The Nation: Katrina, Eighteen Months Later

[marmar]

article | posted March 1, 2007 (web only)
Katrina, Eighteen Months Later
Chris Kromm & Sue Sturgis


President Bush headed to the Gulf Coast this week to check on the status of the this region's recovery, eighteen months after Hurricane Katrina struck shores. Bush probably needs the refresher: He hasn't set foot in the still-hobbled region in six months, and didn't even mention the Gulf in his January State of the Union address.

But when asked to single out what is most to blame for the ongoing crisis in the Gulf Coast, many Gulf residents will quickly point to Washington. It was ineffectual levees--built and overseen by the US Army Corps of Engineers--that flooded 80 percent of New Orleans, wiping out thousands of homes, hospitals and schools. It was the botched emergency response, "coordinated" by now-disgraced FEMA officials in DC, that contributed to the deaths of hundreds trying to flee the storm.

Now, a year and half after Katrina, a failed policy at the highest levels of government is to blame for the "second tragedy" of Katrina: a stalled recovery that keeps thousands of Gulf residents in limbo and has left neighborhoods from the Lower Ninth Ward to East Biloxi looking like the storm hit yesterday. And it will take drastic change in national policy if the Gulf is to have a more vibrant future.

When Bush comes to New Orleans, many will remember the pledge he delivered two weeks after the storm, standing in Jackson Square, the St. Louis Cathedral shining behind him: "Throughout the area hit by the hurricane, we will do what it takes, we will stay as long as it takes, to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives," he said. "And all who question the future of the Crescent City need to know there is no way to imagine America without New Orleans, and this great city will rise again." ....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070319/new_orleans

[kurth]

1. The Chimp Who Destroyed New Orleans

While Playing Guitar.

[MadMaddie]

2. And eating cake....

[MasonJar]

3. And do not forget about McCain. That was one of his best oppor-

tunities to smooze Bush. He should have been insisting that they both return to D.C. and do what they were elected to do. Bush is the lowest of the low, but McCain is sinking fast in my book.

[Cha]

4. Too bad a boatload

of rotten turkey eggs can't be dropped on his derelic head.