Katrina, duty, morality and strength.

There are Katrina threads open on specific aspects of the general topic. Some of the posts make reference to performance and responsibilties of officials. I'm opening this thread so as to not take the other threads off of their topic. The following are some of my opinions on duty, morality and strength.


Duty is a word and concept that escapes the understanding of many in public service. It is the work and actions performed as an obligation to moral or legal reasoning. In emergency situations, if need be, the morality aspect should supercede the written law aspect. What is just and right is in the spirit of the law. If need be, officials should make a rapid effort to grasp a more thorough understanding of the law then interpret it with a focus on the spirit. Skillful finesse can be employed to affect the resulting actions. Those that are duty bound should satisfy their obligation first and let the powers that be decide the consequences.

Leaders by definition lead others. "Let's do this now." would have been a good thought and a just imperative.

I don't think the POTUS is exceedingly bright or a grand leader. He's a politician so I don't expect him to be a real genius. I do expect him to perform his duty. From some of his recent decisions, I don't think he fully understands and accepts the true nature of obligation to duty. He should have performed better. He may simply not have the ability to perform at the level this emergency required. I would have liked to have seen much better mobility capability via better staging and a little speedier initial reaction.

Though I'm not the biggest fan of our president and I cringe when he says, "doodie"; I'm not going to wholly blame him for the slow response. I do respect his office and believe he thinks he is a well-intended fellow. Certainly this was a logistical challenge never before seen. It is, however, ultimately his responsibility and duty to take actions that best protect and care for the lives and well being of US citizens. That did not happen. 'best protect and care'

Then we have, "The president will not let any form of bureaucracy get in the way of protecting the citizens of Louisiana." which is exactly what did happen.

Above that, I think that one would have fallen short of attaining the greater view and good understanding of the complexities of how a society arrives at a condition that allowed for this tragedy to have such a heavy impact, to take a simplistic shot at one man to take the blame.

The FEMA director did not do well. He's made many statements this week that would cause one to believe he may be living on another planet. Didn't seem to have a clue. Wed., "NOLA is not flooding." Before coming to work for FEMA he was the director of an Equestrian Association and resigned that position under pressure. Those folks are bewildered as to how he qualifies to be director of FEMA. His college roommate brought him on board. He took over when his buddy left. The president thinks he's doing a great job.

The head of Homeland Security could have done better. He has six emergency fire-fighting units staged for disasters. Says he can't deploy unless Louisiana specifically asks for that deployment. The Louisiana governor has been screaming for help. He should deploy. This goes back to the morality of duty being more important than the law of duty. He can deploy and not lose his job. It just requires some interpretation and finesse.

The governor of Louisiana could have done better. Worked faster, smarter. Same for the mayor of NOLA. It goes on. Other public servants could have done better too.

What about this, "understanding of the complexities of how a society arrives at a condition that allowed for this tragedy to have such a heavy impact" I spoke of? I only understand a little of it. The officials mentioned above are paid to protect and care for citizens through judicious governing. What about the citizen? What about me? I spoke about morality but what about my own? I've known that New Orleans and Louisiana needed funding for levee bolstering improvements for years. I didn't write a letter. I didn't make a phone call. I didn't do a thing. That's apathy and it's part of the complex problem.

This week a letter will go out to my fed senators and representatives urging them to do what they can to get rid of that FEMA director. The POTUS and the director of Homeland Security? I'll have no official complaint about them. Tough, tough jobs. Meanwhile, it has been reported that two New Orleans police officers have committed suicide. I really don't want to be too harsh in my performance assessment of those in authority. I wasn't standing in their boots.

Arkansas is a poor state economically speaking. I don't want to paint the wrong picture for you. Where I live is mostly beautiful with the expected poor neighborhoods. Some folks would be surprised at the sight of some of our affluent neighborhoods. Homes that are quite breathtaking with great views of the pretty river, lakes, golf courses etc. We've got some scary neighborhoods too.

I don't agree with everything our governor does but he has been able to operate the state within budget with a tiny surplus of 300 million dollars or so. I support him. Wed. Aug 31st he announced some pretty well thought-out plans for taking on 20,000 Katrina refugees. His plans had a few flaws but he reacted quickly by beginning the hammering out of those plans on Sunday, Aug 28th. He actually studies disaster recovery. The arranged facilities maxed out Saturday so Arkansas is making fast, real-time decisions about where to move folks and how to care for them. There have been some pretty innovative ideas initiated to get this done.

Folks have been asked to give up their reservations for cabins in our state parks and holiday retreat areas and many are doing so. Hospitals are taking on patients. State agency personnel, expert in disaster relief and recovery, insurance, aerial photography, law enforcement, utilities, communications, computer network systems, rescue and medical care were deploying to deep into the Louisiana and Mississippi zones as early as Monday the 29th. Crews of self-organized citizens with official contacts in those states are doing the same. Churches, hotels, furniture stores, community and private clubs as well as individual citizens are feeding people and housing them. Organized suppers and lunches are happening all over the state. Our governor has said, "People first, paperwork later". The surplus we have in our state budget may go away. If it does he's going to take a hit for that. Since the POTUS has declared states of emergency in Texas and Arkansas maybe it won't be as economically impactive as I think it will. Thanks, POTUS.

Tomorrow me and mine will spend most of the day helping a group to feed some of the "new residents" of our city, give personal supplies to the families, toys for the kids and generally let them all know we are going to look after them for an extended period of time.

Who's fault is it that this tragedy could have been avoided to a great extent? I think it is our obligation to analyze and speak up if we don't think the officials handled their duties well. I also think members of society in the US have an obligation to each other to be good stewards and when we know of a problem that can potentially become a disaster to do something about it, even if it is as small as the act of the writing of a letter or just making a telephone call.

I would like to report that today and in the last few days I've witnessed many acts of sacrifice and kindness. It can be a challenge but I believe the majority of the citizens of the USA to be of good moral fiber despite what is reported on the idiot box. America is a great country not because we are militarily or economically powerful. America is a great country because we citizens have grit and insist on right overcoming wrong even if we disagree on how to do it. This is a test. We will do well. We will learn. We will become stronger.

I watched with keen personal interest starting 3 days prior to landfall. I saw the Mayor of N.O. and the Governor of LA. beg the people to leave. I believe one quote I heard was, "This is the real deal, get the hell out now" Those sentiments were expressed by just about everyone I can imagine starting three days before impact over and over and over. It was broadcast repeatedly from west of New Orleans all the way past me.

We even had a mandatory evacuation order in my area of Pensacola. My house sits 169 miles from downtown New Orleans as the crow flies. I didn't evacuate due to the distance away and the relatively light wind

What else should they have done? If you did a National Guard enforced mandatory evacuation you can be sure the same people that have been looting would have stayed and looted whether the hurricane hit there or it didn't. Once that happened one time then the store owners would then have to stay and guard their stores. The police would have to stay as well as the fire dept. I don't believe for a second these looters are just a few bad apples, I believe there are at least a few thousand of them. I recently learned contents are not covered against looting by business ins. so as a biz owner you are toast.

I have a place I put some of the blame. I blame the politicians. I blame them for making 10's of thousands of N.O. residents dependant on the government for the politicians personal gain. I believe they have something like a 25% poverty rate in N.O. The inner city has a high unemployment rate. These politicians buy the votes by making the people absolutely dependant on them. The storm came the end of the month before thousands and thousands had received there first of the month government check so they had no money to evacuate.

I stayed in downtown N.O a month or two ago when I EVACUATED for hurricane Dennis. The numbers of panhandlers, muggers and thieves was staggering. If you walked two blocks off Bourbon Street you were literally taking your life in your hands. I commented to a Police Captain that I was impressed by the large numbers of law enforcement in the downtown area. This Captain told me they didn't have near the number of officers they needed to cover the area and keep crime down. She also went on to say, interesting with what's happening, Paraphrase; They would not try to stop looters in the event of a hurricane because the number of looters would be so large it would overwhelm the police force and the officers would get killed if they tried to stop it. The criminal element in New Orleans is impressive and like I said before, It's not just a few bad apples, it has to be thousands of people. IMO Chicago's got nothing on New Orleans when it comes to corruption. At the end of the day it's the poor that suffer the most for the corruption and frankly, and I know this is not a sensitive statement but downtown New Orleans was a cell pool long before Katrina. Officials in New Orleans knew exactly what would happen in an event like this and there is nothing that could have been done to stop it.

All the above is a lead up to why it took 5 days to get serious help to victims. When you have a dangerous situation from criminals then Joe Blow the volunteer is likely to stay home or go to an area that's safer. Couple that with the difficulty of access into the city as well as the potential for disease, then tie that into it takes a good three days to get help under normal hurricane conditions and you have a big problem with getting help. It took three days to start getting us help last year in Pensacola and we weren't looting or violent, we had limited communication and you could get into town without fear of flood or disease.

I can just about guarantee the Red Cross will not hang out if it's dangerous. The people manning the canteens probably average 60+ years old. They would not allow then into a dangerous area. There is also a huge Church rescue effort from around the country that I doubt will go into dangerous areas.

So, we have all the above issues plus all the others outlined in others post. Now add the fact that at 169 miles away I lost power for 3.5 days after the storm and had a 7-8 storm surge. Point being, the rescue efforts coverage area is very, very large.

New Orleans has it's fair share of good people but it has more than it's share of crappy ones.

Let's not forget that MS was actually hit harder than LA. And those people are suffering as well.

The longest delay is due to logistics. Putting together a relief effort for an unprecedented size catastrophe is a daunting task. Armchair quarterbacks with 20/20 hindsight can point to any number of areas that could be better and of course are correct. If we could see the future then there would have been a void of population within 100 miles of New Orleans and the World Trade Center would have been empty if it was going to crashed into by airplanes.

The WTC attack and then rescue and recovery was a tiny fraction of the sized problem as this hurricane. People in New York two miles away were able to rush in and help. They had power, that didn't have wide spread looting and shooting and they didn't have a flood. This event is like 1,000 planes flying into buildings all over New York

We've already had 14 named storms this year. Mobilizing the guard every time a storm is named is not feasible. Katrina is a horrible catastrophe but there was not a whole lot that could have been done to avoid the end result with the info. we had at the time due to the unprecedented magnitude of the disaster.


Even if we had known the end result 48 hours ahead of time it still wouldn't be all that much different than it has been. There is death and destruction across a few thousand square mile area. I submit there is no rapid fix to a problem of this magnitude. When your neighbors (nearest states, MS and AL) can't help you because they are devastated as well then this is the result.

We (CPF) and as individuals are responding and giving to help all those in Katrina's way. Any outside help from other countries needs to be welcomed. Those that want to use this time for political grandstanding or profiteering should be put on notice that we are watching and won't forget. Those that want to get on a soap box and complain about how the response wasn't fast enough or not enough is being done need to just shut-up and help. Save all the grandstanding until after the crisis is over. Ya listening Jesse? Honest, well thought out discussion is different, no grandstanding on TV and radio please. Those that think they know what all was being done to get relief to victims, don't. It took 6 months to build up for Iraq. The difference is about 20 hours of flying, 1 day. Once the people are in place and the supplies loaded, it's just one extra day to get around the world. I was the logistics Officer for my Squadron in the Marine Corps. Other than extra luggage it was no harder to move from North Carolina to Arizona than it was from North Carolina to Japan. We don't see people standing all over New Orleans in flood waters helping so we assume not much is being done. I'm rambling but I've also been though a serious hurricane and believe me, it takes time to put together a medium sized rescue effort and now we have the largest disaster in the history of our country and being typical Americans we expect instant fixes.

DieselDave

Excellent Points



They have been sending money down to New Orleans for 40 years to upgrade the levee system. NOLA Mayor after Mayor after Mayor. Blanco has been govenor for a short time but she was The Lt. Gov for years. One small levee on a canal with the potential to flood the entire city. The Dutch have a tripple protection system. I don't see how they could have been much more prepared for relief efforts. Some mistakes were made in the begining but how do you move an army with a 12 hour responce time around the country everytime a storm approaches NC,SC,Fl,MS,AL or LA. The local officials here in LA have know about this potential for years & years & years. The local officials should have been more prepared for something that they knew was going to happen sooner or later in their own back yard.

On Duty
Civic Center Relief Camp
Reserve Deputy
Monroe, LA

DieselDave said:

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Let's not forget that MS was actually hit harder than LA. And those people are suffering as well.

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Yeah.

I'm getting pretty tired of all this focus on NOLA. I have personally see photos of people that YESTERDAY/Sunday just now got their first meal. This is in coastal MS. The feds or even the state people still have not even shown up.

Weather.gov has some great sat pictures of the whole effected coast.

Aerial Maps Of Regions/New Orleans/Neighborhood Ravaged By Hurricane Katrina (at the top)

Once you click in to the aerial maps, click (350 aerial images) the map that shows the Katrina path and you can see individual boxes which are separate overhead sat pictures.

You can see how vast the flooded area is and how powerful the wind damage was in MS.


Icebreak, I agree funding, appropriation and execution can be complicated but 40 years with the knowledge that this much devastation and population displacement was possible even with a relatively small levee break. Help was there, they just could not get in. The Sat photos show roads ending in water. Most everyone was talking a day after the storm how NO dodged a bullet and most of the evacuees were getting ready to go home, then they noticed the water was rising. I would have thought they would have had better contingency plans to stop a levee breach. I saw on the news NO PD only had 3 boats. Thank God most of the people did evacuate or this would have been 10 times worse.

It is my belief the State and Local officials had the primary Duty-Morality-Strength to identify the levee problem and execute a plan along with the feds to fix the problem. They let down millions of people locally who are directly effected and millions of people nationally that will unfortunately have to help pay for all of this destruction.

Lips said:

It is my belief the State and Local officials had the primary Duty-Morality-Strength to identify the levee problem and execute a plan along with the feds to fix the problem. They let down millions of people locally who are directly effected and millions of people nationally that will unfortunately have to help pay for all of this destruction.

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When you put it like that (primary) it does ring true. I think my opinion has shifted a little. Plus you are much closer to it and have a better feel for what the state's responsibility was. Thank you.

Thanks also for putting some more focus on Mississippi.