Jim McDermott has already used his
diary quota for the day, so I'll repost his entry from the House Democrats Gulf Coast road trip
blog on his behalf:
... Acts of kindness and courage, of hope and perseverance, are everywhere. The American people did what the American people do in a crisis. They opened their homes and hearts, and never flinched from their duty.
Still, you cannot help but draw one conclusion. The overwhelming loss of property, and lost and shattered lives is completely overshadowed by the overwhelming loss of faith in government. ...
Post in full below the fold.
"Life is what happens to you while you’re waiting for government to respond." A person I met in New Orleans today told me this, and it’s something I will not soon forget.
To be sure, there are stories of quiet, personal heroism. I met one African American couple who are fostering five troubled teens. After the storms past, despite dangers from the devastation, these surrogate parents took the kids on a search through the ruins to locate members of their biological families.
Another woman finally managed to return to her home and found it completely in ruins. She broke down and wept, not because of the shattered home, but because in the mailbox were scraps of paper with cell phone numbers of family members desperately trying to find her. She knew, at last, that her loved ones were safe.
Acts of kindness and courage, of hope and perseverance, are everywhere. The American people did what the American people do in a crisis. They opened their homes and hearts, and never flinched from their duty.
Still, you cannot help but draw one conclusion. The overwhelming loss of property, and lost and shattered lives is completely overshadowed by the overwhelming loss of faith in government.
Six months later, the emotional scars are deep and open wounds; there is a sense of resignation that someday, maybe, government will finally figure this out and send real help. There is also a fear of being forgotten. Katrina fatigue, they call it- that, despite the landscape of devastation, despite the heartbreak of personal loss, that America will simply forget.
As one person said to me so poignantly, "We’re off the radar screen. We’re not above the fold in the newspaper, not on page 1 or even page 10. Now, we’re not in the newspaper at all."
There is so much to be done. I hope that every Member on the trip will return to Washington with a sense of duty and a demand for government to respond to its people. We’ve let them down so many times already. A natural disaster could strike virtually any American city. My city of Seattle lives with the constant danger of an earthquake.
No American should worry that government will respond to the next natural disaster the way it responded to the last one.
- Rep. Jim McDermott, 3/3/06, 5:30pm
