Friday, March 03, 2006

Hindsight is Bi-Partisan

Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf coast almost 6 months ago, yet the finger-pointing continues in full force. Recently a tape was released by the Associated Press which showed President Bush in a meeting with top officials discussing the hurricane prior to its landfall. This tape once again gives Democrats and the media more ammo to simply blame the whole thing on Bush. But yesterday a tape surfaced showing the failures at the state level when Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco said that the levees were not breeched the morning after the storm hit. And there is no doubt in anyones mind that New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin failed to properly get people out of the city in the days before Katrina, even leaving dozens of school buses that were to be used to evacuate citizens idle allowing many to be stranded after the waters began to rise. All that I am sayin here is that these tapes are not anything Americans didnt know 5 months ago. We need to get past this political bickering and implement plans of action in case a disaster like this happens again. Few remember that a strong hurricane (Rita) hit the Texas coast shortly after Katrina, but because the proper measures were taken and people got out as they should, it is mostly forgotten. New Orleans was a sitting duck. Im from Cleveland, and I know that NO is under sea level, so when a category 5 hurricane is barreling toward a city that sits below the sea surrounding it, it aint' good.
Everyone is to blame for what happened, from the President to the Governor to the Mayor and even the people who could have gotten out that didnt. But we are months beyond the blame game, we should do ourselves, and especially those of us who live on the ocean, a favor by cutting out the politics to be assured that what happened in New Orleans is never repeated.

By the way, the 2006 hurricane season starts June 1st.

See the Tape of Gov. Blanco here

-Brad

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