FEMA
The state governments, and FEMA are all playing the "toss the hellaciously bad P.R. potato around before we get our hands burned" while people are still out there stranded and dying. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was designed to be our ultimate response to natural disasters, yet it is the one that is royally screwing it all up. It was known days in advance that Katrina would be either a category four or five storm. And even if it wasn't, FEMA was well aware that it had a huge possibility of being one. And those are the exact hurricane categories that New Orleans was known for being vulnerable to. I've heard arguments that FEMA needs time to set up mission schedules and whatnot to use the firefighters and doctors effectively. Okay. Fine. How much time is that? Some of these people have been sitting in hotels for four or five freaking days. Doesn't that defeat the purpose of an "emergency" response organization? Imagine what would have happened if New York City firefighters and other authorities had been holed up for four or five days before they could respond to 9-11. There would have been massive outrage, and now that there's outrage over the response to Katrina, there's something wrong with that? That doesn't make much sense. The major argument I've noticed coming out of the Bush camp is "don't blame us...we can't predict hurricanes." You're right. You can't. But when you are repeatedly warned about the vulnerability of New Orleans and surrounding areas to category four or five hurricanes, cutting funding to projects designed to eliminate that vulnerability in favor of funding the war in Iraq doesn't look so hot. Funding those projects would have been a lot cheaper, both in human lives and dollar amounts, than it will be now that we must clean up the aftermath. It is certainly a tragedy.