Taking action

Lack of responsibility drives me nuts, as does agendas over sanity.

1) People chose not to stock up on water/supplies despite numerous warnings; but their lack of planning/supplies are someone else’s fault. (Later that was an excuse to pillage). I realize these people don’t have as much as the average American, but our poor are the richest poor in the world. Most have Television and VCR’s as well as brand name apparel, so you can’t convince the rational that they couldn’t afford a few days supplies if they really wanted to?

2) People were told to leave (evacuate), many times — before and after the hurricane. They didn’t. But that’s someone else’s fault? I realize no one wants to walk, but it’s less than a 2 day walk (max) to Gulfport or Baton Rouge — not counting towns in between.

3) People were told if they did stay, to take refuge at either the Superdome or Convention center. They didn’t. Many that did, were bussed out. The others were scattered, and chose different places around the city to squat as makeshift refugee camps (ignoring advice to leave, or at least where to pool), then they got mad that people didn’t come and find them (after they refused to follow directions), and they were helped later than people that did follow directions.

4) Some people in the city looted, shot at rescue workers, raped, murdered, and did everything but help. Then the community gets mad that rescue workers were reticent to come to the aid of the community or were slowed in their efforts, or scared to stop bad acts (when they were outnumbered). What about the anger at self/community? Always someone else’s fault.

5) The mayor failed to have reasonable emergency plans for his city in case of emergency, despite the fact that this was the most foreseeable kind of catastrophe. He’s on the air blasting the federal government for what the city government should have planned for. They didn’t have any plans to evacuate people with busses, or any plans on where they should go (or with other communities on where to take them)? Not his fault?

6) It takes one day to get military into the area. The city and state has the right to appeal for that help. The mayor finally pleaded for federate help on Thursday night; by Friday morning they were in there. He blasted them because they hadn’t acted sooner. What about him? Why didn’t he ask/act sooner? Always someone else’s fault. The Fed acted quickly, once asked. FEMA and private agencies were there, ready to coordinate, help — but they had nothing TOO coordinate because the city/state had no plans.

7) The mayor+governor are blaming the president, why? Because they didn’t have plans and failed to coordinate rescue attempts, and do their job. Where was their plan to house people. Why didn’t they call out the national guard sooner and have them in there. (Why wait for the federal government). Why didn’t they bus people to convention centers around the state or other facilities? Why didn’t they work with the media and charities to figure out emergency housing?

8) Law enforcement officers are mad because they didn’t have contingency plans and supplies for themselves? Are they serious? Isn’t it their job to plan for these events? They blame government because the looters had picked dry the wallmarts and other stores, so they didn’t have supplies for themselves. Or they didn’t have adequate communications? Hello? They are the fricken government. What is their job again?

9) The Community, City, State and Fed (in that order) failed to build an adequate levy system; which is why it broke. Why are we blaming the federal government first? 13 years ago I went to New Orleans and talked about the problems then — they were saying it is a matter of time before they are underwater, again. (This has happened plenty of times before). No surprise, other than how incompetent bureaucracy can be. But remember the chain of responsibility goes bottom up; you, your community, your city, your state, your federal government, then the world community — not the other way around.

Look, there are many that are elderly and handicapped, and there’s little they could do. But that doesn’t explain the rest; they ignored directions, made the problems worse, and did what they’ve been trained their entire lives to do — blame someone else. Notice other areas hit hard reacted much quicker than New Orleans. Look at Houston Texas and how fast they helped; they’d planned. And so on.

As a society, we should look at the problems; but not ignore ones out of political correctness or sympathy. People are blaming the problem on race. But Gulfport, Baton Rouge, Houston aren’t exactly all white either; the difference is they were a more competent community, with more competent leadership, and took more personal responsibility. The same with many Florida or other southern communities that have been hit. So let’s ignore the idiots with megaphones and agendas; they aren’t worth our time or attention. Money mattered far more than race, planning mattered far more than race, and the failure was local — and the local government was mostly black. Hurricanes don’t pick on just poor blacks. But communities that don’t plan or govern well, will be bit harder, no matter their color; the race card does little to guilt mother nature. There were failures at many levels; but as always, it started at the personal, and kept going up. The community failed. The city failed. The state failed. Lastly the federal government failed. That wasn’t because of race. Those that are finger pointing up the chain, are ignoring their failures first. We shouldn’t.

We should also look deeper and at the philosophy that caused the failures. Many were trained to be dependent on government or others; so they did exactly that. And it cost them. They expected other to do their jobs for them. They made excuses for becoming lawless, and and got mad that they were able to overwhelm a system in crisis. If you were suckered with the attitude that it was the federal governments problem first (instead of local or individual), you got a huge life-lesson. Those that knew that with freedom and authority comes responsibility, and the responsibility to act on their own, did much better than those who didn’t.

Conclusion

Every event is a learning opportunity. There are no mistakes, only lessons. A lesson is repeated until learned. Growth is a process of this trial and error. So what can we learn? (This isn’t a game of pointing the finger at “them”, it is an opportunity to learn as individuals and a society from the events). We can learn that many people with agendas will come out of the woodwork, and they should be ignored (they distract from the real issues). And learn that there are a few bad people that believe in taking from others, and they create problems and make others worse; the quicker and firmer you come down on them, the better it is for the rest of us. And most importantly, that people that plan poorly or expect others to do for them what they won’t do for themselves are playing a high risk game of chicken — sadly, many of them paid a high price this time. So in the future we should plan for more contingencies, and when in “events”, we should act more and sit around blaming others less.

The good news is the people have stepped up. The healthcare workers in New Orleans did heroic efforts to help others. Their sacrifice brings tears to my eye’s. Houston stepped up big time. Thank you for showing what a competent city/state government and community can do. (If a couple more cities had done equally as much as Houston did, most of the post catastrophe catastrophe would have been minimized). All the aid agencies that helped. All the private charities and companies and individuals that helped. Foreign countries tried to help. Even websites and their owners. Our military (national guard) is making things much better, and helping. This is still a story of not only what failed, but how fundamentally good people are, and how many tried and have helped. And they succeeded when they didn’t think it was someone else’s problem, or that a new tax would fix things, or that a regulation would make things better — it got better because they, as individuals (or groups of individuals), decided they would take PERSONAL responsibility to act and try to do something, not just sit around blaming others for not doing enough.