The grim lessons of Katrina

New York

It is tempting when looking back on natural catastrophes to see them as symbols of the affected nation’s fatal departure from good sense or moral progress. Hubris is retrospectively invoked to justify the evident nemesis. The horrific events in New Orleans and surrounding territories are being picked apart, like entrails in aboriginal Africa, as though there might be a clue, even a message, that will explain how America has begun to fall apart.

In a bid to pre-empt at least some of Congress’s investigative zeal, the President announced on Monday that he would carry out his own inquiry into the catastrophe, but senators and congressmen refuse to be deterred and are to launch their own investigation. One thing that is certain is that no one will emerge from the audit with much credit; certainly not the state and municipal authorities, who have shown themselves to be whining incompetents. Much of the sniping at Bush has been infantile. Critics have depicted the President as uncaring, callous, even racist, which those who know him or have worked with him will recognise as risible. Far harder to rebut, however, will be the charge that he and his advisers failed to heed the central lesson of 11 September 2001: that danger can strike at any time from any quarter and the nation must be prepared. Plan B is all very well, but there has to be a Plan A.

Since 9/11 the administration has abandoned the tradition of deferring to local authorities in cases of disaster. Under the National Response Plan of 2004 the federal government pre-empts local and state government in its responsibility to act when there is ‘any natural or man-made incident, including terrorism, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the population, infrastructure, environment, economy, national morale, and/or government functions.’