As of this writing Hurricane Katrina is both gone from the maps but also getting worse than when it was moving across the coastline. This is the kind of destruction that comes in the aftermath of massive natural disasters. Infrastructure has failed or is failing and the damage in New Orleans is getting worse, rather than abating as is usual after such events. There are plenty of places on the web with details on this tragedy but I would like to step back a bit and think about this in terms of what it means for our security and safety.

What we are seeing all along the Gulf Coast is the sort of destruction we’d see from a multiple nuclear event. The only reason we don’t have the level of deaths one would expect in multiple bombings was because the people got warning. It is impressive indeed to imagine a million people evacuating the area around New Orleans and who knows how many hundreds of thousands more from areas to the East of there.

As one commentator put it tonight, quite chillingly I thought, was that for the first time in modern history we are seeing refugees, American refugees, lost in their own country with only the clothes on their backs. Even with the evacuation the loss of life will, I fear, be staggering. Without the evacuation it would be unthinkable.

But these people have few places to go, especially those too poor or disabled to evacuate and who now have to leave New Orleans, a city whose total abandonment has been ordered by authorities. Think of that for a minute, in my lifetime there has never been an entire major American city that had to be simply abandoned.

So how does this reflect on our security? We have squandered tremendous resources pursuing bush’s folly in Iraq. When the hurricane hit 8900 Mississippi and Louisiana National Guard troops, along with who knows how many helicopters and pilots, were in Iraq. The were not in place to protect their own citizens, who need them now more than ever in their history, for this storm dwarfed Camille who hit the same area back in 1969.

In addition the bush administration cut 70% of the budget for Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, which would have addressed many of the problems that are occurring right now. Whether they would have made a difference is an open question, the answer to which we won’t ever know. But it is a question worth asking nonetheless because it is indicative of administration priorities.

Take away the water and add in a nuke to this scene. The results would look startlingly the same.

But right now the levees are failing, New Orleans is drowning as the “bowl” fills up with water and the people there have nowhere to go and no way to get there if they did, the bridges are all down. The coastal cities of Louisiana and Mississippi are literally swept away and the swath of destruction spreads far inland from the coast.

It is a tragedy and I suspect one that will be compounded by this country’s growing fragility, economically, militarily and politically. It took bush two days to even bother to go back to Washington but his presence there, or anywhere, is likely to make little difference.

Look closely, for we will see heroic efforts on the state and local levels, as good an effort as can be produced at the federal level with reduced resources, and at some point bush will show up eager to gild his image with the hard work of others, as always.

We need real leadership in times like this. Sadly, we don’t have it.