[Mb-civic] It's Your Failure, Too, Mr. Bush - Eugene Robinson - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

It's Your Failure, Too, Mr. Bush

By Eugene Robinson
Tuesday, September 6, 2005; Page A25

BATON ROUGE -- After a tragically incompetent beginning, the effort to 
give urgent care to the multitudes from New Orleans whose homes and 
livelihoods have been obliterated is finally in high gear. The problem 
now is that nobody knows where it's headed.

At the top, things are still hopeless. Federal, local and state 
officials who perform for the cameras here at the Louisiana State Police 
complex, headquarters for the relief effort, still spend an 
unconscionable amount of time debating who's in charge. Is the president 
the ultimate authority, or is it Blanco, Nagin, Chertoff, Brown or the 
generals? The answer seems to vary from hour to hour, depending on who's 
holding court in the hot, stuffy briefing room or outside on the 
portico, where visiting luminaries get mobbed by microphones.

Fortunately, the finger-pointing follies don't matter much on the ground 
and in the water. Military, police and civilian relief units did what 
had to be done and emptied the New Orleans basin of Hurricane Katrina's 
bereft survivors. They are being fed, sheltered and clothed. They can't 
be described as alive and well, but they're alive.

Now what?

Hundreds of thousands of evacuees are scattered around Louisiana and 
neighboring states in a sudden diaspora, and no one seems to have any 
idea what to do with them next. The evacuees bristle at the word 
"refugees," which makes them sound as if they don't belong in this 
country. But whatever you call them, they won't be able to go back home 
-- and won't have a home to go back to -- for months or even years.

Baton Rouge, perhaps the best example, has swollen like the Mississippi 
River in an epic flood. The people here have been generous and 
good-natured to a fault. Down by the river, at the convention center, 
the Red Cross is housing about 5,000 evacuees; another big shelter is 
being opened across town, and smaller shelters are being organized every 
day, many by local churches. It's impossible to count the families who 
have opened their homes to relatives, friends or needy strangers.

Every city and town in Louisiana that wasn't blasted by the hurricane is 
full of evacuees. Then there are the tens of thousands in Texas and the 
multitudes scattered across neighboring states. Their host communities 
have the best of intentions, but many won't be able to stand the added 
drain on resources indefinitely. Where will these people go? Why wasn't 
there a plan?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/05/AR2005090501035.html
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