More on Katrina

Britain isn't perfect, I don't think any country is or can be. But I would like to think that our Government would respond to a New Orleans-eque disaster in a much more effective fashion than the Bush administration.

In fact I am pretty sure they would. I have a friend who did a Phd in disaster management. He's now working in the Foreign Office (and not really in a disaster management role) and yet when the bombs went off on 7/7 he was drafted in immediately to help deal with the situation. To me that shows a rapid and intellegent use of human resources in a crisis situation and it is very comforting.

I found this quote from American political commentator Bob Schieffer:

"Finally, a personal thought. We have come through what may have been one of the worst weeks in America's history, a week in which government at every level failed the people it was created to serve. There is no purpose for government except to improve the lives of its citizens. Yet as scenes of horror that seemed to be coming from some Third World country flashed before us, official Washington was like a dog watching television. It saw the lights and images, but did not seem to comprehend their meaning or see any link to reality.

As the floodwaters rose, local officials in New Orleans ordered the city evacuated. They might as well have told their citizens to fly to the moon. How do you evacuate when you don't have a car? No hint of intelligent design in any of this. This was just survival of the richest."