Soldier in the RAin

Campus Report ^ | September 15, 2008 | Emily Miller

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Soldier in the Rain

by: Emily Miller, September 15, 2008

Michael Chertoff admits that three and a half years after Hurricane Katrina, the Defense and Homeland Security (DHS) he heads still falls short from protecting the American national structures from natural disasters.

In a speech last Friday at the Brookings Institution, Chertoff said that while the DHS has made strides in protecting the U.S. against possible terrorist attacks, much is left to be desired in keeping common good national assets, such as bridges, highways and levees safe from hurricanes, tropical storms and other potential Katrina-esque catastrophes.

“Regrettably, I don’t think we’ve done quite as good a job in protecting our common good assets and common good critical infrastructure against simple wear and tear or threats from Mother Nature,” Chertoff said.

Reflecting upon the reason of said shortcomings, Chertoff says he observes a familiar pattern that continues to repeat itself: “We have failed time and again to devote the energy and the effort and the investment to make sure that these structures can be preserved in the face of a possible very serious natural disaster, or frankly, simply through the ordinary degradation of any physical structure that comes year in and year out.”

Hurricane Katrina, the storm that left most of New Orleans under water after the levees broke on the 17th street canal in 2005, later came to embody the failure of DHS to respond to a national emergency, and Chertoff, the face of DHS, came under heavy criticism.

Since Katrina hit, a steel barrier has been erected to contain the water from entering the canal, and Chertoff said he recently asked himself why this wasn’t done ten years ago......