There is a House in New Orleans

I was thinking about all of the songs about New Orleans after the destruction of Hurricane Katrina. House of the Rising Sun by The Animals and City of New Orleans, written by Steve Goodman and made famous by Arlo Guthrie were the first two to come to mind. Of course, anything that talks about placing blame or abdicating responsibility would have fit, too, but I couldn't come up with any off the top of my head. I keep reading about how it is the President's fault or Homeland Security's fault or the National Guard's fault. Why did it take a call from Governor Blanco pleading with Mayor Ray Nagin three days before the levees broke to evacuate people from the city? He was asked on at least two occasions to evacuate and no one called for the buses until the city was already under water. Most officials will say that the immediate actions in case of a municipal emergency are the responsibility of the local government. What is the escape plan? How will you notify people of the state of emergency? I don't recall Rudy Guliani swearing at the federal government in the wake of 9/11. He took action and rallied the necessary personnel, even though his city lost more than 300 firefighters within hours. The solution of some is to get rid of the current administration, as if that will take care of the problem. When former President Clinton was asked about what the federal government should do about the levees around New Orleans, he said that it was a local issue, not a federal one. President Bush may have cut the Army Corp of Engineer budget for the New Orleans' area, but it wasn't scheduled to take effect until next year. No cuts were made for this year prior to the hurricane. The blame that can be placed on the federal government is the delay in which the people that were in shelters were administered to. There should have been troops moved in sooner and food, water and medications should have been made available. I think about the houses in New Orleans and the fact that there may still be people in their attics trying to make contact to be rescued. I think about the City of New Orleans and how people should have access to transportation out of the city in a timely fashion before the levees broke and New Orleans became a vast sewer of human decay. When the death toll is established and the news promotes the stories of how the government should have intervened and how they should have had an evacuation plan, ask where was the local government and what could they have done differently. The blood of New Orleans does not just dirty the hands of President Bush and branches of the federal government. It is also on the hands of Mayor Nagin and local officials who delayed the evacuation plan or didn't have an adequate plan to begin with. There is a question for mayors of all major cities, "What do we do in case of emergency?" Some say that no one could have predicted this, but people did, many years ago and again a few years ago. Some people, however, just didn't listen or perhaps they were lulled into a false sense of complacency thinking, "It won't happen to us," or "It passed us by." There will be a lot of soul-searching in the ensuing days, weeks, months and most likely in the years it will take to rebuild or re-establish The Big Easy. For an excellent point of view on the blame game, see the column by Dennis Byrne in today's Chicago Tribune.