Changing the Subject? Maybe Not Quite Yet . . .

Yeah, I'll post about some other things soon, but the Louisiana/Mississippi devastation is just so huge that it keeps pushing itself back into the conversation. Before I go on to other thoughts, here a couple more things still on the topic.

Every blogger and his brother is linking to this piece by Will Bunch in yesterday's Editor & Publisher, so who am I to stand in the way of a groundswell? Here are a couple of excerpts:

When flooding from a massive rainstorm in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA.

Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside.

Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security--coming at the same time as federal tax cuts--was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.

and

The Newhouse News Service article published Tuesday night observed, "The Louisiana congressional delegation urged Congress earlier this year to dedicate a stream of federal money to Louisiana's coast, only to be opposed by the White House. . . . In its budget, the Bush administration proposed a significant reduction in funding for southeast Louisiana's chief hurricane protection project. Bush proposed $10.4 million, a sixth of what local officials say they need."

We can all easily say the response to this crisis wasn't what we'd've wished for, but I don't really know anybody who has the expertise to say what should have been done better. Fortunately, in an article for Knight Ridder yesterday, Seth Borenstein talked to some people who do:

In interviews on Wednesday, several men and women who've led relief efforts for dozens of killer hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes over the years chastised current disaster leaders for forgetting the simple Boy Scout motto: Be Prepared.

Several disaster experts, including former FEMA director James Lee Witt, explain the planning that should have been undertaken and the preparations that should have been in place.