New Orleans Responsibility
A lot of people have been pointing to this picture as evidence that the mayor is responsible for there still being people in New Orleans, and thus somehow exonerating the federal government:
Here’s my problem with that.
First, a lot of the people who stayed simply didn’t want to leave. Even today, people don’t want to leave. Even if there had been a bus at their front door, they wouldn’t have left. Some would have, true, the people who wanted to leave but had no way to, but this wouldn’t have been the absolute cure that some people seem to think it is.
And second, what if the levees had broken with no warning? For example, what if evildoers had blown the levees. Then you wouldn’t have had the opportunity to do an orderly evacuation, and you would have had a lot more people stranded in the city.
There should have been a plan for this. It’s FEMA’s job to plan for this, and to execute the plan when required. FEMA obviously failed pretty badly. Everybody acknowledges this but the government itself, which seems to think he’s doing a fine job. Infact, judging from this story, Michael Brown was promoted out of the bad job he was doing.
I don’t understand how anybody can defend the federal government’s response to Katrina.