Saturday the National Hurricane Center was giving out
information that Katrina would provide a devastating blow to the Gulf Coast.
Sunday, the Mayor of New Orleans called for a total evacuation of the city, an
extremely rare incident. Monday and hit and by Tuesday we were seeing the total
devastation this storm has caused on the region.
President Bush came back to Washington today to “overseeâ€ÂÂ
the relief and clean up from this storm. Why did he ignore those harsh warnings
the experts were giving and not act sooner?
Seems like George followed his usual reactionary course and
did the sit and wait, just like he did on September 11 when he heard the nation
was under attack. A competent President would have decided to cut his five week
vacation short and head back to his job to make sure the country was prepared
for this looming catastrophe. Unfortunately our President is far from being
competent.
He addressed the nation today and said the federal
government was there to make sure the area is restored and all the victims are
taken care of. He made this call more than 48 hours after the incident and 24
hours after we started finding out just how catastrophic this act of nature
turned out to be.
Yesterday while people were fighting for their lives,
dying, realizing the total devastation of their lives and in a state of total
shock over what truly happened, what was our President doing?
He was accepting that guitar from country singer Mark
Wills. People loose everything they own and the President gains another trophy.
How callous can one man be? He decided to stay on vacation and accept guitars
instead of calling his cabinet in for an emergency preparation session.
His speech tonight was nothing more than a typical grand
stand photo op. He said what was being done now, after the fact. He could have
easily put a price freeze on retail gas prices, or make it known that stations
that price gouge will be prosecuted. He did not. While he was trying to throw
more catch phrases out to the American people, gas prices were reported as high
as $4.99 a gallon in Atlanta, and in my small town in Ohio two stations were now
out of business.
PREPARATION
That is a word that can not be said enough. We have seen
what lack of preparation caused in Iraq, and are still paying dearly for it. Now
we are paying for the same insubordinate lack of preparation in our own country.
Today the orders went out to send 10,000 National Guard troops down to the Gulf
and a naval hospital ship is set to leave port this weekend to head down there.
These are actions that should have been already in motion.
If our President was a competent man, he would have had his
cabinet in an emergency meeting Saturday and these life saving necessities would
have already been underway. At worse, if the hurricane missed, you call them
back and it would not have cost that much. President Chicken hawk, in his
typical “head in the sand†approach decided to wait and see and now we see the
effect of that waiting.
From being in the fire service and attending courses on
incident command, I can assure you that the one thing that is pounded into your
head over and over again is preparation. Run through every scenario and make
sure you have the resources and planning to handle each one. Even if an incident
worse than anything you could of planned for occurs, the knowledge you gain from
the previous exercises will offer highly valuable information to use.
We were told with an almost 100% certainty that this
extreme disaster would occur 48 hours before it did. The President chose to
ignore that warning the same way he chose to ignore the warning that Osama was
determined to attack the United States. Ironically both warnings came in August
and both times the President was playing cowboy on his ranch.
Now while the President could of possibly done something to
thwart off the September 11 attacks, there is nothing he could have done to
prevent the catastrophe that happened in the Gulf. The lack of action this time
though has caused continued loss of life and property. They are scrambling to
get enough helicopters and relief supplies down there to handle everyone, and
the idea of what to do with all the refuges is mind boggling.
Sadly, before our own President could offer words of
support or show his intentions of help, the President of Venezuela was lending a
hand. Hugo Chavez, the man who Pat Robertson wants to see assassinated, offered
the United States oil and food to help out. We see the person own President
refers to as a dictator being a greater humanitarian then he is.
After such a devastating blow to our country, the President
stood a chance of using it for his own political gain. He failed and we can
expect to see his approval rating reflect this latest failure with even higher
declines. Thankfully we still have ex-leaders like Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter,
and even George Bush sr. who will most likely make an appearance soon to help
get aid to those people that need it desperately.
I added a link on top of the site today that takes you to
FEMA’s list of all organizations helping out. Anyone who can spare anything,
please do so. Those of us lucky enough to not be destroyed by this horrific
force of nature need to help out those who found themselves not as fortunate.