1115.org

Not to keep piling on FEMA and the rest of the federal government’s response in dealing with Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath, but this is getting ridiculous. First there were the complaints about FEMA’s lack of standing contracts for common supplies (like roof tarps) needed in relief efforts. Then there was the general disbelief when FEMA contracted Carnival cruise ships to house the displaced at a cost of $236 million—$1,275 per week for each person (more than the cost of an actual cruise) if the boats were filled to capacity, which they aren’t. And let’s not forget the plans of building huge trailer parks to house hurricane victims, a plan that has had so much success in the past.

Now, with President Bush’s October 15 deadline for moving people out of the shelters fast approaching, a New York Times story reveals yet another massive cost that is being paid to house Katrina victims—$11 million a day to cover hundreds of thousands of hotel rooms, with a total bill expected to hit $425 million before the month is out.

It’s not even in debate that Katrina’s displaced need roofs over their heads, and to have them languish in shelters (22,000 are still there, a month and a half after the storm hit) shouldn’t even be an option. But the ridiculousness of the hotel tab comes through loud and clear when you realize that the hotels cost significantly more than the rent on actual apartments, which “real estate executives say are available throughout the southeast.” Despite Mike Brown’s “not my fault” Capital Hill testimony, this kind of poor planning and even poorer execution can be placed squarely in the collective laps of FEMA and the higher governmental officials who stocked the ranks with cronies and incompetents. And people from all sides of the political spectrum are wondering just what the hell is going on.

“Deplorable. Disappointing. Outrageous. That is how I feel about it,” said the Atlanta mayor, Shirley Franklin, a Democrat, in a telephone interview on Wednesday. “The federal response has just been unacceptable. It is like talking to a brick wall.”

“Lewd, Lascivious, Salacious, Outrageous”

While it certainly is funny to hear the mayor of a major American city channel the spirit of Jackie Chiles from Seinfeld, an even more telling quote comes from one of the flacks at the liberal oasis known as The Heritage Foundation:

Even conservative housing experts have criticized the Bush administration’s handling of the temporary housing response. “I am baffled,” said Ronald D. Utt, a former senior official at the Department of Housing and Urban Development and Reagan administration aide who is now a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, the conservative research organization. “This is not incompetence. This is willful. That is the only way I can explain it.”

While it certainly isn’t easy to provide enough housing for the estimated 500,000 people who need it, as of yesterday FEMA had only managed to provide 10,940 housing units to cover them, and that’s including the trailers and cruise ship rooms. Whether this is willful or not is open to interpretation, but it certainly shows an agency that was/is woefully unprepared to handle the aftermath of a major disaster. That a massive hurricane could hit the Gulf Coast wasn’t a surprise, and the government could easily have done a lot beforehand to smooth out the cleanup process, such as having pre-negotiated contracts in hand for necessary materials, having a similar contract drawn up for hotels and shelters, making sure that levees and other infrastructure were up to code, and drawing up a clear response plan that consists of more than just throwing money at the problem after the fact.

But that would require planning and a long-term commitment to dealing with the problems of the future, rather than pushing short-term gain at the expense of everything else. As you already know, this is not the government’s (and especially this administration’s) strong point. But that’s old news isn’t it? We pass huge tax cuts at the same time as we enact massive spending programs, pushing a crushing debt onto future generations. We go to war in Iraq thinking that we can do it fast and cheap, without paying attention to any of the huge, flashing warning signs. We talk meekly about energy conservation, yet refuse to pass any actual programs (such as increased automobile fuel efficiency standards) that will lessen our dependence on foreign oil. And so on.

Compared to our track record, paying $11 million a day for hotel rooms is just par for the course. And compared to the $187 million we spend every day in Iraq, it can be argued that those Holiday Inn rooms are quite the bargain. It’s all about perspective, you see.