Ownership, evacuation and destruction

For those noting that the U.S. is reluctant to accept aid from Cuba, the explanation may have less to do with commie-bashing, and more to do with an attempt to avoid any comparisons between the hurricane management strategies of the two countries. Fortunately, Murray Dobbin doesn't let Bushco off the hook:

The horror of New Orleans is rooted in the extremes of American individualism. With lots of advanced notice of the terrifying category five hurricane about to hit the city, what did elected officials do? They announced that everyone should evacuate. Full stop. There would be no help. People would have to devise their own private way out of the disaster area. Yet, 35 percent of African American families in New Orleans had no cars.

Not for America a collectively organized, 'forced' evacuation as in Cuba where last year 1.3 million people were evacuated in advance of a similar category five hurricane. Not a single person died. And when Cuba evacuates people it also evacuates their most valuable possessions so they aren't destroyed.

Something to keep in mind next time Bush goes on one of his "ownership society" rants: not only have thousands died unnecessarily as a result of the lack of proper planning before Katrina, but those who survived have lost large amounts of personal property which would have been preserved had the same storm hit in Cuba. And the difference in evacuation plans (i.e. having one as opposed to not having one) is in spite of Cuba's lower amount of local resources.

Instead of retaining their most valued possessions, many Katrina evacuees (those leaving now whose property has been destroyed, and those who left earlier who lacked the capacity to take belongings with them) will have at best an insurance cheque, and at worst nothing (or perhaps FEMA's payoff after the fact) to replace everything that once was theirs.

It's glaringly obvious that everyone affected by Katrina would have been far better off if the new $2,000 per evacuee had been spent on either proper levee construction, or at least a genuine evacuation plan. But for a president far more concerned with political damage control than good policy, the actual choice shouldn't be surprising. Even if it means hundreds of thousands of "ownership society" members losing everything they owned.