Katrina's perturbation settles into a number of waves
Dateline: in the Shire in Indy, 6 September 2005
As Dan Balz points out in the Post yesterday ("For Bush, Next Moves Are Key to Rest of Term"), the President is walking a mighty fine line right now. Cindy Sheehan and Iraq had him down prior to Katrina, and then New Orleans knocked him for a real loop in public esteem, only to have his base reenergized by the sudden death of Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist. August may have slipped in rather sleepily, but September's rip-roaring in politically. Bush can get things right or very wrong in coming weeks. Both levees and reputations need to be repaired.
Of course, scape goats will have to be offered up (Spencer S. Hsu and Susan B. Glasser, "FEMA Director Singled Out by Response Critics," Washington Post, 6 September). Fair to blame one man, one agency? Well, when the National Hurricane Center tells you 32 hours in advance that Katrina's landfall will likely break levees in its path, yeah, that's more than fair. And since the guy in question doesn't have the background one usually expects from a leader like this (basically a friend of a friend pick), Bush might want to rethink his penchant for loyalty on this one.
Beyond fingering someone low-enough to play fall-guy, you have to reassure the markets (Ben White, "Wall Street Sees Limited Storm Impact," New York Times, 6 September), but that would seem a fairly easy trick for now, as most market analysts are talking about growth delayed, not growth denied. What we don't see across the rest of 2005 is predicted to appear in early 2006, as the Great Rebuild begins down South. Much will depend on the popular perceptions of gas prices, but work arounds abound (Simon Romero, "Houston Finds Business Boon After Katrina," New York Times, 5 September) and here is the real resiliency of horizontally networked America, as what goes up gets spread around.
Speaking of spreading it around (Lolita C. Baker, "Halliburton Subsidiary Taps Contrract for Repairs, Washington Post, 5 September), no one should be surprised to see SysAdmin conttractor supremo Kellogg, Brown & Root at the forefront of the recovery efforts with Katrina. Last July it won a big Navy contract vehicle to be the company that comes in after big natural disasters and do clean-up. SysAdmin away, SysAdmin home. Seems pretty natural because it's basically the same all over. So don't expect KB&R to go away any time soon, no matter how stinky its past associations with Cheney might seem. It simply fills too big of a niche. On the contrary, expect more KB&Rs in the future, not less, and they will all seem cozy with the government because they'll always be picking up the 3D (dirty, dangerous, difficult) jobs that the Fed wants to outsource--both at home and in the Gap.
Over the longer run, take solace in this realization: the big disasters rarely live up to their initial billing. Chernobyl, we were told way back when, would end up killing tens of thousands of Russians, Ukrainians and Belarussians. Now, when it's all added up years later, a team of global scientists say its more like 4,000 deaths (Elisabeth Rosenthal, International Herald Tribune, 6 September), with 100,000 to 200,000 suffering some level of measurable physical impact. Of course, that doesn't stop 7 million citizens around Chernobyl from taking payments long-term from the government. (Hey buddy! It's called socialism!)
Doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. Just means we tend to be more resilient than we realize--even under the worst of conditions.