As people are being rescued, the questions are pouring into the catastrophic
breakdown in our government’s infrastructure to handle such a disaster as we
have seen unfold this week.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson offered Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco
help from his state’s National Guard on Sunday, the day before Hurricane
Katrina hit Louisiana. Blanco accepted, but paperwork needed to get the
troops en route didn’t come from Washington until late Thursday.
That appeared in an article today by the
Associated Press.
It highlights once again that the states were working to advert as much of this
disaster as possible and the break down occurred at the federal level.
From Today’s
Chicago
Sun-Times:
A visibly angry Mayor Daley said the city had offered emergency, medical
and technical help to the federal government as early as Sunday to assist
people in the areas stricken by Hurricane Katrina, but as of Friday, the
only things the feds said they wanted was a single tank truck.
further along in the same article Senator Barack Obama had this statement to
make:
“The response was achingly slow, and that, I think, is a view shared by
Democrats, Republicans, wealthy and poor, black and white,” the freshman
senator said. “I have not met anybody who has watched this crisis evolve
over the last several days who is not just furious at how poorly prepared we
appeared to be.”
He plans to call for a congressional hearing next week into this lack of
preparation and failure of readiness.
Numerous other articles like these are starting to appear and as I find them
I will post them. Recovery is underway and the refugees are finally being sent
to more permanent and save housing. Now we need to ask the questions about the
failure and it seems Congress is ready to do just that.
Tag katrina