Big George got on all the networks last night and outlined his hurricane Katrina recovery plan. All I can say is, timely!

Well, there’s a bunch more that I can say.

• Where was Bush’s plan last year when the fourth hurricane tore through Florida? Where was his national address? Hell, his brother’s the governor! That has to count for something. I’m not trying to play disaster one-ups here, but it cracks me up how all the political types are doing their best to hide their collosal screw-up. Let’s see: 80% of New Orleans sits below sea level. Katrina was by no means a small hurricane, in fact it was a pretty nasty one. That’s not hindsight – category 4 hurricanes are nothing to sneeze at. Anything higher than cat. 2 can get pretty ugly in cities above sea level. Sure, there were levees all around the city, and people keep talking about how they failed. When will people realize that nature always finds a way to make them look stupid? Now, we have a blowhard mayor & governor bitching about pitiful evacuation efforts when it was their responsibility to evacuate the city. We have a FEMA chair trying to overcompensate for his lack of preparedness. Finally, a president trying to make people forget his “You’re doing a heck of a job, Brownie” quote about a guy he just asked to step aside a week after said quote was uttered.
• Halliburton. Is anyone surprised they’re the first tapped to help in clean-up? Me either. Remember the Manchurian Candidate? The remake? The idea of the corporate-owned President? We’re getting there. We’re one office short of the prize.
• Vict-efu-vacuees. Man, the language police are out in force. Personally, I don’t think most of the people sitting in the Astrodome or elsewhere really care if their called victims, refugees, evacuees or trees. Personally, I’ve never understood how someone can be a victim of nature. It’s like being a victim of gravity. Refugee is certainly the wrong word because these people aren’t persecuted, they’re homeless. Seems like evacuee is the right word.
• Am I the only person wondering if Bush is going to fly into New Orleans’ airport and give a woefully optimistic speech in front of a ‘Mission Accomplished’ banner long before the mission is actually accomplished?
• In his speech last night, Bush called for a disaster review of US cities. I really hope that goes better than Homeland Security has. Perhaps we’ll have a color-alert for cities. Will Florida be in the orage between August and November every year? Will it jump to double red on July 4 because terrorists and natural disasters like to attack during national holidays?
• I wonder if Biloxi and the rest of the Gulf coast that isn’t New Orleans feels kind of like DC after 9/11 – a little bit forgotten. Not that New Orleans wasn’t bad, but I guess it’s hard for me to be as shocked as others are. There was a very large number of poor & homeless people (who aren’t as mobile as others) living in a coastal city that is 80% below sea level. 80% people! Levees or not, a cat. 3 or 4 hurricane is going to be ugly. It’s a fact. Short of a direct hit, New Orleans couldn’t have gotten it any worse. Those east of NO got the direct hit. In those areas – most of which are above sea level – whole towns were virtually levelled. It looks like pictures of the old Galveston hurricane or Hiroshima where you see one or two buildings standing in the middle of vast expanses of rubble & debris.

Considering the experience the southeastern portion of this country has with hurricanes, the only thing that amazes me about New Orleans is the lack of preparation. When Florida got thrashed last year, power trucks from as far away as Ohio were staged in Georgia before the hurricane even hit. National Guard units were put on alert all over – not just in Florida. As soon as the weather cleared up, the trucks moved into the state and started coordinating with Florida Power. After last year’s hurricane season, I wonder if Mayor Nagin even called Jeb Bush for a few pointers on hurricane preparation.

Preparation gets clean-up crews to people quickly. Getting people on the scene quickly calms the locals down because they see the effort going into clean-up. Of course there was rioting and looting in New Orleans, thousands of people crammed into a stadium and convention center saw nobody but the press. No power trucks from Ohio, no National Guard, no Police, no Red Cross. Nothing! After a few days, people started thinking nobody cared about them. Most of these people were poor and/or homeless before the storm, so they were already a disenfranchised bunch. Is it any wonder things quickly got out of hand?

Bush, Nagin, Blanco & Brown? Screwed. The. Pooch.