What the Hell Happened?
Sep. 1st, 2005 01:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
orikesI’m starting to get angry.
Katrina hit Mississippi Sunday night, Monday morning. We knew she was coming and we knew she was going to be bad. Even before that people had stated that New Orleans was in trouble if it were to ever get hit with a big hurricane. It’s now Thursday, and there are still THOUSANDS of people stranded in New Orleans.
When natural disasters happen in other parts of the world and I read about the chaos lasting for extended periods of time, I always assumed that was because they didn’t have the infrastructure to react quick enough, to help those people out. When the tsunami came at the New Year, my heart went out to the people struggling to survive and then rebuild. But some sort of American hubris within me believed, honestly believed, that could never happen here. Not on that level. I didn’t even realize I had that level of national arrogance in me.
No, the loss of life is not comparable. The loss of property and livelihood and everything else is not on the same scale. But at the same time, I read the news reports and watch the human interest video bites and I can’t help but wonder, “WTF!”
I know the entire region was hit hard, but I also know there is, as there always is in cases like this, a huge outpouring of donations. How can there still be people stranded in there with no potable water? With no supplies? NOTHING.
Even acknowledging the fact that the flooding is an engineering nightmare of gargantuan proportions, I cannot even remotely understand why more has not been done for these people. They say that the rescue attempts within the city have been called off because of violence towards the rescuers. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t approve of the violence or the looting, but these people have been stuck there for four days. FOUR days. They’re scared and they’re angry. I Imagine they’re feeling abandoned.
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
niherlas made a post in his LJ yesterday commenting on how .. absurd it is that a natural disaster that we saw coming could lay us so low. Where was our increased ‘National Security’ measures? Do the measures we suffer to ‘protect’ us only apply when it’s another human being attacking and Mother Nature doesn’t count?
Katrina hit Mississippi Sunday night, Monday morning. We knew she was coming and we knew she was going to be bad. Even before that people had stated that New Orleans was in trouble if it were to ever get hit with a big hurricane. It’s now Thursday, and there are still THOUSANDS of people stranded in New Orleans.
When natural disasters happen in other parts of the world and I read about the chaos lasting for extended periods of time, I always assumed that was because they didn’t have the infrastructure to react quick enough, to help those people out. When the tsunami came at the New Year, my heart went out to the people struggling to survive and then rebuild. But some sort of American hubris within me believed, honestly believed, that could never happen here. Not on that level. I didn’t even realize I had that level of national arrogance in me.
No, the loss of life is not comparable. The loss of property and livelihood and everything else is not on the same scale. But at the same time, I read the news reports and watch the human interest video bites and I can’t help but wonder, “WTF!”
I know the entire region was hit hard, but I also know there is, as there always is in cases like this, a huge outpouring of donations. How can there still be people stranded in there with no potable water? With no supplies? NOTHING.
Even acknowledging the fact that the flooding is an engineering nightmare of gargantuan proportions, I cannot even remotely understand why more has not been done for these people. They say that the rescue attempts within the city have been called off because of violence towards the rescuers. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t approve of the violence or the looting, but these people have been stuck there for four days. FOUR days. They’re scared and they’re angry. I Imagine they’re feeling abandoned.
niherlas made a post in his LJ yesterday commenting on how .. absurd it is that a natural disaster that we saw coming could lay us so low. Where was our increased ‘National Security’ measures? Do the measures we suffer to ‘protect’ us only apply when it’s another human being attacking and Mother Nature doesn’t count?![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-01 05:27 pm (UTC)I have to say, at this point, that some, at least, of the looting is entirely justifiable. There's food there, food that no-one's going to sell to ANYONE, that's going to mean the difference betwen starving and not at the rate the rescues aren't happening.
Not that I condone the theft of stuff like TV's.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-01 05:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-01 06:45 pm (UTC)We live in the richest, the most technologically advanced, country in the world. And there are mothers sitting in shit outside the New Orleans stadium, surrounded by corpses.
Jesus Christ!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-01 06:46 pm (UTC)We live in the richest, the most technologically advanced, country in the world. And there are mothers sitting in shit outside the New Orleans stadium, surrounded by corpses.
Jesus Christ!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-01 08:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-01 08:35 pm (UTC)While the residents of New Orleans sit on sidewalks with only disease infested water around them, our President's response has been less than exemplary.
Four days... Four days and they're only just now starting to get some military support in there to help the overwhelmed National Guard, Red Cross and Police.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-01 08:45 pm (UTC)