Windows of Opportunity

It's turning uglier in New Orleans. You can only expect people to last so long standing around in sewage in 90 degree heat without food, water or medicine. By the third day, some, especially the very young and the elderly, start dying. Others start lashing out, filling the vacuum of authority with savagery and violence. The critical window for reestablishing a sense of order, with supplies, medical teams, and most of all, belief that real help is coming soon, has been missed.

One can only hope that the continuing communications problems in the area mean that no one there has yet gotten wind of Wednesday's statement by Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert.

Lawmakers have to ask themselves if it's worth sinking possibly billions of federal dollars into rebuilding New Orleans, a low-lying city which would remain a vulnerable hurricane target even after clean up, House Speaker Dennis Hastert said Wednesday.

"It doesn't make sense to me," said Hastert during an interview with the Daily Herald editorial board.

You've got to hand it to the man: now really is the time to be talking about it.

Update: The AP has a story with gruesome details.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - New Orleans descended into anarchy Thursday, as corpses lay abandoned in street medians, fights and fires broke out and storm survivors battled for seats on the buses that would carry them away from the chaos. The tired and hungry seethed, saying they had been forsaken. "This is a desperate SOS," mayor Ray Nagin said.

"We are out here like pure animals," the Rev. Issac Clark said outside the New Orleans Convention Center, where he and other evacuees had been waiting for buses for days amid the filth and the dead.

Four days after Hurricane Katrina roared in with a devastating blow that inflicted potentially thousands of deaths, the frustration and anger mounted, despite the promise of 1,400 National Guardsmen a day to stop the looting, plans for a $10 billion recovery bill in Congress and a government relief effort President Bush called the biggest in U.S. history.

New Orleans' top emergency management official called that effort a "national disgrace" and questioned when reinforcements would actually reach the increasingly lawless city.

Meanwhile, we hear the FEMA director on CNN taking pains to refer to those still in the city as those who "chose" to stay, conveniently ignoring the difficulties of the many poor and sick people without cars, or even, at the end of the month, money for a tank of gas. I guess being unable to leave, and having nowhere to go, is a "choice."

I'm going to go cry now.