Katrina and The Big Easy
Saturday - September 03, 2005
I would
be remiss not to write something about the worst natural
disaster to hit this country. It is terrible. I have had it on
the TV in the background the past couple of days. I never
thought I'd see the human drama that is unfolding down there.
Forget politics, or why some didn't evacuate, or why aide was
or wasn't sent soon enough, or the racial issue. This is a
human disaster. It breaks my heart to see the confusion and the
helplessness. As much as I resent the current administration, I
was glad to see the president went down there and surveyed the
damage and embraced the people. I do wish his speech at the
airfield had been more from the heart and less of the
congratulatory back-patting typical of politicians. I was glad
that he admitted that they hadn't done enough. I think he
should continue in that honest, compassionate manner. But,
eventually, political minds will prevail and we'll be shouting
at each other on the talk-shows in a week or so. None of it
changes the big questions:
What on earth do we do
with all these people (poor and affluent alike)? Where will
they be housed while things get rebuilt? Those who have
extended family are lucky. However, nobody wants to stay with
their in-laws, cousins, or parents for months. These people are
away from their communities, churches, coworkers,
etc.
The bodies. What do we
do with the bodies? In addition to those who parished as a
direct result of Katrina, there are bound to be caskets and
corpses turning up. What the hell do families do? The family
plots have been washed away, and unlike the casualties of 9/11,
it is not only logistically difficult to have a service for
families, there is just no place to put bodies, at least no
place anyone expected to be their final resting place. It sets
families up to make some tough decisions in the midst of
attempting to recover from losing everything else.
How safe are we? How
safe is anyone in any industrialized nation in the world when
some catastrophic event occurs? He we are in a country that has
invested billions on protecting its citizens against a very
real or very perceived threat of terrorist attack. But here we
are reeling after an act of nature that we saw coming. What
about all the billions spent on emergency evacuations and
immediate medical care? Could it be that those plans are only
in place for high-value terrorist targets like New York,
Washington, Los Angeles, Chicago, etc.? Probably. But, given a
dollar's ability to be stretched only so thin, I can
understand. Let's face it, terrorists probably know nothing
about New Orleans, much less any political reason to target it.
Regardless, we once again need to step back and evaluate what
it means to protect the citizenry of this country.
What's to become of New
Orleans? That's the quest on everyone's mind despite the fact
that it wasn't hit the hardest and hasn't suffered the most
casualties. Just like New York and the towers that came down on
911, New Orleans will be the city everyone refers to when they
look back on this, even though many others were lost elsewhere.
Hey, that's just how history tends to work. So, do we rebuild
New Orleans? Of course. Despite common sense, we will. Part of
it is humans' desire to live in desolate and sometimes
dangerous environments. Much of it has to do with mankind's
stubbornness to back down after it's had its ass kicked. Some
of it as to do with the places we call home. Over the next few
months and years, much will be said about how uniquely american
each of these is. I disagree, these are traits we share with
every human. We're all pig-headed, stubborn and stupid, and
nostalgic. So, we'll rebuild and it will be bigger, better and
stronger. It will go from being one of the oldest established
cities in the country to the most modern and high-tech. It will
become the next Atlanta, and I predict that over the next 20
years, it will be one of the largest and economically
prosperous. So, if anyone says "they have some swampland in
Louisiana they want to sell you," you may want to listen to
what they have to say...
Posted at 09:12 PM < Just Another Brick in the Blog
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