There is a well-known joke that says that only in America will a pizza arrive to someone’s house faster than an emergency vehicle, and this may actually have a ring of truth to it.
Now that the storms have died down, people have been criticizing government agencies, such as FEMA and the Homeland Security Department, about how they have handled both Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita.
While the procedures for Hurricane Rita have been handled much more successfully, they have not gone completely without some taint. Chaos of traffic jams stretching for more than 100 miles, cars breaking down, a bus exploding, triple-digit heat and panicking evacuees combined to make for a difficult situation, despite all the nation’s best efforts.
Most of the current efforts to relocate people back to their homes or to find new ones have been recently started again with the removal of roadblocks into New Orleans. However, with nowhere to go, many refugees in the region still desperately need organized assistance.
Many of the resources to aid in Rita’s wake were already available prior to the evacuation notice, but because there was a lack of organization to move out supplies and efficiently move people out of danger, there may be reason to believe that much more could be done by the government to handle such disasters.
For example, having police enforcing traffic more efficiently could have prevented a massive, multiple-city traffic jam. By telling motorists to turn their engines off and to proceed in groups of four, at a fixed rate of speed, it could have efficiently moved vehicles out.
Emergency vehicles stationed on the sides of freeways, with emergency supplies such as water and gasoline could also have helped in the event of an accident or breakdown.
The lack of communication between levels of government proved to be a problem even with the resources available, but communication problems amalgamated small problems into larger ones.
If the urgency to fix this problem had been realized by the government, things could be done more efficiently.
As long as national security, whether it be from a storm or a bomb, is still viewed as a military problem or is fumbled from agency to agency, these types of setbacks will continue to occur.
If anything good has come of these disasters, it has been the overwhelming charity, benevolence and strength of will in America’s desire to help people afflicted by Rita and Katrina’s wrath.
This kind of spirit shows the true grit of this country’s people, even while the government may appear weak in its inability to immediately respond to the threats.
