Wednesday, September 07, 2005

New Orleans Thoughts

It's hard to come up with anything original to say about the Katrina disaster. It is appalling. The number of issues this event raises is staggering.

Systemic failures of foresight, leadership and organization at all levels of government, with a tinge of racism thrown in. One thing I haven't seen much about is the environmental angle. From what I have seen global warming is not relevant, but what is a factor is the destruction of wetlands and the mismanagement of the landscape in general which created the environment for this flooding to be as bad as it was.

It's also interesting to note that Wal-Mart was on hand with lots of resources and was blockaded by FEMA. So not only does the American government fail, they also get in the way of the private sector helping. It is a bizarre worst-of-both-worlds scenario, where the aspect of government that should act is paralyzed, but the aspect of red tape and beauracracy is fully up and running.

Let the resignations begin. George, you start.