Documenting Denial
February 28, 2006
10:21 a.m., MT

Over at Bloomberg, Kevin Hassett has written another good essay, this time on the gov non-response to Hurricane Katrina. A taste for you:

Two new reports shed devastating light on the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina. If you imagine a novel co-authored by Stephen King and Franz Kafka you will begin to understand how bad it really was.

The reports, issued earlier this month by the White House and the House of Representatives, have more than 200 findings and recommendations on the role of the federal government. ....

The recommendations aren't likely to make much difference. For example, a key point made in the White House analysis is that the military should be given an expanded role in severe disasters. But this is the same recommendation that emerged after a review of the abysmal response to Hurricane Andrew in 1992. If it didn't work last time, why will it work this time? On that, the reports are silent.

I haven't read the reports, and don't intend to. It's more of the same ol' thing: state failures, finger-pointing, "fact"-finding, and recommendations that sound good but don't address the real problem -- which is that government interferes much more than it helps. Hassett claims that the fedgov did do some good after Katrina, which may be the case but doesn't counter the notion that voluntary efforts would likely have done at least as well, and almost certainly at lower cost. (There's also some gun idiocy in the piece, so consider yourself warned.)

His documentation of the state's minions' ongoing state of denial regarding their abilities is good, but what's best is his close. I'd like to think that seeing the bungling unfold before, during, and after Katrina would be enough to heighten individual's awareness, but I doubt that it was; so I recommend that those in the know pass this article along to those they'd like to see avoid a similar fate. Here's what Hassett closes with:

Imagine if FEMA didn't exist, and everyone acted on the truth that the federal government is unable to function well in almost every sphere. Cities and states would have to provide for their own people and have plans to help them in an emergency. Citizens would recognize that they have personal responsibility to protect themselves and their property.

Nursing homes and hospitals would recognize that they need to have their own evacuation plans. Homeless shelters, local governments and other aid organizations would make it part of their mission to protect the most disadvantaged among us. We would all be safer.

Now act on that thought. The next time disaster strikes, you and your community should behave as if you are on your own, because you may well be, for quite some time. Start planning for that today.

In other news, there have been no fatalities reported from the truffles thus far, and some helpful feedback gleaned. I even have a potential customer lined up already! Life is good.

Sunni

Comments: 5 people have contributed to the conversation

On Tuesday, February 28th, at approximately 8:16 p.m. Mountain time, Jim Bovard said:

Thanks for the excellent thrashing of FEMA. The feds' disaster follies have sorely tested my faith in Washington.

I whacked FEMA 10 years ago for the American Specator. My favorite line from the piece was from the FEMA director - "Disasters are very political events."

On Tuesday, February 28th, at approximately 10:07 p.m. Mountain time, Jeffrey Smith said:

Hassett is suggesting replacing one big bureaucracy with a whole bunch of little ones. That's not going to do much good. If you want to live in a hurricane prone area, you need to have the gumption and resources to get out of Dodge when needes, or stay and sit it out--or else find an area to live that doesn't have that exposure. (And I speak as a person who's sat through about ten of them in the last dozen years, starting with Andrew, and ending most recently with Katrina and Wilma.)

On Wednesday, March 1st, at approximately 1:05 p.m. Mountain time, Sunni said:

Jim, I'm sure they're working overtime to restore your faith in them. I hope you don't mind that I made your link clickable.

Jeffrey, how do you figure that from Hassett's piece? Because he writes, "Cities and states would have to provide for their own people and have plans to help them in an emergency. Citizens would recognize that they have personal responsibility to protect themselves and their property."? To me, that doesn't necessarily suggest bureaucracies, although I strongly suspect that at the state and city level, it would. Even so, because those bureaucracies are closer to the situation and usually have better information (including history), they ought to be better able to handle emergencies.

On Wednesday, March 1st, at approximately 7:27 p.m. Mountain time, jeffrey smith said:

Even at the single institutional level, it's bureaucracy. Although there we call them administration and support services. And the single most important thing for an administrator is to protect the institution for which he works. If a hospital administrator needs to choose between his hospital and the patients at the hospital, he'll choose the hospital.
And just because it's small doesn't mean it will be efficient and better informed. I live in a townhouse development. About one quarter of the units need new roofs because of damage from Wilma (that's four months ago!) Last week they started to fix some of them. They were waiting for some of the insurance money to come in (part of that delay was the fault of Katrina and resources tied up on the Gulf Coast, but only part of it). And the ones to be fixed first are the ones who happen to live nearest to the association president.

God helps those who help themselves. Although probably it's the ones who don't help themselves who need His help most.

On Thursday, March 2nd, at approximately 8:17 a.m. Mountain time, Sunni said:

Jeffrey, you certainly won't get any argument from me that "small" necessarily means "efficient". My point was simply that given a choice between feds and locals, it's usually a better bet to try the locals, at least in many parts of this country.

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