“The Fine Print”, by Michael Schrader

Katrina Exposed the Rotting of America

(Written and posted 1 September 2005)

Have you ever looked at an old tree and pondered on its strength, and then been amazed when the same tree falls and you discover it is completely hollow, having rotted from the inside out? Or looked at the impressive building of brick and mortar only to find out later that the brick and mortar are fake and the building is actually built of some cheap material like Styrofoam? I am sure that you have. Our beloved United States, sadly, has become like that hollow tree— we look strong and invulnerable on the outside, but we are hollow and weak and rotting on the inside. It took Katrina to expose how pervasive the rot has become.

What has caused this rot? Apathy, greed, selfishness, stupidity, complacency. All of these have been exposed by Katrina, and enhanced and amplified the catastrophe. I get sickened with every new piece of news about the chaos that has descended upon our great nation, because I know that if we only had the same values that we had once upon a time, the values that made this nation the greatest nation on the planet, we would not be seeing the madness we are now seeing.

When I read the reports about the looting of New Orleans, about the armed thugs that have taken over the city and who are shooting at military helicopters who are trying to rescue the sick and infirmed, mobs who are trying to loot hospitals, rapes of frightened refugees in the shelters, I have to double check the bylines to make sure that I am reading them correctly. Things like that only happen in Third World countries; they don’t happen in a civilized country like the United States! Americans are good people who respect each other, respect the rule of law, and respect property! My gosh; we have become a Third World country! (I am waiting for Uganda or some other African nation to send over peacekeepers.) This is not my America!

Even more heartbreaking than the anarchy, is the sheer stupidity, greed, apathy, and complacency at all levels of the government that resulted in the destruction being much worse than it should have been. In the two plus decades between Camille and Andrew in which there land falling major hurricanes were rare, state and local governments along the Gulf Coast, enamored by sizable increases in tax revenues, allowed over-development in the hurricane prone areas. Yes, the private sector benefited handsomely from this development, but I put the blame squarely on the state and local governments for allowing it to happen in the name of expanding their tax bases. The government’s one basic function is to provide for the common good, and they all screwed it up royally. The type of development that occurred should never have been allowed to occur! How stupid is it to build casinos on boats? Extraordinarily so, but the government didn’t care. After all, they could reap the benefits, without having to fight a skeptical local populace about the benefit of casinos versus the vices of gambling. (The casinos are on boats and are mobile! They aren’t “permanent”, wink wink….) [Let me just add that while I do not gamble, I have nothing against casinos at all. I just think it was underhanded how the politicians got them in.] What is really heartbreaking is that much of the development along the northern Gulf Coast occurred after Andrew. (Mrs. Schrader and I honeymooned in Biloxi in 1990, and there weren’t any casinos at the time.) You think someone would have learned a lesson from the devastation in Homestead about over-development and lax construction standards. Didn’t anyone care that they were putting innocent lives on the line? This is not my America!

Of course, then you have the general government attitude that once you build it, you never have to maintain it. The last time I went to New Orleans (in 2003), I noticed how run-down the city looked (even worse than Detroit), and how everything was in a state of disrepair. (After all, why spend money maintaining what we have when we can spend it building beautiful monuments to our vanity!) Given what happened, I am confident that the levees were also in this same state of disrepair. When they knew the storm was coming, why didn’t someone at some level of government give the levees a thorough inspection to make sure that they could withstand the worst? It’s too easy for the mayor to blame everyone else than for him to acknowledge his own responsibility. It is absolutely inexcusable that precautions weren’t taken. Why weren’t sandbags made ready and put in close proximity to the levees beforehand? Wasn’t anyone paying attention to what happened to the levees in the Great Flood of 1993? Didn’t anyone care? This is not my America!

Why weren’t the elderly, the sick, and the poor evacuated by bus to Houston before the storm hit? Thousands of lives have been lost because no one thought about it or had enough backbone to do it. Why didn’t the mayor, governor, or President care then? Aren’t we, as God-fearing people, supposed to take care of those that can’t take care of themselves first before we take care of ourselves? At least the captain of the Titanic evacuated the elderly, the woman, and the children—those who couldn’t fend for themselves—first. Why didn’t our government officials? This is not my America!

Why did our governments allow petty parochialism get in the way of doing the sensible thing where our energy facilities are concerned? We have not built a new refinery in this country in twenty-five years because nobody wants it in their backyard. So what do we do? We throw them all along the coast, in economically depressed areas where having a job is more important than the sight or smell of a refinery. Of course, we also have located them in areas very vulnerable to hurricanes and other natural disasters, but who cares so long as the suburbanites can have their postcard perfect lawns? Every day I look out my office window at a refinery, smack in the middle of town, and with a big chunk of our refining capacity destroyed or disabled thanks to Katrina, I am very thankful that my refinery is there. At least I know there will be some gasoline available. I always thought that we were one country, not fifty. Since every state derives the benefit of gasoline, then every state should also have a refinery to make the stuff. If people hadn’t been so selfish (“Not In My Backyard!”), and more refineries had been built throughout the country (not just in selected areas), then we might not be facing the real possibility of $4 a gallon gas and gas shortages. I always thought that in America, we all work together for the greater good, even if it means we don’t always get everything exactly as we want it. I guess I am wrong. This is not my America!

What made this country great was that we had leaders who were actually willing to lead, who were willing to proactively make decisions that were politically unpopular for the long term greater good. We haven’t had that type of leadership in a long, long time; not in my lifetime, at least. Katrina has given us on opportunity to stop the decay and restore the America that I learned about, the America that is an example for all other nations. We need a leader to step forward and give us a recovery plan that will benefit the most people, even if it is unpopular. If I were the king, so to speak, I would concentrate my efforts first and foremost on getting the ports open and getting the refineries operating again, as the ability to transport products (oil coming in; foodstuffs going out) and the ability to get gasoline and other petroleum-based products effects the livelihood of everybody. The lowest priority to me would be rebuilding New Orleans in its entirety; while it is sad so many are now refugees, and so many memories have been lost, most of New Orleans, while a tourist attraction, was not critical to the functioning of the overall national economy. However, the priorities will probably be reversed, with billions of dollars being wasted on rebuilding a city that was built below sea level and will inevitably flood again because that is what “feels right”, regardless of what is best for the common good. And the rot will continue. And this catastrophe will happen again.

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