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Frontline The Old Man and The Storm

GreatMovieCriticForever | 09/07/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is an in depth look at Hurricane Katrina disaster, how the governments failed in time to help the residents of the city, the eventual rebuilding, and the politics behind it all.

I like Frontline for doing these type of episodes. In a couple of days, it'll be four years since Katrina. However, the corporate media rarely talks about Katrina or Bush or what happened anymore. In fact, aside from maybe CNN or MSNBC, Hurricande Katrina is not mentioned at all, but you can bet that there will various reports on September 11 coming up.

This episode tells you more or less the events that happened that lead to Hurricane Katrina there are a couple of important bits that they've left out, but Frontline eventually presents the big picture-The government was ill prepared for such a disaster, and the blame laid upon Bush, Mayor of New Orleans, and the Governor.

The episode also tells us the story of Herbert Gettridge who basically rebuilt his home without any federal money. You can use what happened to Gettridge as a template for what happened to a lot of the residents after Katrina. The difference is that Gettride besides being alive remained in his home through it all. It's obvious that the response to Katrina was at best inadequate from all sides. We are reminded again of FEMA's terrible performance.

Here is where the episode leaves out a couple of important bits. After Katrina, a video was eventually leaked out by the Associated Press of how much Fema and Bush knew about impending danger.

FEMA's Micheal Brown, who was eventually made up to be a scapegoat, although his performance nonetheless was average, tells Bush and his advisors that Katrina was going to be "the big one". There's a scene where one of the Hurricane National Center's watchmen tells administration that Hurricane will be a strong hurricane to the likes of Hurricane Andrew if not bigger.

In subsequent interviews while Bush does acknowledge his failure in situation, and the state and local government, he goes on camera to say that there wasn't info to say Katrina would be such a disaster. In other words in typical Bush fashion still trying to look like the innocent one. Katrina would end up being another big Bush failure though he would try to make it up.

Subsequently, of course FEMA disastrous performance would be exposed.

Back to Frontline.We are also told again that it took about six months before the cleanup actually began.

To be objective It's clear President Bush isn't the only one to blame about Katrina. The episode talks about Mayor Ray Nagin and then governor Kathleen Blanco and their own failures.

Anybody remember the famous shot in the news of the school buses that could have been used to evacuate lying underwater? I sure do. That was a state failure.

No matter who you want to put the blame on, Katrina is another wake up call to show ill prepared governments are (regardless of how much warning they get about natural disasters). It's always insult to injury to hear how people benefit of the disaster. Like in the episode you hear how one company, ICF International gave themselves million dollar bonuses.

When you hear that Bush didn't want to bail out one power company, that would have given a lot of home owners power, you'll laugh your head off.

We learn what happened to Mr. Gettride. He did eventually finish rebuilding his house, and he did get the money he needed. You see and read all the millions of dollars that were eventually redistributed to NO.

Eventually though the rebuilding did begin, a lot of people did start to get money they needed.

In the end, this episode serves to remind me people that it really is every man for himself. Don't expect the government to help you immediately when a disaster happens."