Bishop Gracida on Katrina: Don\'t Blame President Bush
DON'T BLAME PRESIDENT BUSH
����������� Shortly after I was installed as Bishop of Corpus Christi
on
July 11, 1983, Monsignor Robert Freeman, Director of Catholic
Charities,
asked me for permission to accept an invitation from the Mayor of
Corpus
Christi to become a member of the Disaster Emergency Response Team of
the
City.� I gladly gave him permission.� Subsequently he kept me informed
every
year of the work of the Team.� The Team established a plan for a secure
headquarters with electric generators, water food and communications
equipment.� The devised a plan to organize all elements of the City's
infrastructure to be ready to meet any challenge posed by another
hurricane
like Celia which had devastated the City in 1969 when the City did not
have
such a Team in place.
That Team went into action last Friday when Corpus Christi was informed
that
our City's request to receive evacuees from New Orleans had been
approved.
Within� hours the facilities to receive the evacuees were ready and the
infrastructure was ready to serve them.� As you can see from the
attachment
to this email, today, thirty hours later the evacuees are safely in the
facilities planned for them.
I was born in New Orleans and spent the first seven years of my life
there.
I was a student in the General Pierre Gustave Touton Beauregard
Elementary
School.� I still have fond memories of my childhood there.� We lived in
the
Lakeview section of New Orleans and our home was just a few blocks from
Lake
Pontchartrain, the area most flooded��� I have many relatives and
friends
who live in New Orleans.
I watched in shocked disbelief as the horror of the flooding of New
Orleans
unfolded before the eyes of the Nation and the world.� I listened and
watched the tragedy on all the major networks and cable channels.� No
once
did I hear any reporter mention a Disaster Emergency Response Team in
the
City of New Orleans.� Not once did I see or hear any city official
other
than the Mayor who did not once describe what the City of New Orleans
officials were doing.� All he did was complain about the failure of the
Federal Government of be in the City as soon as the levee broke.� The
police
of New Orleans complained to television reporters that they were
without any
contact with their supervisors and had no food or water.� There was
total
governmental and organizational chaos.
It was the responsibility of the City of New Orleans government to
provide
ALL� of the emergency response for the first 24 hours and to request�
and
coordinate the specific help expected from the State of Louisiana and
the
Federal Government.� It was the responsibility of the Governor of
Louisiana
the provide immediately the first help through the deployment of the
National Guard of Louisiana which should have been activated and on
standby
duty ready to move into the coast of Louisiana to cope with the damage
to be
expected from Hurricane Katrina.� The Governor of Louisiana was
strangely
invisible during the week following the break in the levee
Governor Rick Perry set an example of how the Governor of Louisiana
should
have acted. Within a matter of hours after the levee broke, Governor
Perry
set in motion throughout Texas the Emergency Response plans of the
major
cities and the rest, as they say is history.� The response of the
people of
Houston, Dallas, Beaumont, and Corpus Christi shows how effective good
planning can be in meeting the challenge of natural disasters.� God
forbid
that we should be subjected to another terrorist attack such as 9/11
but it
is good to know that at least some cities are prepared.
It is shameful that the media of the left and the Bush-haters in our
society
have chosen to put all of the blame for the tragic events of the past
week
in New Orleans on President Bush.� He responded quickly and in a proper
way.
The total governmental confusion in New Orleans was an obstacle with
which
all agencies outside of Louisiana had to cope.
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"It cannot be doubted that the poor can more easily attain the blessing
of
humility than those who are rich.� In the case of the poor, the lack of
worldly goods is often accompanied by a quiet gentleness, whereas the
rich
are more prone to arrogance.� Nevertheless, many wealthy people are
disposed
to use their abundance not to swell their own pride but to perform
works of
benevolence.� They consider their greatest gain what they spend to
alleviate
the distress of others.
- Saint Leo the Great, pope.
Contribute to the relief of tthe Hurrican Katrina victims by
contributing to
Catholic Charities, USA.
Catholic Charities, USA
Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund
PO Box 25168
ALEXANDRIA, VA� 22313-9788
You can also contribute via the internet by logging on to:
www.catholiccharitiesUSA.org
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Blessings!
+Rene Henry Gracida
Abyssus Abyssum Invocat