Executive Director's Report: The tragedy of Katrina: a result of short-term thinking

By Anne L. Bryant

09/27/05 -- For me, “Katrina” will never be just the name of two strong independent women I know. It will be a hurricane that forever changed this nation. Or will it?

The Dutch faced a similar tragedy in 1953, when old dikes and seawalls gave way during a violent storm. The flooding killed nearly 2,000 people, forced the evacuation of 70,000 others, and destroyed more than 4,000 buildings.

Afterwards, the Dutch vowed that a disaster of that magnitude would never happen again. It took 25 years and $8 billion, but the Netherlands erected a futuristic system of coastal defenses that is admired around the world and can withstand the sea’s fury from the kind of storm that happens once every 10,000 years.

Now consider the dam, dike, and levee system that was supposed to protect New Orleans -- but couldn’t withstand the wrath of Hurricane Katrina.

Contrast the lessons learned in 1953 and the long-term thinking of a small nation with the very short-term thinking of the United States. It is this short-term thinking that has made this executive director so crazed over the past several weeks.

By short-term thinking, I’m not just talking about Hurricane Katrina and what could have been done. I’m talking about a nation that thinks too short term about the entire infrastructure -- not just levees and dikes but roads, sewer systems, electricity grids, and most important, public education, which, in my mind, is the most vital infrastructure we have.

The devastation caused by Katrina was not unexpected. Over the past several decades, smart engineers have known exactly what could happen to New Orleans if a major hurricane caused the dikes and levees to fail. Engineers had been studying the Mississippi Delta and the Gulf Coast, the potential for flooding, the destruction of the wetlands caused by oil exploration, and the structural improvements that were needed. In the 1990s, serious efforts were made to develop a strategy to address these issues.

By 2000, a $14 billion plan had been put together. The Coast 2050 Plan called for a 50-year effort to cut channels in the levees to divert water away from New Orleans, build a navigation channel for ships, erect sea gates to connect Lake Ponchartrain to the Gulf of Mexico, and rebuild the entire system of levees, pumps, and canals to protect the city.

This was clearly the right thing to do, but what happened? Neither local officials, the state of Louisiana, nor Congress would support implementing the plan. The result -- gutless, politically short-sighted business as usual.

And now we are probably facing a bill for cleaning up the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina that is way more than $14 billion. Current estimates put the price tag close to $200 billion.

Am I “blaming” the leadership at the state and national levels? Yes, I am, and I’m furious at our short-term, nearsighted culture. America needs to wake up. We have become complacent, greedy, and too fixated on short-term payoffs and sound bites rather than on hard-earned, long-term gains.

Whether it is Katrina, foreign policy, or No Child Left Behind, this nation is being led by people with an agenda that is too shortsighted -- and this is not a Republican or Democratic statement.

A clear parallel to the Coast 2050 Plan is the federal education budget. While we at NSBA fight for modest increases in Title I and special education funds, the Administration and Congress seek to underfund the very programs that are now of dire importance to Katrina’s victims -- the children who have lost their schools and the districts that are welcoming them and now have far greater needs for these funds.

Federal assistance for school construction, so well outlined and fought for in the previous Administration in the 1990s and before, is needed more than ever in the communities affected by Katrina.

NSBA is working with members of Congress to expand the use of Qualified Zone Academy Bonds (QZABs) to include new school construction to help the Gulf region recover and to ease the overcrowding in school districts with many displaced students.

QZABs are creative alternatives to regular tax-exempt bonds. School districts are responsible for paying the principal and have 15 years to do so. Financial institutions pay the interest and are entitled to tax credits. The proceeds can be used for school renovation, instructional supplies, even professional development -- but not construction.  

Expanding the use of QZABs for construction of new schools is an example of the kind of innovative, legislative changes that are needed now to assist school districts affected by Katrina. This is a long-term investment to create a sound school infrastructure.

But in times of crisis, we can all come together now -- in the short term. NSBA is working with the Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama school boards associations as they launch relief efforts to assist children in their states.

In addition, the staff at NSBA has collected supplies and money to donate to a church in Lake Charles, La., whose pastor is related to two of our staff members. NSBA has sent literally a truckload of supplies -- 89 boxes -- to the church, which is serving as a shelter for about 50 people displaced by the hurricane. 

The outpouring of support from this small staff effort is one indication of the heart-felt sympathy around the nation for children and their families forced out of their homes by Katrina.

My hope is that this message reaches more than our wonderful School Board News readers. It’s also a message to Congress, to our President, and to Education Secretary Margaret Spellings: Look at the picture that we’ve created. We must invest in our nation’s infrastructure. We must not let this effort get entangled in partisan politics.

As a nation, we have ignored our infrastructure. If we do not take action now, it will be at our peril. Forget the lobbyists who are only concerned with short-term, Wall Street gains. Forget the interim elections. Invest wisely -- not in pork barrel politics -- but in our nation’s future, our children.

Without a strong investment in education, the United States will not prosper or flourish, and more important, will not be able to hold on to our democracy.

Think about how the nation will be able to compete in the kind of world described by Thomas L. Friedman in his new book, The World is Flat, in which advanced technology and the lessening of trade and political barriers mean anyone, anywhere in the world, can be a competitor.

If there is a silver lining from this terrible storm, it is the sense of urgency to take action now to rebuild the best schools we can afford, to provide training for the people who lost their jobs and need new skills, and reconstruct a dike and levee system that can withstand that one storm in 10,000 years.