In reverse order, even if you do believe that global warming is happening, Kyoto is not meant to stop it, only to slow it slightly. Since it just went into effect this year, there is no way it could have mitigated Katrina. Other data shows that big hurricanes happen.
Feema and Homeland Security seem like a good fit to me. There is not a lot of difference between responding to a man-made disaster and a natural one.
As for the levees, piling up dirt to hold back huge bodies of water is a bad idea. The levees are in constant need of repair. When one fails it fails spectacularly.
Now, this is where the blame starts spreading. The Huffposties point out that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the top three predicted disasters. There was also talk a year ago of doing a new four year study on New Orleans surviving a category 4 or 5 hurricane.
This does not prove what the Huffposties think it does. If anyone knew about the danger of levees breaking, it would be the mayor. The current Mayor says that he did not expect it. The same is true of his predecessor. I believe them. The disaster plans only make sense if you assume that the levees will hold and the pumps will work.
The plan has worked before. The last time a hurricane hit near New Orleans it dumped a lot of water on the city. Parts flooded but the levees held and the pumps got rid of the water. People only had to stay in the Superdome for a few days.
That's what they expected this time. That's why they let so many people stay behind and why the Superdome is so poorly stocked.
This points to failures that go back much earlier than Bush. In fact, it was recognized when New Orleans was founded that it is in an unsafe place.
Then there is what I sad earlier about levees being a bad idea. This is especially true when the levees sink on their own and have to be constantly added to.
The trouble is that no one will tell people who are living in an unsafe place to move. Consider this exchange in Huffpost
"Americans' hearts go out to the people in Katrina's path... But if the people of New Orleans and other low-lying areas insist on living in harm's way, they ought to accept responsibility for what happens to them and their property."
from a Waterbury, Conn., Republican-American newspaper editorial Wednesday, echoed by House Speaker Dennis Hastert in the Chicago Daily Herald Thursday, who said rebuilding New Orleans "doesn't make sense to me."
"That's like saying we should shut down Los Angeles because it's built in an earthquake zone... Or like saying that after the Great Chicago fire of 1871, the U.S. government should have just abandoned the city."
former Sen. John Breaux, D-La., responding to Hastert's comments.
Yes it is, senator and we need to be aware that large sections of California will eventually be destroyed. There are estimates that it will cost as much as the entire US GNP to de-contaminate and rebuild New Orleans. Is this a cost that we can bear?
An additional problem is the number of people who decided to ride out the storm. Glenn Reynolds has complained before about hurricane hype. News stations boost ratings by telling you that storms are stronger than they are. When a real monster comes, people don't give it proper respect because they think they have been through a similar one before.
But the real blame goes to random chance. Higher than expected waters breached the levees. It should have been expected but it was not. Everyone knew that it would happen eventually but expected that it would be in someone else's lifetime. This has been going on for nearly two centuries. Trying to blame any specific person is pointless.
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