[By Nic Lindh on Tuesday, 13 September 2005]
Pardon me while I rant. After the horror of September 11, America went to War on Terrorism and our tax money went into upgrading our infrastructure to deal with another terrorist attack. Air travel became a submissive’s wet dream. Billions and billions of dollars went into homeland security. We invaded a whole country.
And then Katrina hits and it turns out that FEMA is criminally incompetent and people die because of their bungling.
Please hold on while I hyperventilate.
And then today, utility workers managed to knock out the power grid for a large portion of Los Angeles by hooking up the wrong wires. Hooking up the wrong wires? You can knock out power to most of Los Angeles by simply hooking up the “wrong wires?”
That’s not exactly a robust electrical system.
Now, I’m not expecting the grid of a major city to be hardened in four years, but I was expecting that there would be a master plan for dealing with a major catastrophe, whether it be natural or caused by terrorists, in the continental US.
I’d like to know where some of all that money went? Surely it can’t all have gone into exhaustive research on the benefits of sealing your house with—Oh Lord, the migraine—duct tape in the event of a gas attack?
I really, really want to know. And I also want to know what’s being done to keep this from re-occurring. I have a daughter, and I would like for her to survive to become an adult.
Thank you.