Hurricane Katrina's Second Anniversary

This great graphic is from Louisiana blogger Suspect Device. (Thanks to Blue Gal for the tip.)

The Washington Post has an interactive multimedia section that shows past and current photos of the areas hit by Hurricane Katrina. They also report:

NEW ORLEANS, Aug. 29 -- President Bush marked a moment of silence Wednesday morning for the two-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and extolled what he called the federal government's "strong commitment" to rebuild the battered city.

Predicting that "better days are ahead" for New Orleans, he said in a speech at a charter school that his administration is "still paying attention" to the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast, and he pledged that work would be completed by 2011 on improving storm and flood protection infrastructure to a 100-year level.

But the president's appearance here -- his 15th visit to the Gulf Coast since Katrina slammed ashore on Aug. 29, 2005, and killed more than 1,600 people -- was greeted with skepticism by many residents still angry over what they view as the Bush administration's incompetent response to the disaster.

Hmm, ya think? Bush will make a few speeches, but he's hands-off and inept as usual.

NPR has been superb following up on Katrina and the plight of its victims throughout the past two years. They have a three-minute audio slideshow and a page compiling a dozen or so recent stories.

Digby's "Unforgivable" is a wrenching piece on Katrina, and "What Me Worry?" recaps how Bush and his administration astoundingly ignored multiple urgent alarms two years ago today. Meanwhile, Rick Perlstein skewers revisionism on FEMA's response in "Katrina: the "federalist pause"" and examines Haley Barbour's shady conduct in "Katrina: Haley's Come-on." I think the most apt term is "disaster profiteering," and one that Barbour, Bush, Rove and many conservatives, including several think tanks, should be tagged with often. Digby has several great posts on Katrina at Hullabaloo and both she and Rick Perlstein have been writing a great deal on the subject at The Big Con. Scroll through and check out those late August posts. (I'm sure there are many more good pieces out there as well.)

Finally, here’s a video summing things up well in two minutes by Anne Thompson of the Campaign for America's Future. And no, conservatives still haven't discovered compassion. Sadly, like the devastated Gulf Coast, some things just haven't changed.



(Cross-posted at The Blue Herald)