The Tempest -- A Not So Brave New World

I had not intended to blog Katrina, on the grounds that nothing I could write would add to the tremendous job being done by TV News. I simply settled for pointing my readers to a few sites that were compiling links to charities, breaking stories, etc. But the story that is emerging is so consequential, so emotionally involving, so revealing, so overwhelming that I cannot let it pass without comment.

A few observations:

New Orleans as Mogadishu

The breakdown of social control is total. The mayor is manifestly incompetent, swinging wildly from hysteria to fatalism. The governor is clearly in over her head. Nobody has emerged to speak with authority on anything. It is situations like this that make me aware of what a marvelous blessing Rudy Giuliani was to New York during the 9/11 crisis.

Gangs are running rampant, moving from looting to shooting. They were firing on relief helicopters, on convoys, on victims, on the police and National Guard. Things rapidly became so dangerous that relief workers refused to enter parts of the town, bus drivers simply parked their vehicles and refused to move. Police disappeared. Some precincts were operating on 40% manpower. There were reports this morning that hundreds of police officers simply handed in their badges and refused to go out. Last night one of the cable stations [FOX I believe] had a report from a reporter who had been taken off the streets by the police because it was too dangerous out there. The police had barricaded themselves inside the precinct house, placed snipers on the roof to fend of an expected assault, and settled down to wait out the night making no attempt to impose order. It was just like a scene out of Carpenter's "Fort Apache: The Bronx". FOX just reported a woman who asked a policeman for assistance and received the reply, "Go to Hell! It's every man for himself." Clearly the gangs have taken over much of the city and the local authorities are powerless to do anything about it. Desperate property owners have armed themselves and are shooting refugees as looters. FOX this morning reported major explosions along the waterfront, the arrival of National Guard troops, fresh from Iraq, who had "shoot to kill" orders.

How could this happen? Part of the problem is a corrupt tradition of local and state governments extending back over a century; perhaps the worst in the nation. Centuries of corruption and patronage politics have produced rampant incompetence at all levels of government. This is complicated by a long history of racial antagonism and intolerance that has bred instinctive mistrust between the city's white elite and its majority black population. Both the incompetence and the antagonism are prominently on display in the city today, and more and more New Orleans is coming to look like Mogadishu.

More in a few minutes...,

The Joy of SUV Ownership:

Douglas Brinkley, the Tulane historian and Kerryite, was interviewed by Larry King on CNN. An interesting tidbit. Brinkley escaped the city because he had an SUV and was able to go off road, driving along the tops of the levees until he got to the interstate. You see, folks, even urbanites can have use for these wonderful machines. Things like this remind us that urbanites can survive only because of the operation of almost infinitely complex support systems and, as my ole pappy used to say "the more complicated it is, the more likely it is to break down." What we're seeing in New Orleans is the simultaneous collapse of several mutually dependent complex systems.

More later....

Faith-Based Relief

The incompetence of the large bureaucratic relief organizations stands in stark contrast to the effectiveness of faith-based charities, like the Salvation Army, which were on the scene quickly dispensing aid. The weakness of both the religious and secular systems was on display as well as their relative strengths. The faith-based organizations were able to respond quickly, but did not command sufficient resources to deal with catastrophe on the scale of what we're seeing in the Crescent City [the Salvation Army, for instance, was only able to dispense 1,2oo meals a day. By contrast the large bureaucratic secular institutions could command massive resources but could only respond slowly, through regularized procedures that were inadequate to the task facing them here. Both failed the people of the Gulf Coast, but in different ways.

More later....

FEMA in the Crosshairs:

Terry Ebbert [New Orleans Emergency Services Director] has called FEMA's response a "national disgrace."

John Copenhaver, former FEMA regional director, agrees on MSNBC.

Joe Allbaugh, former FEMA director is also highly critical of the current FEMA leadership [in the Washington Times, here]

NBC reports that Bush is "livid" over FEMA's incompetence. On TV he has just declared the reponse so far "unacceptable." Chertoff is standing beside him looking very, very uncomfortable.

The anger is palpable at all levels from the President down. Heads are going to roll, and roll, and roll.

A Vision of Hell

And for a sense of what people are feeling in New Orleans, there are these flashes from an LAT column:

The crowd was frantic — pushing to the front, people holding up babies, shirtless young men sitting on the shoulders of other young men. People were really angry. Clouds of cigarette smoke filled the air. It was hot and humid — people were waving cardboard pieces to fan themselves. A baby walked over broken glass.
....
A 20- year old woman collapsed.... Jason Martell, a Louisiana state trooper who carried her away, said the woman died in his arms. Martell said the woman was diabetic and had not eaten for three days. "She was like Jello when I picked her up," Martell said. He carried her about 150 yards, her eyes fluttered, her pulse disappeared, and she was gone.
....
Women are crying. A shirtless man, supported by people on either side of him, has foam coming out of his mouth.
....
It smells of garbage, of decay, of urine.
....
"You've got people stabbing each other, killing each other," said Foster, 35. "They're raiding the malls. Old people are dying of heat exhaustion. There's no medical attention. They haven't been telling us anything.

"I don't want to die," he said.
....
Inside the doors to the shopping center, a group of Louisiana State troopers huddled, planning for the worst. "If we leave, they are going to take the hotel over," said Trooper Michael Mallett. Another trooper, in an argument with a Homeland Security official who came by, said, "I won't put my life in danger," he said. "I don't care who you are… we have to get out of here."

Read the whole thing here.

A Bit of Good News

CNN is reporting that Fats Domino has survived. Ol' Antoine is gonna be OK! [here]

Overview:

A terrific satellite photo of the devastation [hat tip Byron York] here. [warning -- BIG file]

The Cavalry Arrives:

National Guard troops arrive in New Orleans and begin to deploy. There are reports of gun battles between troops and gangs. This looks to be a turning point. The military is taking charge. Guarded by soldiers the relief supplies are finally being delivered. Lt. General Carl Strock was just on C-Span outlining the plans for relief and reconstruction [reconstruction!!!]. The fire department is still ineffective and the police continue to cower in their stations and be pinned down by snipers, but the coast guard is doing a lot of good in the waterfront areas. Here's the important point -- Americans now look to the military for safety and security not just abroad but in their homes and cities. Just think how much perceptions have changed since the 1970's. The left's mistrust of the military is rapidly marginalizing them as we see time and again soldiers doing good and doing so effectively. This confidence in our men and women who wear the uniform was the default position for our culture prior to Vietnam. It is good to see it returning.