brunt of the storm's wrath. Mayor Nagin in New Orleans guessed that it would take as long as three months before many residents could return home. Over the state line in shattered Gulfport, a visibly moved Gov. Haley Barbour, widely credited with managing the crisis skillfully and aggressively, suggested Mississippians would be feeling the effects of Katrina for years to come.
Blame--and pain. The repercussions are already being felt far beyond Katrina's actual reach. As the Third World images of death and devastation reeled across the nation's TV screens last week, there was an almost palpable sense of anger at the sluggish and, in some places, seemingly nonexistent government response to the crisis. "We are extremely pleased with the response of every element of the federal government" to Katrina, said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, in charge of coordinating Washington's plan. Reacting to the growing chorus of criticism the same day, Chertoff's deputy, Michael Brown, the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, fumed: "I think everyone in the country needs to take a big collective breath." President Bush, who pledged a first installment of $10.5 billion in aid, on top of the $100 million already pouring in from around the country and the world, was having none of it. On Friday morning before he flew off to inspect the region firsthand, the president told reporters at the White House that the government's response so far had been "not acceptable."
His poll numbers at an all-time low, Bush is not unmindful of the political peril implicit in his handling of the disaster. In truth, however, while the response from Washington may have been sluggish at first, the crisis was decades in the making. The decision to build levees resistant only to storms up to Category 3 was made decades earlier, and there had been no lack of warning about the consequences of failure to remedy the situation. Then there was the matter of local responsibility. Mayor Nagin railed at Washington, but as Katrina lurched ever closer to landfall, no plans were made for either wholesale evacuation or an enhanced police presence.
There is, doubtless, plenty of blame to go around--and plenty of pain will spread far past the Gulf. Beyond politics, there are the obvious health risks to be faced in the storm's aftermath. Then there's the long shadow Katrina now casts over the nation's uncertain economy, particularly as a result of the damage done to oil and gas facilities across the Gulf. There is, too, one final penumbra over the arc of ruin that now radiates out from "the city that care forgot." If you check the calendar, hurricane season is just half over.
How You Can Help.
For a list of charities helping victims of Hurricane Katrina:
www.usnews.com/hurricanehelp
Continuing Coverage. For daily news updates and analyses from U.S. News writers:
www.usnews.com/katrina
With Angie C. Marek and Silla Brush
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