THE CONSEQUENCES OF KATRINA

The disaster is so enormous it almost defies comprehension. An effected area of 90,000 square miles. A million people without power. A city of 450,000 people almost completely flooded and, soon, almost completely empty of anyone except cops, firemen, soldiers, engineers and the dead. So, what are the consequences of Katrina?

One, New Orleans as we have known it is dead. Just how many of the evacuees will return to New Orleans when it is finally safe to do so? Many of the evacuees are poor, but not necessarily without skills or energy. As they find greater economic opportunities in other cities (especially Houston), just exactly what will be their incentive to return to a city beneath sea level? The phenomenon will grow larger the longer it takes to make the city inhabitable again.

Two, the scope of the environmental catastrophe is only now coming into focus. Just how toxic is the water sitting inside the city? Beyond the obvious biological hazards caused by raw sewage and dead bodies, just what kinds of chemicals are now contaminating that water? Everything from household products to gasoline to chemicals from factories is, no doubt, in that water. Every hour that the water sits in the city it works away at the foundations of buildings, rotting the wood and rusting the metal. While no one appears to have a handle on how long it will take to pump the water out of the city, it seems pretty clear to me that when the water is finally out, the whole city will be one giant superfund site. How many buildings will have to be demolished? How much soil will have to be removed? Where will the waste and debris be deposited? All these questions will have to be answered before people can begin to return to the city (except, perhaps, to those spots that were never flooded). Beyond New Orleans, one needs to ask about the damage done to the coastal barrier swamps and islands. Is New Orleans now stripped of so much of that natural protection that even a minor hurricane will stress the levees to the breaking point?

Three, who will end up being singled out for blame is, at the moment, completely unknowable. While some on the left are barely containing their glee over what they perceive as another failure of the Bush Administration, it is not at all clear that the Federal Government should be assessed the brunt of the blame for the calamity. Was the local disaster plan adequate? Was there a local evacuation plan that was not followed? Did the Governor of Louisiana react in a timely manner to the devastation? While it seems to me that FEMA failed, at least in the first few days, it also seems apparent that the local leadership didn't cover themselves with glory, either.

Four, the political consequences are unclear. Again, some on the left are arguing that this is a failure of the tax-cutting GOP. They seem to believe that an aroused public will rise up against the Republican skinflints who short-changed our people in Louisiana and Mississippi, just like they short-changed our troops in Iraq. Unfortunately for the left, an equally plausible scenario is that the people will see their view of the dangerous incompetence of government re-affirmed by the response to the disaster, leading to no change in the political landscape. After all, if government failed in the wake of Katrina, why would anyone want to reward the party most associated with big government?

These four items are just the start of an examination of the consequences of Katrina. Future generations will look back upon this storm as a seminal event in the history of our country.