Finding the Devil in New Orleans

[tw]

The devil is in the details. To appreciate how I listen to those news reports about Katrina damage would demonstrate the concept. For example, long after the serious threat to the dikes, then, somehow, dikes failed in two locations? This suggests serious failures in construction or in maintenance and monitoring.

Pumps were not provided electricity sources that could survive flooding? Ok, so they counted on the backup generators to take over. Problem is backup generators also did not work in many cases. That is human failure twice over.

The town had warning for days. Plenty of time to prepare the city, preposition supplies, check out those backup generators, move essential equipment to higher ground, and convoy people out of town. This problem includes Alabama and Mississippi. As the governor of LA noted, there was no food available to feed the refugees.

Even though they expected New Orleans to be totally under water, still, current response appears to have not planned for that failure. Not only in government. As a Washington Post reported noted, lines of cars fully loaded with luggage after the dikes broke were sitting in flood waters in New Orleans - one day after the hurricane hit. Even WWL station employess were scrambling a day after the hurricane to save essential equipment. What were those people thinking? At what point do you first ask a victim, "Did you leave when warned to? Why not?" or "Did you really take any of those warnings you were broadcasting seriously?"

Unfortunately too many want to be politically correct rather than ask the hard and necessary questions such as 'why did the dikes break so easily', why are so many pumps not working, why was there no contingency plan for fixing broke levees quickly (ie sinking sand laden barges across the break, why were so many still in New Orleans and on the MS/AL coast line, and why is government now scrambling two days later to dispatch rescue equipment? If Katrina was as big as she should have been, then within hours, military aircraft were already landing at damaged airports to get them open. Instead, FEMA cars are delivering satellite phone to airports days later?

The devil is in answers to these questions - and not found in any silly news reports showing people crying. Let them cry while asking questions that must be asked up front such as, "Why did you not leave with so many days of warning?" Suddenly many who are crying don't deserve so much sympathy. Or we discover that government officials never learned of thousands who had no way out of town. Again, a failure to perform advance planning ten years ago.

Look for the devil. He's never found in nonsense about 'good and evil'. He is found in the details.