The Zong

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin appeared today before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, chaired by Joe Lieberman. Barack Obama is also on the committee. He outlined a fairly comprehensive plan for further recovery from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in his testimony, and as organized as it sounds it seems like an exercise in futility without the help of the federal government.

Although, I have outlined some of the steps we have taken to replace city services and discussed my administration’s commitment to speeding up our own recovery with whatever funding we can find, the reality is that it has been 17 months since Katrina, Rita and the flooding that followed and citizens are tired, frustrated and angry. Worst of all, they are losing hope. We need systemic, meaningful change now.

Rebuilding a city after a disaster such as Katrina is a tall order, but one that the President himself promised to fulfill even after his administration completely bungled the response to it. Perhaps he was being less than honest when he said that he’d do “whatever it takes” to help New Orleans rebuild, or perhaps his administration is just doing a heckuva job with the rebuilding efforts. I know I don’t remember hearing anything about it during the State of the Union.

“From my perspective, not having the resources at the local level is the absolute killer of this recovery,” Nagin told the Senate’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which is looking into the government’s hurricane response.

As of Jan. 18, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has agreed to pay for $334 million for infrastructure repairs in New Orleans, but the state only has forwarded $145 million to the city so far.

Nagin is testifying to Congress, but what has the President done to assist in recovery efforts? Whatever it takes? Barack Obama, predictably, doesn’t seem to think so.

Obama echoed the criticism of the president’s speech, noting that Bush had vowed just 17 months earlier to do “whatever it takes” to rebuild the city.

But “17 months later, we heard not a single word, not one word in President Bush’s State of the Union address,” Obama said. “….Those of us who are concerned all across the country wonder if we’re in danger of forgetting about New Orleans and that’s shameful.”

What can the President do to stem more criticism on his administration’s ongoing Katrina response? Well, here’s some stuff he said today during an interview on NPR:

Well, I gave a speech that I thought was necessary to give. On the other hand, I had been talking a lot about Katrina and about the fact that I worked with the Congress to get about $110 billion sent down to both Mississippi and Louisiana to help them on their reconstruction efforts…If there’s bureaucratic slowdowns in Washington, we’ve got a man named Don Powell who is working to address them. But no, our response to the Katrina recovery has been very robust. And I appreciate the taxpayers of the United States helping the folks down there in Mississippi and Louisiana.

He certainly “had been” talking a lot about that $110 billion. Last year. Near the one-year anniversary of the hurricane. Since then, him and his boy Don Powell have been pleading patience.

Donald Powell, federal coordinator for Gulf Coast reconstruction for the Department of Homeland Security, said he was confident that when the history of the recovery effort is written “it will also be a story of modern renaissance.”

Doesn’t this sound all too familiar? Hasn’t the Bush Administration and its apologists told us time and time again that one day history will look back on the Iraq war as the beginning of a new age of democracy in the Middle East? There are a lot of future historians in the White House nowadays, and one hopes that their vision of the future is right on. As Bush himself put it:

My own view is that history will take care of itself. History has a long reach to it. I told people that last year I read three analyses of Washington’s administration, and my attitude is if they are still writing about the first president, the 43rd doesn’t need to worry about it.

Seems like the 44th is going to have to worry about it a lot, though.

- M.G.