Mayor Nagin

When I saw the mayor of New Orleans so upset by what was unfolding before him, my first feelings were confusion and anger at how they could all feel so unaided and alone in the USA in the year 2005. Everything seems so easy here. Then I realized that that is exactly why they felt the fear and pain so deeply. We live a washed, sanitzed and protected life in the US. Our poor are not in the dire straights of poor people in other parts of the world. We are rarely without the necessities or somewhere to find them when we're down and out. We are rarely without unless a hurricane or other disaster finds us completely cut off from everyone else with 8 feet of flood waters surrounding us in every direction and absolutely no means of communication lest a reporter fly by. That is the predicament in which Mayor Nagin and the others trapped in New Orleans found themselves.

There was a lot of blame going round and now we have a dedicated man out of a job and a slow-on-the-pick-up President trying to improve his image, and people everywhere across the nation doing what they can to help. Those first days were scary, shocking and eventful. They were also a real life scenario for disaster relief.

Scenarios are scripts played out by every level of being involved in disaster relief. Everyone gets involved in trying to solve the made-up problem so that they are prepared in the event of an actual disaster. National scenarios will be played out by heads of government, FEMA, the CDC, Red Cross, all levels of hospital staff, all varieties of mobile emergency services, members of the press, and anyone else who is believed to be able to play a part in disaster relief. I hope they were all paying attention to this one. I hope the leaders in my area were watching, listening and thinking about this place where I live and raise my family. I know I was and still am. I know you all should be, too.

One of the first thoughts that entered my mind is that Mayor Nagin was as hungry and scared as those around him. He was blaming everyone who wasn't in there with them. I didn't agree that the President should be blamed for this one and I still don't. The President doesn't run FEMA. Homeland Security might have been running FEMA into the ground, but the head of Homeland Security is not President Bush. I'm no Bush supporter. I didn't ever even consider voting for him, but we can't blame the man for everything. When responsibilty is delegated at that level, it is delegated. The Presidency is a very busy job. The President can't run every organization within the governement. No one could. Unfortunately the writing was on the wall for Brown. Anyone who has ever functioned in a corporate environment could have predicted it was Brown who would be the fall-guy. My opinion is that the problem lay in poor attention the preventive measures and on that front Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco need to take their share of the blame.

What preventive measures, you ask? Well, let's see. It was very clear that those trapped were poor or sick or emergency staff along with the Captain of the ship. "Captain" Nagin insinuated that no one was rushing to help because the were mostly poor and black. Although that is wholly uncalled for and untrue, I respond, "Why, Mayor Nagin, was there not a plan to remove all your poor black population (and they were clearly not all black) and the sick and elderly during the evacuations prior to the storm? Why, Governor Blanco, were school buses from New Orleans and surrounding communities not used to remove those who had no means of transportation or were unable to remove themselves from the impending danger? If you are telling people that they must get out because staying is life threatening then doesn't it seem to make sense to provide transportation out for those with no personal means of escaping? Was this not considered during the disaster scenario round table?

I believe Benjamin Franklin is credited for the saying, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." I hope all leaders who might be involved in disaster relief ask themselves what might be done before hand to lessen the loss of life and human toll. This one was a no brainer to me. I can't believe all those people were left there for this to have even occured. If everything was done to remove people beforehand when all the warnings and evacuations were taking place, then there wouldn't have been so many trapped and those that were trapped would have been there by choice and would have had no one to blame but themselves.