2140 Comparing disasters

Perhaps you saw the article in the USAToday (2-10-06) comparing the desire and speed for rebuilding after historic disasters, the Chicago fire (1871), The Galveston hurricane (1900), the San Francisco earthquake (1906), and Katrina (2005). Sometimes I talk back to the TV; sometimes I write the story under the headlines. For this one, I answered before I read it.

It's the government, stupid.

Government aid, dispensed with government incompetency first at the local (mayor Nagin), then state (governor Blanco), then federal level (FEMA), government bureaucracy and red tape at all levels (zillions of pages of laws, rules, regulations, guidelines, codicils, codes, zoning), floating in the muck of a city that should have never been built so low but propped up by government engineers and local levee boards, peopled by a citizenry held hostage through dependency on the government for housing and jobs and medical care, having all their initiative, skills and energy drained dry by the government.

Unintended consequences
Hurricane Katrina
Natural disasters
government policy failures