As the post-mortem continues in New Orleans
and everyone tries to figure out "what went wrong" ---a little history is in order... Just to remember the actual "context" of this disaster.
First, there had been several Catagory 5 Hurricanes prior to Katrina that just petered out at the last minute; and all of the panicked evacuations and boarding up of building seem "foolish" the morning after... Remember?
Strong Hurricanes had recently crossed and re-crossed Florida with little in the way of catastrophic damages... So everyone had been lulled into a false sense of conplacency....
Another Catagory 5? ...so what...they always peter out before any real damage is done... And that was the prevaling attitude pre-Katrina.
And remember too Katrina did NOT damage New Orleans by its wind...but by an "unexpected" breakdown in the levy system.
Had the levies held...Katrina would have been just another "false alarm" in our increasingly problematic Hurricane season.
BUT;
THE NEW ORLEANS DISASTER SNUCK IN THROUGH THE BACK DOOR OF THE WEAK LEVY SYSTEM...AFTER THE HURRICANE ITSELF HAD DISSIPATED...!
THAT IS MOST LIKELY WHY DUBYA & CO WERE ASLEEP AT THE SWITCH...
Still, New Orleans and Hurricanes just don't mix...so while the wind damage was minimal AS EXPECTED...the water damage from the levy breaks was catastrophic.
Had the levy system been quickly repaired, or at least watched during the storm, New Orleans might have survived...and Katrina would have been just another "false alarm" in the Gulf Coast Hurricane season...
But it wasn't...and perhaps everyone in authority should have known that the Big Easy was going to be in harms way... But they didn't.
For some odd reason the complacency that prevailed in Florida also prevailed in New Orleans...despite the fact that the "Big One" was bearing down on a very flood-prone and levy-dependent city.
New Orleans was destroyed by Water...not Wind...and alas, that was the lesson that was obvious, but forgotten by all concerned as Katrina bore down on the Big Easy...
