As the sharks begin to circle....

Well, the hurricane has come and gone and most of the evacuees are safely out of the area and housed in other states. Now the sharks begin to circle as the various public officials point fingers at one another and an outraged public wants to be appeased for the many, many mistakes made before, during, and after the hurricane hit New Orleans.

City officials didn't follow the in-place emergeny plan, state officials didn't ask for help soon enough, federal officials are trying to help but too little, too late.
Of all of the mistakes that various people are going to have to 'pay' for I wish that everyone would keep in mind that it won't matter to the people that died in the hurricane, it won't matter to the people who died afterwards from lack of water and food while waiting to be rescued from rooftops, and it doesn't matter to the people who are still dying from the disease ridden water that they had to come in contact with.

People are crying out in outrage over the various nursing home patients that were left behind to die. I won't judge the motives of the workers who had to make the choice of who to save and who to leave. Most of the people in this country don't understand the huge responsibility of emergency workers, and other people, who have to make a choice like that. Do you save four people that you know for sure that you can get to safety or do you risk everyone by trying to save all eight? It's a hard choice and one that I would not want to have to make. But that's what we are faced with, people had to make hard and fast choices that resulted in life for some and death for others. It's easy to look at the facts of the matter, afterwards, and judge but try to put yourself in their shoes, under those existing circumstances and with the limited knowledge that they had and try to make life and death decisions. Hindsight is 20/20 and everyone forgets that during such an event the foresight is limited to tunnel vision at best.

And the sharks in the press and from the various federal agencies circle still, looking for blood in the water from the public sacrifices that will be made to appease the public outrage over the disaster. The clamouring for blood is no different than the crys of the lynch mob of the 19th century, or the mobs that stood around the guillotine after the French Revolution, or even the throngs of good and proper Roman citizens at the various circuses that the Emporer hosted.

The american public can't pay for, and don't want to pay for the type of on constant standby emergency forces that it would take to ensure that this type of disaster doesn't happen again. How much do you want your taxes to go up? How much comfort and safety do you want to pay for? Which social programs do we want to do without? There's only so much money to go around and decisions will have to be made that will, again, determine the life and death of various programs - unless it directly affects you or someone you love. Let's try to think before we scream for action and insist on blood. Once the wound is opened it's very hard to stop the flow.