Katrina

Lots of things on my mind this week, but I'll start with the most important.

It's been a pretty rough week for America. Hurricane Katrina left its mark on our country, destroying one of our most culturally-rich cities in its wake. It's unfathomable that thousands of people survived the hurricane, but are stranded or dying because they cannot receive help. This event has deeply saddened people all over the country, and all over the world.

But not me. I'm furious.

When the hurricane blew through, initial reports indicated Biloxi, Mississippi had been hardest hit. Then details surfaced about New Orleans and the winds from Katrina tearing holes in the roof of the Louisiana Superdome. But the storm blew through and although property damage was widespread, it seemed that would be the end of it.

Then the levees broke.

The streets of New Orleans began to fill up with water. People at the Superdome began to get antsy as power failed and the bathrooms backed up. Oil rigs were destroyed and a pipeline was on fire. Reports of looting started to come in.

And the government did nothing.

The next day, anarchy supposedly broke out in New Orleans. There were rapes and looting and people attacking the cops. New Orleans cops shifted from rescuing people to fighting looters. How could this be happening in America. The most prosperous nation in the world? I asked Rhonda, "where the hell is the National Guard?"

Oh yeah, Iraq.

I started to get angry. It seems like we have no problem sending people to foreign nations (that we invaded, of course), but we don't have troops to send to our own country when something goes wrong.

The next morning, Bush sent in the National Guard. So you think I'd be happy.

Well, where the hell were they three days ago?

Finally, the Guard arrived and New Orleans is a ghost town (literally). But now comes word that people in rural Louisiana may be stranded and in even more danger, as they have neither communication with the outside world nor the National Guard in their town.

Katrina is the worst disaster since the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire. But this wasn't an earthquake. And it's not 1906. We knew about Katrina in advance, and we knew it was going to be huge. So what went wrong?

Most of the people stuck in Louisiana still are Black. But they're also poor. On CNN, they said 27% of people live in poverty, and 29% don't have a car. Even if they do have a car, has anyone seen the price of gas lately? Those people couldn't leave on their own if they wanted to.

For all the talk of looters, there were probably some people taking advantage of the situation. But the media reporting of the situation was completely skewed from the beginning. Many, if not most, of the looters were taking away food and water. If they weren't Black, would they have been labeled as looters?

Why was our government so slow to act? One theory is that we were tapped out because of the Iraq War. But if that was so, where did we find those 7,000 troops that got sent a couple days ago? Is it because the victims are poor and Black and not the type of people who vote in every election? When the Twin Towers fell on 9/11, we sure got there real quick. I hate to think that could be the reason, but it's probably worth considering.

The best theory I have is that after 9/11, America has shifted it's entire focus to fighting terrorism. We are prepared for the worst attack on our sovereign nation, but not for far-more-frequent natural disasters. (Why is FEMA in the Department of Homeland Security?) I have been reading Steven Levitt's Freakonomics lately and it's a fascinating read. Levitt says a child is 100 times more likely to die in a house with a swimming pool than a house with a gun, but that since a child dying from a gunshot is more traumatizing than drowning, it receives much more attention. It is a perfect analogy to what is happening in America under the Bush Administration.

Katrina and the disintegration of New Orleans needs to call attention to the actions of the Bush Administration over the past five years. It may be too late to elect someone else, but it's not to late for our Congressional representatives to start doing their jobs and challenging the policies of our President.

This can't continue. If there's an earthquake in the Bay Area and I'm trapped here for a week, will the National Guard come to help me, or will they leave me to die?