The Ehrlich Report
Katrina–The Lessons Learned, So Far


It has been a week since Katarina’s fearsome appearance, and doubtless we have more to learn. But this is a teachable moment and I want to take advantage of it. There are 10 lessons I can discern some more obvious than others. Most point to the political failures of the various layers of government and the ineptitude of those so-called emergency managers

My first observations, however, are not about government. More to the point: they reflect the failure of centralized government. I sat in on a meeting of about 12 people–committed, dedicated, and fully aware how to participate in a goal-directed meeting. In two hours they had organized themselves into a task force that was to go out and procure kids backpacks fully stocked with school and recreational supplies. They were hoping for 2.000 backpacks and had already made arrangements for the donation of the use of a truck. This was Sunday night. The truck left with its cargo on Wednesday.

Take some other cases: The director of a private school gave away cartons of relatively new textbooks, school supplies, and recreational materials. “I can always buy more,” she told me. Move-On, the liberal-leftist website, received donations of 150,000 beds. The stories of people mobilizing themselves without grandstanding and in ways that were clearly functional are all over the world wide web. Its significance, and count this as lesson one, is that we are capable of realizing an anarchist dream: citizens organizing themselves to provide care and mutual aid for each other.

Lesson two. There is a conceit of “civilization,” at least in Western culture. We really do believe not only that we can dominate the natural environment but that somehow we have a right to do so. We should have learned, and maybe some people did, that we need to locate and scale our cities to human and environmentally sound dimensions.

Lesson three. Katrina’s “real name” is global warming as the environmental writer Ross Gelbspan pointed out in the Boston Globe. He reminded us that 2005 began with a two-foot snowfall in Los Angeles, that water levels in the American Midwest and in Spain and Portugal are at record lows, that a lethal heatwave struck Arizona killing 20 people in one week, and that Mumbai was inundated by 37 inches of rain in a single day. The death toll was 1,000 while 20 million people’s lives were disrupted. These events, like Katrina, have their severity as a consequence of global warming.

Lesson four. Our systems of emergency response and rescue are amazingly inept. We saw in the twin towers destruction in New York that the rescuers were exposed to a mixture of toxic materials endangering their lives in some cases, and their continuing ill health in others. We saw in New Orleans that many of the “rescuers” did not know what to do. The USS Bataan loaded with beds and medical supplies stood offshore for days waiting for orders.

Cuba, recently saluted by the United Nations for its ability to respond to a major hurricane (level five, same as Katrina) modeled for the world how to deal with such natural disasters. There were more than 1.5 million Cubans affected and 20,000 homes destroyed, but not a single person lost their life as a consequence. People were not herded into stadia, and rescue shelters were staffed by healthcare personnel and the necessary medical and food supplies were available. The affected Cuban population, by the way, was more than double the size of New Orleans and Baton Rouge.

Lesson five. The political elite has no heart. One of the more bizarre justifications of slavery that racialists used to put forward was that slavery provided the “Negroes” with food and a roof over their heads. The meaning was clear: slaves were better off under slavery than if they had remained in their home countries. Doubtless, the former first lady Bush, the Shrub’s mother, would agree. Commenting on the evacuation of people to the Astrodome, Lady Bush declared that “This was working out very well for them.” After all, she said, “ they were underprivileged anyway.”
The President did cut his vacation short (He has actually spent almost one full year of his term on vacation.) He then flew over New Orleans on his way back to Washington. The Vice-President, obviously more disciplined, did not interrupt his vacation, returning on September 6. As Congress went back in session, Bill Frist, the Senate Majority Leader, placed as the first item on the agenda the repeal of the estate tax. It is important, after all, to keep our priorities clear

Lesson six. Crises that shake the community invariably precipitate an underlying racism. Racism is bubbling beneath the roily mix of sewage, oil, and toxic chemicals in the waterways of New Orleans. To be poor and black increased the likelihood of being left behind. In terms of housing it also meant a greater likelihood of living in more environmentally vulnerable areas, that is, close to a levee, or toxic waste site.

Lesson seven. Capitalism is based on exploitation. Hurricane Andrew which hit Florida several years ago exposed the fact that many of the home builders, contrary to the building code, did not use the proper strapping for their roofs. The result was the destruction of countless homes as a consequence of their roofs being blown away. Then, to build on the corruption, the prices of plywood and related building materials skyrocketed. Katrina turned out to be the goose that laid the golden eggs. Gasoline reached record high prices. These price increases, I submit, had less to do with mysterious “market forces” and much to do with the institutional, built-in exploitative operation of the capitalist system. As of this writing, the US average price increase was 46 cents a gallon, and Americans spent $10 billion more over the week on energy than they did a year ago in the same week. ExxonMobil alone has been grossing $4.5 million every hour.

Lesson eight. Centralized, bureaucratic organizations cannot deal effectively with unanticipated and catastrophic events. People have hearts and souls; bureaucrats have rules and regulations. Firstly, bureaucracies try to treat everyone the same, (“If I do it for you, I’ll have to do it for everyone else”). This may work in routine situations, although I doubt that’s so, but it certainly is ineffective in crises. Secondly, it is the nature of bureaucrats to deny responsibility for their actions (Just doing my job,” “waiting for orders”).

Lesson nine. Help is political. You might think that in such a desolating event a helping hand would be most welcome, and for most people this would be true. But for the regime of Bush and Cheney only the politically correct may help. Cuban President Fidel Castro offered to send to Houston 1,586 disaster-trained physicians along with 26 tons of medical supplies. The White House rejected this generous offer. Similarly, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez offered cheap gasoline and humanitarian supplies Because of their proximity, both countries could have provided their assistance in a matter of hours. But both countries have a socialist president. Their politics are clearly more important than helping people in need.

Lesson ten. Leadership in America —corporate or government—is in most instances incompetent. Most Americans know this, but they don’t want to believe it. Whether it is a gaggle of corporate comptrollers fictionalizing their accounts; auto makers producing giant gas guzzlers; airlines flying people in unlikely directions in order to fill their hubs; defense industries making armored vests that can’t stop bullets; or the $100 billion in food wasted annually while millions of people starve. Sure, there are lots of people of competence, but their presence in high levels of government and industry is slight while the myth of American “know how” persists. What we have collectively been unable to comprehend is that we don’t need more leaders, we need fewer followers.

Just as a grim aside, we seem as unprepared for a likely flu pandemic as we were for the hurricane in New Orleans. .The irony is that Americans spend more per person for health care than anywhere else in the world.

For me, the signal event of FEMA’s incompetency (and good lord, there are many) was the plane load of persons being evacuated who were to be flown to a waiting assembly of helpers in Charleston, South Carolina. The plane, however, landed in Charles Town, West Virginia.

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