Notes for a bitch…owning disaster…

Shall we?
We are now 40+ days into the BP oil spill.
The situation is currently the very definition of fubar and, as distressing as it is to hear, we may have to wait until August to truly stop the flow of oil.
I can hardly wrap my mind around the devastation that has already happened much less try to imagine what is yet to come with hurricane season now upon us.
But for now, I’d like to address a happening I’ve noticed in how folks are discussing this disaster – many people are calling it Obama’s Hurricane Katrina.
I understand what people are trying to say…but disasters don’t end when presidential terms come to an end.
They don’t wrap up and become instantly resolved.
Lawd, knows I wish they did.
I wish that the swearing in of a new president made the devastation Katrina brought to the Gulf go away…restored the environment, made lives whole again…and oh, how I wish that those 1,836 people who died were resurrected by a simple change in administration.
But shit doesn’t work that way.
And, for the record, Hurricane Katrina is Obama’s Hurricane Katrina…and the BP Oil Disaster is his too.
The Gulf was and is still dealing with the trauma of Hurricane Katrina…the region is now dealing with the oil spill on top of that…and hurricane season is now beginning.
That’s what’s on the table and we would all do well to remember that…to accept the all encompassing frustration and horror of all that.
Because ’tis that reality that the Obama Administration is faced with…a region still trying to lift itself up after the trauma of Hurricane Katrina that is being ravaged day after day by an oil spill from hell.
We must not set aside what has yet to be made right from Hurricane Katrina just to try and score some political points when discussing the BP disaster.
August 28 will mark the five-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.
We are now 40+ days into this spill.
And I’ll say it again – Hurricane Katrina is Obama’s Hurricane Katrina…and the BP Oil Disaster is his too.