A few thoughts about Hurricane Katrina. In its own way, this has been as horrible as 9/11.
I haven't seen all that many links to the Salvation Army's website for Hurricane Katrina donations, so I am putting one here. The Red Cross seems to be doing fine for now in terms of fund-raising.
I heard a press conference by Sen. Trent Lott of Miss. yesterday on CSPAN radio, as I was driving home. He was asked about whether he had any criticisms of the FEMA response, and his answer was something to the effect of, 'my mama didn't raise no fools, and I am not about to be trying to bite the hand that's trying to save me.' That's not an exact quote, but close enough.
I got home, and there was President Bush on the news saying that he was going to head an investigation of the response himself, and by the way, he was going to ask for another $40 billion for disaster relief.
Those two public statements were enough to convince me that the better course would be to defer any investigation until after the rebuilding is fully underway. I doubt that the state and local officials involved are going to be willing to say everything that they know and think anyway, when their primary responsibility is going to be to get their constituents their fair share of the billions in aid that are going to be pouring forth. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has been remarkably candid so far in interviews, but I don't expect that to continue much longer. Sorry to be cynical, but Senator Trent Lott was telling it like it is, and he should know.
So we are not going to have anyone in Congress asking or answering questions like, why was building a couple of bridges to nowhere in Alaska for over $400 million more important than the New Orleans levee system? What were they thinking?
There's no point in asking those "why" questions anyway; it's just a question of who has political pull when the appropriations bill gets passed. It's an ugly and disfunctional side of our government.
Meanwhile, September is National Preparedness month, and you have to ask yourself, are you ready? You need at least three days of food and water to be ready, among other things. Washington, D.C., in particular, has to shut down if there is more than 2 inches of snow, and the road systems struggle to handle normal rush hour traffic. It will be chaos in the event of a major terrorist attack, particularly one that requires an evacuation. Another terrorist attack is coming sometime, I think everyone takes that for granted . We've already had three by my count. (9/11, the anthrax incidents, and the D.C. sniper.) I understand that if you don't live around here, you may not count the last two.
Today's Washington Post had a piece on the effect that the Katrina damages claims are going to have on the insurance industry. The bottom line is that it is going to be big, but don't panic. Hopefully there won't be any "significant" insolvencies, and besides, the public is going to pick up most of the tab. Translation: there is a financial hurricane forming for some in the insurance industry, and you'd better pay attention to it, and know which insurers are heavily at risk down there.