Maybe some good that might come out of this is that we finally face how the liberal social policies of the last four decades have kept the poor in permanent poverty.

London Telegraph (Filed: 05/09/2005)

The Superdome has finally been evacuated, and New Orleans’ remaining refugees are almost all safe. A week after initial reports suggested Katrina had blown herself out with a minimum of damage, the statistics are imprecise but staggering: some 10,000 likely dead; hundred of thousands homeless; a repair bill of many billions; and wider economic consequences which are incalculable.

With the reckoning comes the recrimination. It took far too long for supplies to reach the stranded and for troops to arrive in numbers. In the meantime, scenes of Hobbesian disorder developed. It is clear that last week was badly ill-managed. How, and why?
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The author overstates some things and is too harsh in places, but his central thesis that collapse of New Orleans was a moral failure spanning decades is on target.

The Intellectual Activist

by Robert Tracinski

It has taken four long days for state and federal officials to figure out how to deal with the disaster in New Orleans. I can’t blame them, because it has also taken me four long days to figure out what is going on there. The reason is that the events there make no sense if you think that we are confronting a natural disaster.

If this is just a natural disaster, the response for public officials is obvious: you bring in food, water, and doctors; you send transportation to evacuate refugees to temporary shelters; you send engineers to stop the flooding and rebuild the city’s infrastructure. For journalists, natural disasters also have a familiar pattern: the heroism of ordinary people pulling together to survive; the hard work and dedication of doctors, nurses, and rescue workers; the steps being taken to clean up and rebuild.

Public officials did not expect that the first thing they would have to do is to send thousands of armed troops in armored vehicle, as if they are suppressing an enemy insurgency. And journalists–myself included–did not expect that the story would not be about rain, wind, and flooding, but about rape, murder, and looting.

But this is not a natural disaster. It is a man-made disaster.
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Wall Street Opinion Journal Friday, September 2, 2005

Of all the bad news from New Orleans, the most disturbing has been the reports of spreading disorder, with looting, marauding gangs and even sniper fire at helicopters and rescue workers. Americans sometimes expect their government to do far too much–such as ensure low gasoline prices–but they do have a right to expect that it will at least provide for the safety of its citizens, even or perhaps especially in a crisis.

One reason for the New Orleans breakdown is the size of the calamity, whose growing severity caught nearly everyone by surprise. Louisiana National Guard troops that were deployed initially for rescue and relief efforts weren’t available for the more basic duties of public security. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is also geared to providing relief, not order, and only yesterday did the federal government begin to focus on the potential anarchy. Among our political leaders, only Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour seemed to appreciate the genuine risk of disorder, with his early warnings that looters would not be given the benefit of the doubt.
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