By now everyone has been blamed for the disatrous aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In my eyes there is enough blame to go around to taint all involved. However that meme will quickly loose steam.
I saw a new one when I was flipping around on the coverage. As far as I can tell you can attribute this one to Geraldo Rivera on FoxNews. He called Hurricane Katrina a dry-run for a nuclear attack on one of America's cities. By reviewing what went wrong America can be better prepared for such an event if, God forbid, it actual occurs. As Mark Steyn points out in his Sun Times column, these leasons were supposed to have been already learned after 9/11.
...Those levees broke; they failed. And you think about Chicago and San Francisco and Boston and you wonder what's waiting to fail there. The assumption was that after 9/11, big towns and small took stock and identified their weak points. That's what they told us they were doing, and that's what they were getting big bucks to do. But in New Orleans no one had a plan that addressed levee failure, and no one had a plan for the large percentage of vehicleless citizens who'd be unable to evacuate, and no one had a plan to deal with widespread looting. Given that all these local factors are widely known -- New Orleans is a below-sea-level city with high crime and a low rate of automobile ownership -- it makes you wonder how the city would cope with something truly surprising -- like, say, a biological attack.
Oh, well, maybe the 9/11 commission can rename themselves the Katrina Kommission. Back in the real world, America's enemies will draw many useful lessons from the events of this last week. Will America?
Now the media loves to fear monger so you can ignore this if you like. But ignorance played a role in all of this. New Orleans own plan called for a full evacuation of the city 72 hours before such a hurricane hits. Plans aren't much good if they are not followed.
Another thing that occured to me watching the airlift of people of New Orleans was how would Canada evacuate their citizens if Winnipeg flooded or if a Tsunami hit Victoria. Will Canada learn some lessons as well?
