Our National Shame

On Sunday I watched President Bush lean into the camera on one elbow, smile, and tell America not to worry about Hurricane Katrina because "We are ready." As the dangerous storm bared down on the Gulf Coast, I actually felt reassured that the federal government was mobilized and prepared to take care of what all the experts said would be a catastrophic situation.

Four days later, I have never been as embarrassed to be an American.

Four days after President Bush made his statement of preparedness, people are still dying all over the south coast of our country with no help or hope in sight. People on the ground have no information about attempts to help them, where to go, or what to do. In New Orleans, dead bodies pile up next to refuse and sewage at the Superdome and convention center. People desperate for food and water are told by the mayor to leave the places where they were originally directed because there is no food, water, or help where they were originally sent. Four days later, despondent doctors at New Orleans hospitals are calling news organizations begging for help of any kind and working without supplies, food, water, electricity or security. Patients die awaiting evacuation while medical personnel hand pump air into their lungs. Police officers must siphon gas from cars to power their vehicles. The only person "in charge" at the New Orleans convention center is Harry Connick, Jr., bless his heart, with no police, FEMA or National Guard assistance. The first small air drops of food and water to the center come on the afternoon of the fourth day.

The mayor of New Orleans feels so powerless and desperate that he publicly calls out for help in a "desperate SOS" and requests troops that should already be in place. Half of those National Guard troops he needs are fighting in a foreign country where they're not wanted and where 3 years later residents don't even have enough electricity to make ice cubes. The US House of Representatives waits until Friday to convene a special session to authorize extra funding to help the situation. Speaker of the House Hastert, (R.-Ill) not only conceives, but actually voices, the idea that rebuilding New Orleans "doesn't make sense to me." Rats eat bodies still lying on the ground in Biloxi. Rescue coordination is so tenuous that Houston must turn away refugees as the buses stack up because no one bothered to count how many people the Astrodome could hold and direct buses appropriately. Four days later, only 1 Navy vessel with 6 helicopters sits off the coast. Water continues to flow into New Orleans through breached levies while the Army Corps of Engineers tries to work out a solution to a problem of which everyone has been aware for years.

Billions of our tax dollars have been spent setting up the Department of Homeland Security. Tens of billions more have been spent on the war in Iraq. Fellow citizens in our own country wonder if they will have water or a meal today, waiting for any sign of help from a federal government unprepared to assist, led by a President out of touch with the real world.