The Rescue of the Wealthy

From Random Hipatia

With Katrina two days away, people were told to evacuate New Orleans. However, they were given neither the means to do so, nor was there any place for them to go.

The wealthiest for the most part left on their planes or by car that same day. The middle class, left by the state to fend for themselves, having to scrape up money and arrange for hotels in places like Baton Rogue, trying to board up houses they could not afford to loose and gather what possessions they could, left a day later.

But what of the forgotten poor? Those who may have had no car, or no money for a hotel? Those who had no place to go? For them, some shelters and a stadium never meant to survive a hurricane was given. Best of luck, and an expectation that the problem would “go away”.

You see, many years the question of what might happen should New Orleans take a direct hit were studied. 40,000 or more casualties were predicted even last year when some hurricanes encroached. Clearly, the expectation was high and it was well understood that should New Orleans take a direct hit, virtually anyone “left behind” would essentially be left to die.

Given that knowledge, the state could long ago have planned designated refugee evacuation points. Even two days before, with the knowledge that those left behind would be expected to die, the state could have organized bus convoys to take out at least some of those who had nowhere to go and could not afford to leave. The state could have offered to those soccer moms driving their SUV’s out of town a deal, stop and take a poor family on the way out of town, and the state would cover yours and their hotel bill!

I bet many would have taken up such an offer. Surely far more would have left New Orleans if even some minimal effort were made to enable it. Instead, it was easier for the state to open the highways leading out of town to those who could afford to leave, and hope either for the best where no damage occurred, or alternately for the worst, for those left behind to disappear.

Unfortunately for the state, the hurricane veered just a little to the east, and now Louisiana finds itself dealing not just with the worst, with New Orleans under water, but also with as many as a hundred thousand, most of whom the state had already written off should that happen. No places or means to evacuate them were arranged to take care of them before, and now that they had the temerity to actually survive, the state has no idea what to do to with them now. It need not have been this way, but in Mr. Bush’s new America, of government of the wealthy for the wealthy, the poor are on the expense side of the ledger, and expenses are to be reduced or eliminated.