Weekend update, Sunday edition

Well, the relief effort continues, and LTG Honore is on the ground. Say what you will about a military presence, but when a Lieutenant General with good leadership skills and a mission motivation gets on the ground, people start hopping. I have no doubt that the good General will soon have the military mission under control. Focused, orders in hand, missions being accomplished.

The evacuation continues, and the refugees are flooding north, west and generally finding what they need. We continue to watch coverage of the events in the affected areas. I'm flipping back and forth between CNN and FOX news networks.

The finger pointing has begun, and there is plenty to go around. But, before we get busy assigning blame, we better consider that this has been a life-changing event. Katrina has had a bigger impact than the 9/11 attacks. Thousands dead in New Orleans alone, billions in property damage scattered across three states, all infrastructure destroyed, along with untold thousands of residences and businesses. People died simply because we didn't get water to them.

However, we have to remember what the situation looked like on Friday, August 25th, 2005. It was a different world then. Mayor Nagin was enjoying the glow of being the mayor of the coolest city in the U.S. There was a storm in the Gulf, but Louisiana routinely weathers storms. If Nagin had gotten his act together Friday and ordered the evacuation of everyone in the city, if Governor Blanco had mobilized every bus in the state, and attempted to move the poorest, most impoverished residents out of the impact area, we have to ask ourselves how that would have proceeded?

Imagine the howls of protest if hundreds of busses had arrived in the housing areas of New Orleans and announced: "We are evacuating everyone. Take one change of clothes and get on the bus. We don't know where we are taking you, but you have to get out now. - - Everyone, right now - - Get on the bus." There would have been a riot, and rightfully so.

We in the United States don't force people from their homes (Well, prior to Kelo we didn't), but you get the idea. There is no way that Mayor Nagin could have moved the poorest, the most unable to move, without cries of racism and discrimination. The poor suffered, without doubt, but they still had the right to stay home. Mayor Nagin had an unwinable situation. He was damned what ever happened. He had a disaster relief plan, but it wasn't followed. He did a lot wrong, but when it became apparent that there would be massive damage and loss of life, it was too late to get people out. Remember, the levees didn't burst until after the storm had passed. We all thought we had dodged the bullet, then disaster struck.

Yeah, we could have strengthened the levees. We could have moved Federal Aid in more quickly, but remember what was going on last week. Seven days ago, the amount of devastation we have experienced was unthinkable. It was inconceivable. New Orleans, Gulfport, Biloxi, and all the little communities in between have been destroyed. No one believed it would be this bad.

If you were in New Orleans and a Democrat, ask yourself why you allowed incompetent local leadership to not care for the least of our brothers. If you are a Republican, and live in New Orleans, ask yourself why you didn't do more to help. If you are a local official anywhere, ask yourself how you are going to evacuate your entire city on 48 hour notice. If you are a Federal or state official, ask yourself how you are going to support the local officials. If you are an impoverished resident of anywhere, ask yourself how you are going to care for your family when the Shit Hits The Fan.

We have done magnificent things since the levees broke. We have done horrible things. We have literally picked up over a million people and moved them 200 miles. Many of them evacuated themselves, many of them had family and friends in other cities. Many of them didn't leave, many of them must rely on outside aid. We are still getting folks out. Folks that probably wouldn't or couldn't get on the bus last week.

There is plenty of room for finger pointing, if you are pointing at yourself,but no room for assigning blame. The local officials screwed up, the state officials screwed up, the Feds screwed up. Failure at every level, from individual responsibility to national policy allowed this disaster to unfold. Last week it was unimaginable. This week it is fact.

I could have done more. You could have done more. What are we going to do next time?