Disasters best handled close to home

October 2005




        It's like the elephant in the front room -- you just can't ignore it. You have to talk about it and so -- even though it sometimes seems like it has been talked to death -- can we dredge a few more thoughts, maybe tie up some loose ends about Katrina?

     Before we examine the trivial, let's look at the, well, political, starting at the top: What good is FEMA?

      Seriously. What good is a bloated, slow, distant federal agency when it comes to responding to local disasters? Couldn't state agencies do a better job of quickly assisting in overnight natural disasters? Couldn't one person at the state level be given authority to direct National Guard, law enforcement and emergency personnel, as well as volunteer and welfare agencies and do so with more understanding -- and more speed -- than a Washington-based bureaucracy?

Couldn't someone in the middle of the mess be better equipped to understand and respond to the needs than someone in a 14-story building in Washington, D.C.? Couldn't the money currently going to FEMA be redistributed to states (according to an easily developed actuary table on likelihood or history of natural disaster) and wouldn't the elimination of the federal oversight trim millions and losing nothing in terms of what is needed?

    OK, fine. You can still have a couple of guys in Washington -- let's call them the Office of Insurance and Disaster Dispatch -- who would still make the "disaster area" designation for funding and insurance purposes. That function is best made from a more distant, objective office. But try as I might, I can't think of another function that couldn't be handled better, more efficiently, and would be more accountable at the state level.

   I also wonder if some of the rush to rebuild New Orleans is based more on nostalgia than good sense. Even Pres. Bush got caught up in it -- holding a news conference in front of a lighted Jackson Square, declaring "New Orleans will rise again." To which I say,"Why?" Granted, I am not a Louisiana native; I'm not feeling pain to the same degree someone born and raised on crawfish and dirty rice might. But I have visited New Orleans on a couple of occasions -- conventions and such -- and I'm not so sure that throwing money at a project that will end up being the same as it was before is good government.

        Will half the city still be under sea level, for crying out loud, after billions are allocated there? Will the city still be protected by dirt levees and dikes holding back the second-largest body of sea water in the United States? (We Utahns still have claim to the largest.) Will the city still have one of the highest levels of poverty in the country? Let's solve some problems before we rush to make things just as they were. Just as they were wasn't all that great.

  I even question the nostalgia. The city was famous for purple beads and weekend wet t-shirt contests. It's finest landmark was a street named after alcohol ... and it lived up to that reputation. A cultural mecca it is not, or at least should not be. Before the Hurricane of 1900, Galveston was one of the major cities of the United States, destined to be one of, if not the, major Southern Coast city. While still an important location in the country, natural evolution caused by the hurricane brought things into balance. Maybe a hundred years from now New Orleans will be a better city because of the careful -- not haphazard and irresponsible -- rebuilding and planning that went into its reconstruction. We can only hope.

  Hurricanes such as the Galveston storm of 1900 -- still the worst natural disaster in the country's history, with more than 8,000 killed -- were unnamed, did you know? We didn't start naming hurricanes until 1953 (only women's names, remember?) and then in 1979 the list was expanded to include both genders. I assumed the list of names was endless, that any name was eligible and one of these days there might even be a Hurricane Jay. But I guess my mother is the only one that lived through Hurricane Jay, because as it turns out, there is a set six lists of names, a rotating list that bring the same names up every seven years. The only time that there is a change in the list is if a storm is so deadly or costly that the future use of its name on a different storm would be inappropriate for reasons of sensitivity. Some of the names on the list for the 2006 hurricane season include Leslie, Ernesto, Michael and Tony, but no more Katrina, no more Rita, no more Hugo.

   As is my nature, I followed closely the use of some the words frequently used during the hurricane coverage. Did you notice some of the flip-flopping by the media between "refugee" and "evacuee"? Some of the national media started out using the R-word but before it was over all had committed themselves to using only the word "evacuee" to describe displaced Southerners. And rightly so, as refugee is inaccurate, though one analysis of international media indicates that global media -- not based in the United States --  reporting on Katrina continued to use the word "refugee" throughout the crisis with varying speculation as to why. One international report I saw was kind of wild: a German newspaper suggesting that through Katrina America reaped what it had sown, blaming the disaster on years of pollution and global warming spawned by American industry.

  And check this international reporting effort out: "The Terrorist Katrina is one of the soldiers of Allah," written by a high-ranking official in the Kuwaiti Ministry of Research.

    I guess a hurricane is never just another storm.