Editorial: What Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma tells us

If you listened to The Laura Flanders Show yesterday, you know that the Bully Boy's words re: Hurricane Katrina were once again revealed as just empty words. (And if you didn't listen, why didn't you? A new broadcast of the live radio program airs tonight. The Laura Flanders Show for more information.) The mainstream media seems silent.

So let's ask it:

So what about Hurricane Katrina?

Anderson Cooper made quite a name for himself. In earlier times, his crying on air might have been questioned. Didn't happen. He cried, he became a star. (He has so much heart!) He wasn't the only proving they could do "tough" journalism.

Now the media circus has moved on. Familes are still split apart, not knowing where there members are. Democracy Now! noted Friday that children placed in foster homes in the aftermath are not easy to locate.

There's a story here. There's still a story here.

But the mainstream media's moved on. Apparently no one can squeeze out any more tears?

Laura Flanders rightly noted that the government's lack of response initially and inadequate response currently stands as a testimony to the Bully Boy and his administration's real priorities, real concerns and, in fact, the real record as opposed to the press spun one.

We'd go further, though. We'd note Hurricane Wilma. (Wally lives in his Florida. His grandfather lives in an effected area.)

"Oh, but Hurricane Wilma wasn't as bad as Hurricane Katrina," you might insist. No, it wasn't.

And that makes the failures of FEMA and the government to respond all the more glaring. Hurricane Katrina revealed that we're not prepared for any sort of national crisis -- be it a hurricane or a terrorist attack (a point echoed last week by the former 9/11 commission). That's a point that needs to be made and made loudly.

But Hurricane Wilma proves something too. This was the third hurricane. Katrina and Rita preceeded it. By the time Wilma struck, there should have been no reason for a scramble on the part of the government. We should have seen a swift and efficient response.

That didn't happen. People waited and waited and waited some more for their power to be restored. They were promised by Thanksgiving it would be (almost a month after Wilma hit) and Thanksgiving rolled around and some were told to wait a little bit longer. Despite the attention paid in initial media reports on Katrina to the ways those dependent upon public transportation were adversely effected, the Wilma response was one that appears to have never heard of public transportation.

There was no effort, big or small, to grasp that many people depend upon public transportation. You saw that when there was no move immediately to do away with fares for those in the area and you saw it in the fact that those in charge never seemed to know from one moment to the next where they'd set up relief supplies for the day.

Now that's a pain in the butt in you're driving around looking. It's a crisis if you're dependent upon public transportation. You don't merely hop back in the car and head off in another direction. You have to wait for the bus, you have to get on the right bus which might mean transferring. If you're dependent upon public transportation and you arrive at an area that's supposed to be providing relief supplies only to be told, "Oops, we changed it," you have to go through a lot more than the person driving their own automobile.

The lesson on public transportation should have been learned before Hurricane Katrina. After all the lip service to it after Katrina, it should have been an issue immediately addressed when planning the response to Wilma. That didn't happen.

Another issue raised in Katrina was the need by some agencies to see identification before providing any sort of relief or shelter. Once again, lesson not absorbed. Wilma victims were still being expected to cough up identification when dealing with governmental agencies.

Katrina revealed how underprepared we were. Wilma revealed that in a lesser crisis, we're still not prepared. More than that, we have an administration that learned nothing from the crisis. Not only did they go from 9/11 to Hurricane Katrina without ever learning a thing about how to assist those in need, weeks after Katrina, they still hadn't learned a thing.

That's the lesson of Wilma.

"No one could have guessed . . ." is the catch phrase of Bully Boy's administration. The reality is that the administration refuses to learn lessons that events drive home.

An eagerness to refuse to acquire knowledge speaks to the intellectual incuriousity on the part of the Bully Boy. On the ground, however, it just speaks to people in need waiting in vain repeatedly. Over and over. In Katrina, in Rita and in Wilma.

The administration is very lucky that Wilma didn't cause the destruction that Katrina did. If it had, everyone would have forgotten Katrina because we'd all be pointing out that weeks after Katrina, nothing had changed. We think that's a lesson that still needs to be noted. After Katrina, the administration still didn't grasp how to respond (or didn't care) to those in need.

The response to Wilma proves that.


[This editorial was written by The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Jess, Ty, Ava and Jim; Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude; Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man; C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review; Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills); Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix; Mike of Mikey Likes It!; Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz; and Wally of The Daily Jot.