Watching Obama and Gustav

By Barry Yeoman
The Independent Weekly / August 28, 2008

Tomorrow marks the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's landfall. By chilling coincidence, Hurricane Gustav is now barreling toward the Gulf Coast, and New Orleans is preparing for another direct hit. It seems fitting that this storm is brewing during the week of the Democratic National Convention: There is no better fodder for critics of President Bush's domestic leadership than his handling of Louisiana's "twisted sisters," Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. As recently as last week, with the Lower Ninth Ward and other neighborhoods still in shambles, Bush visited New Orleans and declared, "Hope is being restored."

This week in Denver, Democratic leaders aren't shy about reminding the nation of Bush's aloof treatment of New Orleans while its residents were literally drowning, or the inability of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to respond to the largest natural disaster in U.S. history.

"The Bush White House, the Republican leadership, and FEMA showed up not just late, but unprepared," U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana declared from the podium Tuesday night (before booking an early flight home in anticipation of Gustav). "America deserves a FEMA that works. A FEMA that understands the best ways to leverage the private sector and nonprofits. A FEMA that will rebuild our communities with respect, dignity and determination."

I was, coincidentally, sitting among the Louisiana delegation during Landrieu's remarks. At the mention of FEMA's incompetence, the delegates broke into a standing ovation. While Democrats from North Carolina and elsewhere feel tremendous urgency about reclaiming the White House, in Louisiana the feeling is more like desperation. Several Pelican State delegates were impacted directly by one or both of the hurricanes, and they know how a laggard federal response can turn a deadly storm even worse.

If Republican John McCain is elected president, worries New Orleans delegate Jay H. Bank, the federal response could look eerily like 2005. "I would be very concerned that the lessons taught by Katrina weren't learned," says Banks, the membership director of a local YMCA. "This thing could be replicated in Carolina and Florida and Texas."

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