1454 The debate/blame is just starting

Is this a natural disaster or a man-made [i.e. Bush] disaster is just one of the debates starting up (the blame-Bush wing got a head start). I've been looking through the environmental documents and recommendations, and it seems to be a given that what the Corps of Engineers did in the 1960s to divert and control the Mississippi River was a huge mistake. Since we can't dig those guys up and whack them, I'm not surprised at some scepticism at experts wanting more millions to fix the wetlands that have been destroyed by that action. It seems to be a given that corruption in Louisiana was so rampant that the millions or billions sunk into the levees for a category 3 hurricane [the recommendations] might as well have been dropped directly on the water. The corruption and crime in the area seems to transcend both parties and washes across both sides of the aisle.

But there was one tiny tidbit of information I noticed last night in an interview with Steve Harvey, a Christian actor who has a foundation to help the poor and had arrived on scene to survey the situation before sending aid. The reporter asked him who he'd been talking with (seems to be a common question to ask celebrities), and he mentioned a man who had chosen to stay with his home during the hurricane. After it had passed and the family left the house (on dry ground) to survey the damage, he saw two grain barges had broken loose and they smashed through the levee wall. Immediately (he lived next to the levee) the neighborhood was up to their rooftops in water. His wife was in a wheelchair and he was unable to save her and other members of his family.

So if a hurricane wave or wind pushes a barge through an inadequate levee, is it part of a natural or a man-made disaster?

Another disaster, this one more man-made, is the sea of rules and regulations each agency worker, volunteer and victim must swim through. I heard one interview where Red Cross workers did not have the authority to give people dry clothes, diapers and medications, so they weren't. I heard that Wal-Mart was giving each flooded out employee (I think they have over 100 stores and distribution centers closed) three days wages and a $250 food benefit, and I'm willing to bet that it will be docked from their government unemployment benefits, when and if they work through that maze without ID or evidence. There were "police" from one parish keeping people from leaving the convention center area (that's what some of the flooded out people said who were trying to walk out to another parish after days of no buses). Bus drivers headed to a particular evacuee destination 8 or 9 hours away were not allowed by local police to drop people off in cities where they had relatives because their centers were full.

When fear of government regulations drowns out common sense, I think I'll name it "man-made."