Devastation by Katrina Can Equal Renewal

Devastation was on the minds of most of us as we watched Katrina head for the Gulf Coast, but anyone who looked into the future saw renewal. Read Robert Freer’s article below and learn how an optimist thinks. He sees renewed cities, towns, and communities. He also sees renewed building codes and flood controls to better protect the citizens in the future. More importantly he sees a renewed American compassion.

By Robert E. Freer, Jr., President of The Free Enterprise Foundation

We watched with dread Katrina’s glancing blow through Florida and its desultory approach to the Gulf Coast invigorated by its time over the warm waters of the gulf. Dread became heartache at devastation that has humbled our notions of national superiority and replaced it with a fear we may be no better at responding to nature's unbridled power than Bangladesh.

Those who now urge we avoid finger pointing and concentrate on providing the care and long term assistance to those whose lives have been shattered are doing a true national service. Only by expending our concerted effort together can we get the Gulf States on the mend in any reasonable time. Politics as usual is not a help. The carping by a few on national media will soon fade from memory, and the generosity of spirit and opened pocketbooks, homes, churches, schools and communities throughout the South will be the impression that remains as the national lesson to be taken to heart. We are a generous and caring people and will not leave our fellow citizens to face this without the full measure of help that can be provided. Government will do its part but another lesson is that it is the combined help of us all, who have been touched by their plight that will make the difference. Government itself is after all only professionalized human help.

There is more than enough time before the next election to assess responsibility and bring about any change in local, state and federal leadership required to avoid the apparent chaos of the first 96 hours after Katrina's destructive wake. Now is the time to rebuild not finger point. That being said let me set out a few principles. The first is that the people are always right. For them the bottom line of getting it right is what counts. Explanations and analysis is for another day. I tend to look at the problems that befouled the first hours of assistance from a legal perspective. I see those problems clearly and may write about them once we are past these initial hours but to do so now would make me a finger pointer and provide no solace to those afflicted. Under the best of circumstances, a natural catastrophe is just that, a catastrophe! Conditions exist that are so far beyond our experience as to stress the structures created to handle the normal storm of lesser magnitude. Another lesson is that devastation of this magnitude lingers. It requires the focused attention of all those in the region and the help the rest of us can provide over months if not years to ameliorate. Still another lesson is that good comes along with the bad. The cent-billions that will pour into the region in the months ahead will provide after the initial disruption of supply lines, a shot in the economic arm to a region that has lagged behind other parts of the “New South” and will also support our national economy as the response comes on stream. Let’s learn from the devastation to build to a better standard both in private buildings and flood control structures that will meet the next 100 year storm head on without flinching.

Copyright © 2007 by Robert E. Freer, Jr. All rights reserved

About the author: Robert E. Freer, Jr. is President of The Free Enterprise Foundation. He is a Visiting Professor, at The Citadel and elected in 2005 to be their first John S. Grinalds Leader in Residence. A regular contributor to the Mercury, He can be reached by E-mail at The Citadel . Copies of his earlier columns can be found The Free Enterprise Foundation.

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