From an e-mail I sent to Jenny earlier today. I thought it spoke for itself.
The more I see about Katrina, the more I realize this is very, very bad. It's going to hurt our country tremendously, not to mention the damage to life and property. I think things are going to get bad. It'll be hard to get gas in some areas, gas prices will continue to rise at some level in response to the shutdown of some big pieces of our infrastructure, the displacement is going to change the economics in neighboring states (and not in a good way), the health crisis in affected areas could give rise to outbreaks of cholera and typhoid fever, the loss of significant business areas and operations, the massive rollout of national guard troops in affected areas and areas which have taken on significant increases in populations and need more police manpower (there's a need for at least 40,000 additional troops [or other uniformed police-enabled personnel] in Louisiana alone), and the list goes on. Amazingly, when it made landfall, it did not occur to me how bad it was going to be. I thought it was going to be pretty bad, but not like this. There are places where the devastation is absolute — there's nothing left.
It feels almost like 9/11 again, looking at the death and destruction (bodies floating in the water and lying in the streets), but, in this case, it's so much more significant because the damage is spread over more than 90,000 square miles at last estimate (roughly the size of the UK). In this case, unlike 9/11, entire cities have been completely disabled for months to come. Very disturbing, and watching the anguish of the people in New Orleans is difficult. Wow… That's all I can say; it's amazing in the worst of ways.
In this case, it truly is like watching a train wreck in slow motion. The more time passes, the more we realize the magnitude and severity of the devastation and impact. Well, we know it was bound to happen, and they've been predicting this kind of storm in that area having that kind of impact since the early 1970s at least. It's horrible, but it's not a complete surprise. Based on history, it was due.
More and more I'm disturbed by this situation. Congress returned to Capitol Hill on a Sunday night given very short notice in order to address the Terri Schiavo situation (to pass some kind of blah-blah-blah-bill to say that the feeding tube needed to be reinserted), yet they've stayed "out of session" all week even though the hurricane hit on Monday, although there is talk of a possible return to Washington tomorrow — on Friday — to address budget concerns with FEMA's response to the hurricane and possibly to make some other mention of the devastation their constituencies have experienced.
Our federal government has failed in its obligation to the American people. Our local governments (in New Orleans, at least) have failed to provide proper disaster-recovery planning for a situation which, as I mentioned, has been predicted at minimum for decades.
And now we've engaged Bush version 1.0 and Clinton to help deliver private donations in an effort similar to their activities after the tsunami. That's something, especially given that their efforts for tsunami victims was relatively successful.
Speaking of the countries impacted by the tsunami, I am pleased to tears in announcing that the president of Sri Lanka called Bush and offered to spearhead an effort to raise support in the countries we helped following that great tragedy. It truly does move one to emotional response to know that what we did there was not unnoticed. Those countries are terribly poor, so it's highly unlikely they could make a significant financial dent in the hardship, but the mere gesture can reduce one to tears.