In response to Monday’s Editorial, “Obama’s handling of Haiti trumps Bush’s Katrina Response,” while I agree that Bush and the administration had problems with Katrina, I think you ignore a lot of other things that later happened.
Hurricanes Rita and Ike came through Houston later in his administration and they were handled excellently. Not to downplay at all the Katrina disaster, but Bush learned from his mistakes and proved it in Houston. The hurricanes were not quite as strong as Katrina, but they could have been just as bad had the Bush administration not learned from Katrina. You probably did not hear much about them because they were handled so well and that’s why it was not such a big deal.
Another problem was that Katrina was not “supposed” to hit New Orleans–it was a last day surprise. That does not excuse the mishandlings of FEMA and Bush after the hurricane, but I think they deserve a little less criticism for the planning. It is impossible to evacuate over a million people in less than 24 hours. But really, they learned and other hurricane disasters were avoided. Houston has six million people and, a year after Katrina, was evacuated well and had very few deaths, mostly just property damage that was unavoidable.
The Editorial Board wrote that “it is encouraging that our nation finally has leaders in place who can manage disasters effectively.” Yes, Obama learned from Katrina. But so did Bush, so give him some credit.
Julio Cedeño
Class of 2012