Blame

And the Buck Stops Nowhere. The people who didn't leave the city when warned blame the President. The mayor blames everyone but himself. The Governor blames the Federal Government. Round and round she goes.

Lets see. 1st- Governor Blanco issued an evacuation order for the outlying Parishes, IE ST. Bernard more than 48 hours in advance. People didn't leave. Who's to fault here? You can figure it out.

2nd- Mayor Nagan waits until less than 24 hours before the storm to issue a mandatory evacuation order. I've said before that this wasn't smart, however, many people still didn't listen. Here the blame is probably best left split. I will admit some people may not have been able to leave. I think the numbers should have been much smaller though.

3rd and what I consider most important, you have a city that is mostly below sea level, built next to the ocean. You have documentaries and studies telling you what would happen if a Category 4 hurricane were to hit New Orleans. There is no plan in place to cover the obvious consequences of a broken levee. Who's to blame here? Lots of blame here. You could probably go back 100 years and find people to blame. Most recently it could probably be shared by the Federal, State and City Governments.

I hate to see people blaming the National guard on TV though. These guys have been working non stop since Tuesday. They have been flying out there rescuing people trapped in flooded neighborhoods again and again. Mayor Nagan wants to know where the National Guard has been. I'll tell you where. They have been either working in the case of the Air National Guard or waiting for direction from someone in charge in the case of the National Guard. Who gives these people their marching orders? I'll give you a hint, her name means white in Spanish. You guessed it in one. The Governor.

By the way, the Navy had ships in route since Wednesday, even before the State asked for it. That's another thing. When should the President have gotten involved? When Governor Blanco asked for him to, that's when. He does have the power to do it before but that is usually reserved for States whose government doesn't know what going on. Apparently President Bush misjudged Louisiana's government. Apparently he thought that they could handle this or at least ask for help.

You know what else ticks me off. Several States offered the use of their National Guard Units prior to the hurricane actually making landfall. I'm not sure what the process for this is, I do not know if the Federal Government has to get involved in this or the State can just accept the help. It didn't happen though. The only out of state units that I saw until a day ago were from the Texas Air National Guard.

I think that we can all agree that there is plenty of blame here. Instead of trying to figure out who is more to blame let's figure out what we will do to prevent this tragedy in the future. I believe we need to concentrate on building New Orleans up; Bring ground level above sea level. Second we need a plan to cope with any future contingencies. Third, a mandatory evacuation is a mandatory evacuation. Anyone who does not want to leave needs to sign a waiver of release saying that they accept full responsibility for any consequences resulting from not heeding the warning.

This may be a bit harsh. I don't mean to sound insensitive to the suffering. I'm just venting my anger at the whole situation. I hate passing blame. I think it is more productive to learn from the experience and figure out how not to repeat it. Maybe this is just a pipe dream.

My prayers are with all of the evacuees and all the families that have lost loved ones in this tragedy.