Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans, flattened coastal Mississippi, smacked Alabama, killed more than 1,000 people and exposed deadly flaws in the way governments at all levels responded to an epic natural disaster.
Katrina was an unprecedented event in modern America, one that deserves to be scrutinized thoroughly to make sure government never again fails so spectacularly when so many lives are at risk.
The Republican-led House and Senate and the White House are each conducting inquiries to learn the lessons of Katrina. But between the political grandstanding and finger-pointing, there has to be a better way to understand what went wrong and why. Republicans may have the best of intentions to exhaustively and objectively investigate, but these inquiries lack credibility, especially with nearly all Democrats boycotting the House hearings.
President Bush and Congress should appoint an independent, bipartisan commission to investigate the governmental response to Katrina, similar to the commission that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The Katrina commission, though, should be focused, streamlined and time-limited, with a final report produced in no more than six months.
Governments often use blue-ribbon commissions to bury controversial issues. But this commission could illuminate the flaws in the government response to natural disasters, flaws that have raised new concerns about how well the nation would protect people and maintain order after a significant terrorist incident.
The commission should not be established merely to assign blame. It should provide a fuller picture as to what went on in those chaotic days before, during and immediately after Katrina roared in from the Gulf of Mexico.
We already have an outline of what went wrong: New Orleans officials flubbed the city’s evacuations, Louisiana’s government was overwhelmed, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency dithered while Americans clung to rooftops amid rising floodwaters.
Ex-FEMA chief Michael Brown has come under furious and sustained criticism for his actions. He is portrayed as a political crony who was in over his head when the storm struck. Yet even as he pathetically shifted blame to others during a contentious congressional hearing last week, he made several provocative points: FEMA suffered from budget cuts, and he claimed to have privately warned administration officials that the agency was overstretched.
A real investigation will uncover the truth of such allegations. Katrina destroyed a city, devastated a region and took many lives as government failed. Let’s find out why.
