Today we read that Black members of Commerce are frustrated and enraged at the slow response to the Hurricane Katrina victims in the Soup Bowl of New Orleans. Diane Watson of California called the Federal Government's disaster relief program "Dysfunctional" and she indicated that is was only because the poor African Americans were there and further indication was given that if it was white folks, it would have been much different. I say "awe shut up," you don't know what you are talking about. Yes it is true that the rescue efforts were not staged close enough to the Hurricane devastation area, but remember there were Hurricane force winds of 75 miles per hour for some 120 miles from the center and we were not even sure until about six hours before the landfall exactly where that might even be? Thus a buffer of 150 miles away was the best policy, but even then there were tropical force winds for 200 miles and even then an occasional gust? So what did you expect the them to do? They had to wait for the winds to die down and it takes 10 hours for a 12 mph hour storm to move 120 miles before you can even safely fly in the damn thing and still you cannot rescue anyone for another 8 hours as the tail end of the storm passes by. Okay how many hours it that? Hmm? It is 18-hours. Meanwhile it is in the middle of the night when you are moving into position with your teams. Middle of the night no moon; so you have to wait until the next day while moving at night, but if you are North now you have to deal with the winds where you are and cannot move. If you are moving by ground you have Interstate 10 out at Alabama, flooding in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama. So ground transportation is out. Anything already in the death zone is not a whole lot of use as the city starts to fill up at the end of the first day. Remember all the people like Army Corp of Engineers cannot be expected to hang out in the middle of a Category Five Hurricane with 165 mph winds; give me a break.

Next we have to remember we can get in with helicopters with infrared and search lights the night before, but there is no where to get fuel, power is out, remember a Hurricane just hit? Dah? Where were all these black caucus members of the black leadership forum? I tell you where they were not, they were not in the kill zone of Hurricane Katrina, no sir, because they are African Americans of Wealth and Position. Oh but Reverend Jesse Jackson said they focused too much on the looting? Who focused too much on the looting, those who were out stealing or those trying to rescue them? And it appeared to me those folks were alive and fine. They did not need help, fore they were already helping themselves.

So before we criticize those first responders on the scene, who worked thru the night and some had accomplished some 400 rescues by the end of the second day, when they could see what they were doing let's realize how bad this thing really was? If those who were looting had to steal a new TV set, why didn't they just hot wire a car and leave the city? Give me a break.

Aid and help is on its way and they are helping these folks, but look at the situation, no power, no roads, no levee, looting, lawlessness, sniper fire, no food, no clean water, no fuel for helicopters, boats, or anything else. In fact the looters although they slowed the rescue efforts, the real culprit is Mother Nature and 40 years of un-headed warnings to upgrade the levees three-fold. That city with its 350-miles of levees is an engineering marvel in itself. An incredible feat of mankind's never ending quest to build, it only had some upgrades over the past 40 years and they were few and far between, but all were state of the art at the time.

Ask yourself when did Noah build his ark? Before the flood right; well we did not listen and now we paid. Now we will do it right or leave the city a giant lake, but the lesson here is not one of dismal performance, although it is true it was not good enough. It is a matter of a Category Five Hurricane.

It is not about black folks not getting services, there are more white folks that lost their homes than black folks without a ride out of New Orleans. And when it comes right down to it, there is not a damn thing we can do for those white folks, they have just lost everything, not a whole lot you can do for them right about now. Surely we can use this experience to build a better response system after a disaster of this magnitude, but pulling that "race card" on national TV, is really a slap in the face to those hardworking folks pulling 36 hour shifts to rescue people; some of which who seem to be a little ungrateful that they are being pulled away from their shopping sprees? Lets hold our tongues and concentrate on teamwork, there will be time enough for critique when we catch back up on all the work to be done.