Tammy Carter, a columnist with the Orlando Sentinel, has listed who she considers as the possible leaders that have emerged in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (much like Rudy Giuliani emerged as a leader in the aftermath of 9/11).

Her choices:

• Gov. Rick Perry: "who did not hesitate to open his state to the evacuees"
•  Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore: as described by Mayor Ray Nagin, "as a ‘John Wayne dude’….He came off the doggone chopper, and he started cussing, and people started moving, Nagin said in an interview with a New Orleans radio station."
• Entertainer Harry Connick, Jr.: "While local, state and federal officials were bogged down in bureaucracy, Connick flew to his native city and personally delivered water and food to survivors."

While I agree with this list overall, it occurred to me that just being decent and doing your job or "doing the right thing", makes you into a hero or leader these days.

It was a broiling August afternoon in New Orleans, Louisiana, the Big Easy, the City That Care Forgot. Those who ventured outside moved as if they were swimming in tupelo honey. Those inside paid silent homage to the man who invented air-conditioning as they watched TV "storm teams" warn of a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing surprising there: Hurricanes in August are as much a part of life in this town as hangovers on Ash Wednesday.
 
But the next day the storm gathered steam and drew a bead on the city. As the whirling maelstrom approached the coast, more than a million people evacuated to higher ground. Some 200,000 remained, however—the car-less, the homeless, the aged and infirm, and those die-hard New Orleanians who look for any excuse to throw a party.
 
The storm hit Breton Sound with the fury of a nuclear warhead, pushing a deadly storm surge into Lake Pontchartrain. The water crept to the top of the massive berm that holds back the lake and then spilled over. Nearly 80 percent of New Orleans lies below sea level—more than eight feet below in places—so the water poured in. A liquid brown wall washed over the brick ranch homes of Gentilly, over the clapboard houses of the Ninth Ward, over the white-columned porches of the Garden District, until it raced through the bars and strip joints on Bourbon Street like the pale rider of the Apocalypse. As it reached 25 feet (eight meters) over parts of the city, people climbed onto roofs to escape it.
 
Thousands drowned in the murky brew that was soon contaminated by sewage and industrial waste. Thousands more who survived the flood later perished from dehydration and disease as they waited to be rescued. It took two months to pump the city dry, and by then the Big Easy was buried under a blanket of putrid sediment, a million people were homeless, and 50,000 were dead. It was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States.
 
When did this calamity happen? It hasn’t—yet. But the doomsday scenario is not far-fetched. The Federal Emergency Management Agency lists a hurricane strike on New Orleans as one of the most dire threats to the nation, up there with a large earthquake in California or a terrorist attack on New York City. Even the Red Cross no longer opens hurricane shelters in the city, claiming the risk to its workers is too great.

The preceding is from a National Geographic article written in October, 2004.

Former Democrat Presidential candidate and current DNC Chairman Howard Dean spoke Wednesday to the National Baptist Convention, a black religious group with roughly 3.5 million members, and it went about as well as one might expect with Mr. Dean involved. Although screams were not reported, the AP story tells us that Mr. Dean ran with the “America is racist” theme:

Race was a factor in the death toll from Hurricane Katrina, Howard Dean told members…

"We must … come to terms with the ugly truth that skin color, age and economics played a deadly role in who survived and who did not," Dean said.

Dean said Americans have a moral responsibility to not ignore the devastating damage caused by Hurricane Katrina when it struck the Gulf Coast.

Good Democrat that he is, Dean also spoke about “tax cuts for the wealthy.”

Dean said that instead of considering proposed estate tax breaks, the Senate should channel the money into disaster relief.

"Shall we give that to the wealthiest people in the country, or should we rebuild New Orleans?" Dean said.

Apparently in Howard Dean’s world racist America has been busy ignoring the post-Katrina disaster because many victims were poor and black. Evil Republicans, meanwhile, have plotted to steal money from the poor, displaced people of New Orleans and give it to rich white folks in the form of estate tax breaks.

Typical Democrat anti-tax cut rhetoric aside, Mr. Dean’s admonition against ignoring the disaster seems quite odd in the face of non-stop news and internet coverage, coupled with a huge outpouring of money, food, volunteers, and compassion for all of those affected by Katrina, regardless of race. Then again, Mr. Dean is not best known for his reasoned political rhetoric.

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More than 1,700 students displaced by Hurricane Katrina will begin classes today:

About 300 students who have taken shelter at Reliant Park or the George R. Brown Convention Center registered for school on Wednesday. Nearly 1,500 other students displaced by the hurricane had enrolled from other locations at schools throughout the district.

Students from Reliant Park will attend classes at Douglass Elementary, Fleming Middle School and Jones High School.

Students staying at the George R. Brown Convention Center will attend Ryan Elementary, Black Middle School and Scarborough high School.

HISD officials said they would continue to take in students as needed.

For more information on registering a displaced student at an HISD school, call (713) 892-6699.

To handle the influx of new pupils, HISD is hiring:

The Houston school district expects to hire dozens of educators to teach students left homeless and without a school.

Educators displaced by the hurricane are encouraged to attend the district’s job fair on Thursday from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the district’s administration building in the Weslayan Building B Auditorium, located at 3233 Weslayan.

For more information, call (713) 892-6673.

I haven’t read the report or studied the issue, so I’m not qualified to speak to the merits of whether she has done anything questionable or not.

But I can tell you that this article by Houston Chronicle reporter R.G. Ratcliffe has the practical effect of softening the blow of what is inherently a headline and story no political candidate wants to see in their morning paper.

Three-quarters of the 16 paragraph article are given over to Strayhorn offering her perspective on how she did nothing improper, has gotten a clean bill of health, was set-up for a witch-hunt by Perry, and is devoted to fairness and efficiency. We even learn that while language in the audit "could be misinterpreted" to make her look bad, in fact the report is a vindication of her position.

All of which may be true, for all I know. You’d just think that after putting in all that time trying to frame her, someone in Perry’s camp would have been available for at least a single quote to argue against Strayhorn’s happy-talk.

Wayne Slater of the Dallas Morning News has what I consider to be a much better balanced take on the controversy.

Columnist Mike Thomas of the Orlando Sentinel makes some great points:

It seems Hurricane Katrina has caused every catastrophe conceivable except one: a major oil spill.

You would think given all the doomsday propaganda directed at the oil-drilling industry, the Gulf Coast would look like Prince William Sound after a visit from the Exxon Valdez.

Hurricane Ivan blasted through last year, followed this year by Dennis and Katrina.

Oil-drilling rigs have been torn from their moorings and are floating around the Gulf. Production platforms have been smashed and toppled. Even BP’s super platform, the $1 billion high-tech deep-water marvel called Thunder Horse, was knocked cockeyed during Dennis.

More than 10,000 miles of oil pipeline have been torn up.

Yet there have been no flocks of waterfowl floundering about in black goo. Louisiana’s marshes have not been devastated. The beach is unaffected. The fish are biting.

It seems the oil companies did a better job of safeguarding oil than the politicians did of safeguarding people.

Much recommended.

More Astrodome ephemera, from roving LST photo-correspondent Katya Horner.

Self-proclaimed LST fans, Officers "JD" (left) and "Ben" (right) bet Katya that she couldn’t get their photo on the blog– looks like that box of donuts is on you, gentlemen!

Marvin Zindler (left) regals Harris County Judge Robert Eckles (right) with stories from his days as a cub reporter, covering the Great Galveston Hurricane of 1900.

What follows are briefs on various Katrina-related topics that have been swirling in my head for the past week. Hopefully all of you will be able to make more sense of all of it than I have:

THE HOLDOUTS

Pundits and newsmen have consistently been making excuses for those who stayed in New Orleans despite the urging of city officials to evacuate. The typical line is this: "People in New Orleans are the working poor — many didn’t have cars and couldn’t afford to leave." First of all, even the "working poor" knew that they were in a hurricane-prone city, and should have made plans for this contingency, particularly after the hurricane’s path was known. Secondly, most of those who remained in New Orleans could have left, but didn’t. Keep in mind that, in the US, two-thirds to three-fourths of the "poor" own cars. Estimates indicated that 50,000 to 100,000 New Orleans households were without cars. Estimates also indicate that rougly 300,000 New Orleanians failed to evacuate. Clearly an inability of many residents to evacuate was not the reason why so many stayed behind.

What’s the reason then? Roughly two-thirds of those who stayed made a bad descision and decided to chance it with a Category 5 hurricane. Let’s not pretend that they had no other choice than to make this foolish decision (keep in mind — 10,000 residents still stubbornly refuse to leave). Many of the problems resulted from people having too much courage and too little common sense. Those who remained, as much as they have gone through, are largely the victims of their own errors. They knew by Saturday that it was time to get the heck out of Dodge, but instead holed themselves up and prayed for the best. It was a gamble that didn’t pay off.

MAYOR RAY NAGIN

Many people are jumping on Mayor Nagin right now for his conduct in failing to order a mandatory evacuation sooner, and not making it easier for residents without cars to evacuate (as in utilizing those buses now infamously enshrined in photos, flooded in the school bus yards). This, I think, is an easy criticism to make in hindsight. New Orleans faces numerous hurricane scares annually, and Nagin had already taken flak for being hasty with Hurricane Ivan. He was wary of going overboard too quickly, and quite obviously choked. For that he deserves criticism, but not the degree of censure he has received.

Moreover, it should be noted that New Orleans municipal government doesn’t exactly bring out the best leaders. If Nagin weren’t mayor, it would have been Marc Morial, the most corrupt, sleazy, race-baiting politician ever to walk the earth. By comparison, Nagin is quite level-headed and conservative. We should keep in mind that whatever Nagin’s foibles, the alternatives are universally worse. Sinking him will only mean worse times for New Orleans. You can count on that.

PRESIDENT BUSH

Criticism of Bush infuriates me the most. After 9/11, some cranks came out of the woodwork, noting that Bush had rejected earlier proposals for a Department of Homeland Security to deal with terrorism, and instead placing the responsibility in the newly-created Office of National Preparedness under FEMA. After the twin towers fell, Bush recognized this criticism and shifted the counter-terrorism focus away from FEMA and finally accepted the suggested department-level office of Homeland Security. It was the only politically-viable option at the time — his failure to create a separate department to deal with terrorism was already being criticized (as in the Washington Post) and enhancing FEMA’s role was seen as a meek, pathetic compromise. So he went with what America wanted — a focus on terrorism rather than mere emergency relief. After all, could we really entrust counter-terrorism to FEMA?

The consequence was that the focus went away from FEMA and towards the Department of Homeland Security, which was targeted towards terrorism specifically. Thus when Hurricane Katrina hit — a massive, unexpectedly severe storm — FEMA wasn’t running on all eight cylinders. As a result, Bush has been criticized for being too obsessed with terrorism, thereby shifting the focus away from FEMA, the very agency he wanted to enhance from the outset. He’s damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t. Thankfully, the most recent Gallup poll shows that most Americans aren’t buying the anti-Bush rhetoric.

REBUILDING NEW ORLEANS

There have been many voices, including that of House Speaker Dennis Hastert, saying that New Orleans isn’t worth rebuilding, that the region is too disaster-prone to be worth the usual investment in disaster relief from the federal government. That’s balderdash. It is true that New Orleans is mostly below sea level and kept above water by levies. However, only three truly major storms have hit New Orleans in the past 60 years — the ‘47 hurricane, Hurricane Betsy in ‘65, and Hurricane Katrina in ‘05. That’s not a track record which shows an extreme predisposition to catastrophy. Southern California and Florida are far, far more expensive in terms of disaster relief (probably even on a per-capita basis). New Orleans simply isn’t the albatross around America’s neck that some people want to portray it as.

ANNE RICE

In a recent op-ed which ran in the New York Times, goth author Anne Rice wrote about how the nation had "failed" New Orleans. She wrote about how Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco begged for assistance, but recieved little. She angrily observed that the country enjoyed Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest, but when the chips were down, the US as a whole left New Orleans out to dry. What a sob story. First of all, New Orleans is not a charity. If New Orleans found Mardi Gras, Jazz Fest, and tourism generally to be non-profitable for individuals and the city as a whole, they wouldn’t have any part of it. The truth is that New Orleans used to be a major industrial base, but they frittered that away with corruption and bureaucracy. The city is has become notoriously unfriendly to business, and as a result it only has two assets remaining — the port and tourism. Consequently, the city was poor and ill-equipped to deal with a major disaster.

This is not to say that I’m completely down on New Orleans. It’s still a valuable city. But for Anne Rice to come out with such sanctimonious drivel, behaving as if New Orleans and the State of Louisiana are blameless for the problems following the hurricane, and arguing that the entire nation somehow owes New Orleans for holding a giant, drunken party ever year, is so outrageous that it merits sterm condemnation. It is especially hurtful to Houston, which has offered so much in this time of need, in spite of the historical failure of New Orleans to pursue a path which both preserves the past and guarantees a future.

Well, comments are open. Are my impressions valid, naive, or just downright insensitive?