You’d have to think no. I understand that Katrina presents different challenges than a terrorist attack. But regardless, the length of time it took to get organized and get help there (especially given they knew the magnitude of the storm in advance) makes me think that we’re really screwed if something terrible happens to one of our major cities. Have to wonder what we’ve been doing over the past 4 years.
Interesting question…supposedly FEMA’s duties have been more tilted towards terrorism than natural disasters, which might explain some of this. Perhaps D.C. underestimated NO’s and LA’s willingness to carry out their own plans in advance, thinking that there was no way they would get caught with their pants so far down…but they were.
I think that no matter how well we might think we’re prepared for a terrorist attack, we’ll be wrong. There will be something these minds will have thought of that we will not have and therefore we won’t have a contingency for another 9/11-type deal. As you say, let’s hope the response is quicker.
You’d have to think no. I understand that Katrina presents different challenges than a terrorist attack. But regardless, the length of time it took to get organized and get help there (especially given they knew the magnitude of the storm in advance) makes me think that we’re really screwed if something terrible happens to one of our major cities. Have to wonder what we’ve been doing over the past 4 years.
Of course not.
I posed the same question earlier on a different thread, which went unanswered.
Suppose for instance that instead of the hurricane storm surge breaching the levees, that it was a truck bomb instead. Then instead of 100,000+ people left, you’d have 500,000+ (or more God forbid it was Jazzfest) drowning as Lake Pontchartrain filled up the city. I don’t see how FEMA’s response would’ve been better. And if it were better, that wouldn’t exactly bode well for their motivations here then, especially since they had table-topped this very scenario already, contrary to what Chertoff has been claiming.
I think the only difference would be that Bush wouldn’t have stopped in Biloxi to make jokes about Trent Lott’s house, or make jokes about all the drinking he’s done in New Orleans, while people were dying and rotting in the streets. That’s apparently what half the country calls strong leadership.