New Orleans: The View From Here (10 Thoughts)

1. Because of the Iraq War, less than two-thirds of Louisiana's National Guard is available for search-and-rescue operations in and around New Orleans. Untold scores of Americans may die because of this manpower shortfall. Right now they're saying that the New Orleans flood-waters will rise nine to fifteen feet before tomorrow morning. Keep in mind many stranded New Orleans residents are already on their rooftops or in their attics waiting to be rescued--with only five to eight feet of real estate left before they're swimming. Swimming, that is, in waters now filled with venomous snakes, red ants, and possibly (given the reports of dead bodies floating around the city) contagious diseases. And of course, many of these people can't swim, and/or can't break through their ceilings to get to their rooftops (because, for example, they don't own a hatchet or aren't strong enough to do so). The situation is similar in other parts of Louisiana and some parts of Mississippi. Meanwhile, those currently on dry land--who think they've found a safe pocket--will be in waters nine to fifteen feet deep by tomorrow morning. And some of them can't swim, either.
2. Biloxi (MS) alone is predicting hundreds of casualties. It looks like the total death toll from Hurricane Katrina could easily rise into the thousands, and may surpass even the loss of life seen on September 11th.
3. I have no idea, going forward, how New Orleans remains a viable American city. The devastation is so complete that rebuilding the Big Easy may take years, if it ever happens at all. Tens of thousands are homeless all across the southeast right now, and will remain so for months and months to come. We'll shortly be hearing much of the term "refugee camp."
4. It is absolutely incomprehensible to me that the President has yet to address the nation regarding the catastrophic events in the nation's southeast, or visit even a single scene of devastation in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, or Florida. Indeed, he flew over those areas today (after talking about his MediCare plan out west) on his way back to Washington from his month-long vacation in Texas. They say he will "supervise" the situation in the southeast from there. What an absolutely mind-boggling failure of leadership. He should be on television right now publicly urging Americans to give to the Red Cross, The Salvation Army, and other relief organizations immediately.
5. I think the media is dramatically overplaying the "looting" angle of this human tragedy. One, because much of the looting involves the theft of food and water and basic necessities (e.g., diapers, toilet paper, baby formula, clothes, and so on) and frankly, given that New Orleans, southeastern Louisiana, and much of southern Mississippi currently has no electricity, no roads, no fresh water, no public transport, and no communications systems, people are going to need that food and water and those basic necessities far, far more than the wholly-insured owners of the businesses from which they've been taken. This is life-and-death stuff, people: the cavalry isn't coming--can't come--in full force into the affected areas, at least not for days or weeks to come, and people, particularly the frail and the young and the poor, are going to have to fend for themselves for days or, as I said, even weeks into the future. As to those who are looting non-essential goods, it's obviously grievously wrong, and a criminal act, but a) right now the police need to expend their precious resources on saving lives, not preventing property damage and business losses, b) there's no point in arresting people for looting because you've nowhere to house or arraign or prosecute them (and American citizens are entitled to arraignments in most jurisdictions in twenty-four hours), c) speaking bluntly, property damage at this point is much more preferable than violent crime, so to some extent the pragmatist in me says that the police should simply ignore (for now) these essentially "victimless" crimes and hope that doing so avoids an even greater form of unrest, i.e. "riot" (assuming, here, that most business-owners will be filing "total devastation" insurance claims anyway), and d) viewers seeing such criminal acts on television ought not be deceived into thinking either that the perpetrators are criminal masterminds (who somehow waited years for just this moment to hatch their evil schemes) or that their behavior is somehow likely to benefit them financially or otherwise. Remember: these are people who have lost everything they own, most of them (the looters I mean) aren't particularly sophisticated folks in the first place (or else they wouldn't be looting when there's no goddamn place to take and store and enjoy the loot), and so, at some level, you have to view the looting of, say, a couple of compact discs from a Sam Goody as pathetic rather than the primary human-interest element of the Hurricane Katrina story.
6. Politicians, particularly Republican politicians, amaze me. Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu (D) was asked what she thought of the situation: she said that shortly the need for food and water for the survivors and refugees would be overwhelming, and that, in the days ahead, some part of her could understand those who are, without license, taking food and water from area businesses--not that she condoned or encouraged it, but that she realized people would have to use their "best judgment" as to that issue. Republican Senator David Vitter (R), the Republican half of Louisiana's senatorial delegation, had this to say: that the "number one" thing that Americans could do to help disaster victims was--you guessed it--"pray." Pray. Not send financial aid (that was "number two") but simply to pray. Now, I support that as much as anyone, in fact I said on this blog that I was sending my prayers to the people of New Orleans, but does anyone think an elected official should place religious concerns over saving lives? For no one doubts that the "number one" thing folks around the country can do to help save lives in the nation's southeast is to "send money." Not pray.
7. I understand that there's been a prison uprising in Jefferson Parish. They've taken hostages and have jail-made weapons. This is obviously a tragedy, though I can't help but wonder if the action was predicated not on some hope of escape--for there's obviously nowhere to go--but rather on a sense that, left to their own devices, local officials would not have made saving the lives of these about-to-be-starving inmates their first priority. That's not actually a knock on the officials, as when prioritizing is made necessary in a life-or-death situation, some part of me understands--if choices must be made--that the young and the elderly will be aided with food and other essential services (including rescue) before prison inmates. That said, no one can expect those inmates to sit idly by while their food and water supply disappears and no rescue is forthcoming (as "rescuing" them is a much more difficult affair, administratively, than rescuing civilians who need not be securely detained). Now, with a hostage, the inmates may feel they have a means of "getting attention" when food and water stores dwindle. Obviously we can only pray this situation is resolved peaceably and that the inmates, whatever their crimes or alleged crimes may have been, are treated like humans in distress and in dire need of assistance. Which is exactly what they are.
8. Thus far the news media is badly botching its coverage of this story. Where there should be breaking-news updates every fifteen minutes or so detailing the top stories in the region and, as importantly, prognostications about the water levels in, say, downtown New Orleans, instead the same monologues and images are simply being broadcast and re-broadcast over and over again. It wasn't this way with the Iraq War, or with September 11th, so why now? Maybe because communications systems are down? I don't know. Where are the news conferences, the virtual maps, the quick-flash headlines of what's happening now or has happened in the last fifteen minutes? Incredibly, Fox News's coverage of Hurricane Katrina was minimal-to-non-existent this early evening, with Brit Hume and his "panel" of experts spending more time blaming Americans for ever living in New Orleans, and on asking whether taxpayers should even have to foot the bill for this kind of disaster relief--yes, you heard that right, that's what they were discussing--than talking about how we're going to save as many lives as possible in three U.S. states as nightfall arrives on the second day after one of the most devastating hurricanes in American history. Perhaps one of the most devastating tragedies of any kind in American history.
9. I will say, some reporters have impressed me throughout this ordeal, with their obvious emotional connection to the story and visibly sincere attachment to their fellow man. Incredibly, Anderson Cooper may top that list. And I've not been a fan in the past. He just seems to get exactly how gut-wrenching this story is, and isn't just "doing his job" right now but is going above and beyond that job to show America that, above all, he's an American and not some lesser breed of sentient being (a "mere journalist," for example). Kudos to those reporters who have put themselves in harm's way to tell this story and to display--often in a very personal way--just how unimaginably horrific the scene in the southeast is right now.
10. And regarding that scene: it couldn't be worse. If you haven't watched the news, turn it on. Hurricane Katrina has turned a sizeable percentage of the nation's southeast into a flooded, wildly unsafe, entirely unliveable, and almost certainly unsanitary ghost town. And, what's more, and what's all the more upsetting: a morgue. Quite simply, the scope of this tragedy cannot be overstated.