http://www.weather.com/multimedia/index.html?clip=2653&collection=topstory

Regardless of what you believe, there have been several people involved with both the relief efforts for Hurricane Katrina and the Asian tsunamis. They have all said that things are going much more smoothly this time than they did in Asia back in December. The efforts are only coming off as incompetent because people are complaining and have a readily available outlet (US media) at every possible corner in New Orleans. As in typical American fashion, if we don’t get what we want when we want it (a.k.a. NOW/IMMEDIATELY), we will complain. Here in America, we never want the government in our business. But look at what happens when the government isn’t there….lawlessness, rape, murder, looting. Quite frankly, it’s disgraceful. Going through a horrible event like this is no excuse for heathen-like behavior. Although, Mayor Nagin would have you believe all of these crimes are being committed by drug addicts who don’t have access to drugs anymore…..EXCUSE ME????

David
Cincinnati, OH, USA

I tend to agree with Philip’s assesment of the situation, It is so easy for people to jump and blame Bush for the slow response, but once Bush got involved at a “federal” level things really started to happen. After 9/11, the federal government (Bush admin) realized that home land security and disaster response had to be decentralized under the auspices of FEMA, Billions of dollars have been spent for large cities to beef up thier “plans”. While it is true, that this very scenario has been mentioned often because it is probably one of the more likely ones, I think after the recovery effort ends and congress starts to examine what went wrong as opposed to what went right (political blame game), they will have to examine what the City of NO did with all that tax payer money that should have been spent on disaster recovery?

I also find it strange that people tend to give so much money to disaster relief, here in Texas we have opened our doors to our easterly neighbor and took so many of them in, we are now working to find jobs, and more permanent housing for them. We have organized and sent lots of diapers, clothes and other essentials, afterall many people have lost everything. The size of the affected area is roughly 90,000 square miles… the flooding of the city occurred slowly, and N.O. only accounts for a small area, some areas of Miss where hit by the storm surge (more like a tsunami wave) that just wipe some places off the face of the earth.

just some of my humble thoughts, regards

But it is no surprise to anyone here of the confusion & mismanagement in Louisiana & new orleans…
New Orleans was the heart of a very corrupt & crooked state…
And now it’s underbelly is showing.

It’s all very sad….

That, and the fact that after 9/11 the government supposedly organized all these disaster relief packages around the country that were supposed to be ready for rapid deployment, makes the entire thing seem entirely mishandled.

To tie this all back to Spain, I just read somewhere that a contingent of the Spanish Red Cross is set to meet with its American counterpart this week to determine how Spain might best be able to assist. Not sure where the article is now, but here’s a similar one: http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/09/04/news/aid.php

I recall after 9/11 occurred, there was some negative world reaction to the US turning down most offers of aid, so I’m curious what the reaction will be now that we are saying yes. Will it be a good or a bad thing for the world to see us flash a moment of weakness?

One final thought… with the government passing legislation to provide over $10 billion as an immediate “down-payment” with much more to come, it seems somewhat strange how frequent the calls for monetary donations from citizens has been. Not that I think it’s bad to donate or to ask for donations, it just seems like a very passive, capitalistic reaction to a crisis. I suppose it’s just natural for everyone to want to feel like they’re able to assist in someway, but the attachment of dollar signs so quickly just felt rather cold and sterile. I suppose part of my negative reaction comes from the result of the similar outpouring of donations after 9/11, which in the end left families squabbling over how much payment they were entitled to.

I do believe that these are not excuses and that someone should have figured out a plan. Katrina was a Category 4 storm and the levees were only built to withstand a Category 3 storm. Therefore, it was obvious that the chance was high that something terrible like this was going to happen. It was not a surprise like President Bush said.

For context, I currently live in Alexandria, VA just outside of Washington, DC but grew up in a rural town in South Georgia – not far from where the devastation took place.