Hurricane FEMA

"I don't have a problem with the disaster.
I don't have a problem with mother nature.
What I do have a problem with is paying my taxes,
and coming home and seeing this,
because they couldn't control the levees that they knew were weak to begin with."
- St. Bernard resident Denise Edwards

The scene was heartbreaking on the local re-broadcast of WWL.

I can't watch the national news any more. It's even more misleading than normal, the homogenized selection of clips, the fancy logos, the calculated heart-wrenching music, the nationalist undertone, with an occasional bone thrown in to remind you regular people have been affected -- cut to the commercial selling copy machines. But it's obvious the main spin right now is: money. Not money to help people. How will Hurricane Katrina affect the high-class white populace? Ohmygod will the Fed raise interest rates? Before the Feds have even done anything significant, the network news spin seems to center around "How are we going to pay for Katrina? And how/why are these sad faces on my tv screen going to impact gas prices?" Why wasn't this as big a deal when we were blowing four times more money dicking around in another country?

The local news is a lot different than the national news. Noticeably absent from the mainstream broadcasts is the remarkably consistent parade of citizens, local and state officials complaining about FEMA, even after the removal of their top guy. The national news seemed to wash over all this with a series of ass-kissing homages to how wonderful and impressive the new General Thad is. AS IF, the top guy in the organization is the only problem and now everything is solved. Meanwhile people in the trenches who were led to believe that the organization was capable of actually doing something significant in situations like this, continue to ask for help, are flooded with insane bureaucracy, or completely ignored.

The other day Parish officials from St. Bernard were on television pleading to get some relief. They have deputies patrolling the parish who have lost everything and they can't even afford to make payroll and have absolutely no resources and FEMA made promises and delivered nothing.

The bigger disaster in New Orleans is HURRICANE FEMA. This "act of God" is even more insidious. When Katrina bore down on the Gulf Coast, it didn't falsely promise relief to people. Hurricane FEMA did. People knew what to expect with Hurricane Katrina, but Hurricane FEMA was an insidious, double-talking, snake-in-the-grass which has caused even more suffering over a longer period of time than was ever capable of Hurricane Katrina.

I know there's a contingent of people who have no sympathy for "stupid Southerners who built houses below sea level" (We in the South might ask why someone would put a city on top of an earthquake fault line, or on a coast where tsunamis could hit) and who think the Federal government seems to exist solely to bail out corporations who can't seem to remain solvent, but I am among those that believes a situation like this exemplifies the time when the federal government should be stepping up and making a difference. This is what we pay for as taxpayers! This disaster transcended state boundaries. The feds controlled the army corps of engineers who have been saying for years, the levee system needed more attention. This is not something state and local authorities could ultimately do much about.

If we could, we should declare the area a "double disaster area". But who do you call in to protect us from the damage of Hurricane FEMA? The Red Cross? They're just as bad. For an organization that seems have collected more money than Bill Gates, they can't seem to deploy any significant resources where they're most needed. I personally suspect that there are approximately four people manning their disaster relief hotline... either that or they just knocked the phone off the hook and are out partying with Nora Jones in some penthouse suite.

Supposedly Red Cross helps out at shelters, but I believe this is misleading - they "appear" at or near shelters, delivering supplies -- usually when there's a CNN person around. I don't know where their billions of dollars go. I think the majority of it pays for an amazing cloaking/un-cloaking shield their reps use that allows them to instantly appear for an interview when a news camera shows up, but then instantly disappear when someone asks for help. Totally useless.

I sound bitter and cynical. Yes, I am. This isn't because I've had the pleasure of enjoying the endless busy signals and run-around by FEMA and the Red Cross. It's not about me. But it's profoundly disconcerting to see public officials incapable of doing their job because the promised relief was turned away at some checkpoint, or some idiot says 18 forms need to be signed and approved by some guy nobody can reach before they can unload a generator from a truck ten feet in front of them. This is bullshit. This is unacceptable. You know how bad it really is? Bush admitted there was a problem. Think for a moment how bad something needs to be before the present administration actually acknowledges acts of incompetence, then multiply that exponentially and you have a small view of how truly out-of-control the situation really is.

The only shining bright spot in the whole relief effort are the troops. They've done their job since day one, totally professionally. The National Guard from all around the country have stepped up and taken care of people and the city. Every other federal agency, even traditionally efficient ones like the post office, have stumbled. Generally speaking, it seems the smaller groups are making a difference. The modular, platoon-like structure of the guard works well. The bloated, useless hierarchy that is the Red Cross and FEMA do not.

Who do we call to save us from Hurricane FEMA?