Beginning Anew

Before I go on this rant, I want it to be noted that I in no way want to discount the tragedy and horrible loss of human life and property on the Gulf Coast. I understand first hand from my own life experiences the desperation and suffering that goes with a natural disaster.

Ray Nagin, Mayor of New Orleans went on an extended and emotional rant on radio station WWL a few evenings ago. In this rant he blamed the state and federal government for not doing enough to help them. This is my response to that broadcast. It is posted here, as well as on a Broadcasting forum as a part of a discussion. It is slightly edited for context here.

BEGIN RANT

It's about time that someone stood up and took some responsiblity and quit pointing their fingers at everyone else. Local government is the first line of response, and that is where the failures began. Having lived through, or been involved in several natural disasters in the past, I can tell you that LOCAL response is the short term, with state and federal coming in for the long term.

People were warned for days that this thing was coming. The federal government provides NOAA, which has the National Hurricane Center and the National Weather service. We have sattelites, RADAR, planes, ships and other detection and forecast implements... all provided by the government. Broadcast media is licensed with a condition of PUBLIC SERVICE to disseminate this kind of information. What more can the federal government do? If they had come before the storm with military helicopters and forced people to leave their homes, the outcry would have been unreal! "How dare you force someone to leave their home"... yet now they act like George W. Bush himself should have been there holding each person's hand guiding them individually to safety.

Was the Federal response sufficient and timely? No... but with this scale disaster, how could it have been? Days before Katrina hit land the resources began to move. One person this week said it quite well.. "turning around federal resources is like turning around the titanic. It doesn't happen quickly"

But really, New Orleans should have been more prepared. They didn't learn of this tragedy just a few days ago... they learned of this many years ago. It has been known fact for decades that if NOLA took a direct hit from a big hurricane that this would happen. They may not have had a date circled on a calendar, but no one can deny that this was predictable.

Again, I don't want to be insensitive, rather I want people to snap out of it and start taking some PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY! Having an evacuation plan for the poor and handicapped of a city with the circumstances of NOLA should be a given. There should have been hundreds of busses (now all sitting underwater, ruined.. another thing my tax dollars will have to pay for) bringing people out of there starting on Friday or Saturday.

If I walk out in the street and stand in front of a fast moving 18-wheeler it's not the truck driver's fault, much less the contractor who built the road!

We have become a nation of finger pointers. No one wants to stand up and take responsibilty for their own actions or incompetence. I for one am sick and tired of hearing the talking heads on both sides screaming at one another over things that are clearly their own fault, or even worse neither side's fault!

I could go on a totally different rant inside of this rant about how it all starts because parents won't tell their children that they are not always right and teachers have stopped telling children that they failed at something, but I digress.

When will people learn that failure is a part of growth? If we would use this opportunity to learn from what went wrong on all levels, next time it might not be so bad.

END RANT