Here ya go. You oughta check out some of the reports by international tourists: which include remarks from rescue workers like, 'show me what ya got', and when they were refused, passing on by having offered no assistance or hope. Such charming creatures we can be.

GM

  Michael Mayo

Katrina reveals some hard, frightening truths Published September 4, 2005

Based on what we've seen this past horrifying week, with an inept bureaucracy trying to respond in conventional ways to unprecedented circumstances after Hurricane Katrina, South Floridians should be feeling pretty squeamish.

Because if this is the best the federal government can do in the wake of a long-predicted disaster, we're all in trouble.

"Just not enough soon enough," Tony Carper said Friday. "Now there's a tragedy after the tragedy."

Carper is director of emergency management for Broward County. His job is to prepare for disaster, especially Category 4 and Category 5 hurricanes. What he saw in New Orleans last week gave him pause.

"As a local emergency official, I'm disappointed," he said. "I thought the federal government would be better prepared."

I'm more than disappointed. I'm scared.

Our Big One would not come with long-term apocalyptic flooding, but there would be enough destruction and devastation to overwhelm a metropolitan area of 6 million residents.

Imagine Mississippi-type damage from Miami to West Palm Beach with New Orleans-type desperation and disorder, and you get the idea.

"No power. No water or sewage system. No communications," Carper said. "In Broward alone, we'd be looking at 250,000 to 300,000 houses and condominium units destroyed."

Carper said large-scale disaster planning is based on a simple premise: "Locals try to hold the line for 24 to 72 hours until other resources can get in. ... Anything this big is a national emergency and requires national systems of response."

If this is how federal disaster agencies handled a scenario that planners had long identified and warned about, how will they deal with a surprise?

People were going to die in a catastrophe like Katrina no matter what. But the federal government's flat-footed, incompetent and utterly indifferent response in the critical days after the storm made a terrible situation worse.

President Bush finally made a speech befitting the situation's gravity on Saturday, about four days too late. That he didn't snap himself or the nation's resources to full attention sooner will not be judged kindly by history.

Bush didn't alter his vacation schedule for the first two days of the crisis, and he trusted the overwhelmed dunces at the Federal Emergency Management Agency to run the show.

"In events like this, you have to think outside the box," Carper said. "You have to think big. It takes national leadership to get it done."

A crisis this devastating called for bold action, creative thinking and immediate results. Instead it's a second-guesser's delight.

Instead of launching much earlier in the week the Berlin Airlift-type operation now seen at the New Orleans airport, FEMA started by sending in old yellow school buses for evacuees.

The head-scratching incidents keep piling up.

According to the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley offered city resources to FEMA before the storm struck but was rebuffed, save for one tanker truck.

According to the New Orleans Times-Picayune Web site, the national Forest Service offered fire-fighting planes to help fight blazes that had broken out in New Orleans, but they remained at their Missouri base Friday because the Department of Homeland Security didn't authorize their use.

Carper couldn't believe the images he saw from New Orleans, but he also was astonished by some of the things he heard as the crisis unfolded.

"When I heard they didn't dispatch those military ships [from Virginia] until after the storm, I said to myself, `Why didn't they have them moving before the storm got there?'" Carper said. "Were they being self-delusional and just thinking it wouldn't be that bad?"

When he saw the storm move east early Monday, Carper told his staff, "This is bad."

He knew it meant the winds would whip from north to south in New Orleans, pushing Lake Pontchartrain over a levee system that might fail.

"I've seen that model time and time again," he said. "I figured if I was aware of it, the federal authorities certainly should be."

U.S. Coast Guard helicopter crews did amazing work in the storm's immediate aftermath, rescuing more than 4,000 flooded residents from roofs. Almost everything else left much to be desired.

With tens of thousands stranded and starving in New Orleans, with people dying in streets, homes and hospitals, with social order completely breaking down in the middle of the week, Bush was strangely detached and tone-deaf.

On Wednesday he took a look-see from Air Force One as he flew back from vacation.

On Thursday he spoke about shipments of ice and federal funds.

On Friday, he toured the region and spoke about his party nights in New Orleans.

It wasn't until Saturday that he seemed to grasp the task at hand, ordering a large contingent of active-duty military units onto the scene.

Last week's nadir came when FEMA head Michael Brown said he didn't know that 15,000 people were stranded at the New Orleans convention center, learning about the situation from media reports.

At 7 p.m. Thursday, he told NBC "we'll move heaven and Earth" to bring help.

It took almost 17 hours for a convoy of National Guard vehicles to get there with provisions.

The United States likes to think of itself as the most powerful, advanced and prosperous nation on Earth.

The past week showed the empire has no clothes.

All of us, especially those in cities prone to natural disasters or terrorist strikes, should be shuddering.