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From
myth to reality
What
to say about Katrina? Well if the Dec 2004 Tsunami disaster had at least
one positive result it was to get the world's mighty to mull over what
would happen to their economies if such disasters happened at home Hurricane
Katrina in 2005 proved once and for all - especially to the mighty -
that such disasters happen anywhere and everywhere and that means even
in one's own backyard
- the best laid schemes of mice and men often go awry.
With
the Dec 2004 Tsunami disaster we saw the enormous surge of planetary
solidarity and a real desire to help a 03rd world region in need of
help. With Hurricane Katrina we saw one country's inability to anticipate
an internal crisis, not because of lack of funds or material but because
of an oversized bureaucratic machine with a strategy issue*.
We saw an immense media circus and we saw a GW arriving after the disaster,
a longtime after... but what we didn't see was the same surge of planetary
solidarity that accompanied the Dec 2004 Tsunami disaster and no real
desire to help. The mighty had been touched
and was more than able to fend for itself!
(*
The FEMA, in charge of managing internal
emergencies, had just found itself enrolled into the new structured
Homeland Security Department whose specific mandate, as stipulated by
a post 9/11 federal order, was to prioritize security against external
aggression rather than making
contingencies for Homeland
emergencies)
Chronicle
of a disaster, announced
Experts
had been announcing the disaster for years but the warnings had been
ignored. Katrina hit land just east of New
Orleans as a category 4 cyclone, downgraded from category 5 on the
Saffir-Simpson
scale. Some say fortunately it did weaken because the winds over
160 MPH and the deluge that immediately hit the streets of the"Big
Easy", ripped out windows and roofs but the worst was still to
come. Lake Pontchartrain's levees broke and the disaster that had been
announced , but studiously ignored by successive Federal administrations
for
years, happened swamping the city with
water reaching up to the roofs of 2 story houses, forcing the sewage
up out of the underground canals and driving those that could flee away
leaving the poor and the weakened to fend for themselves. Abandoned!!!
The smoking
Big Easy
Click to enlarge
Policemen
walked off the job, armed groups roaming the streets, raping and killing,
New Orleans Superdome was no man's land and the French Quarter off limits.
One Congress woman asked why the Federal administration couldn't
get assets in as fast as CNN got their
TV crews in?
...one week afterwards the city was one enormous military camp with
over 30 000 National guards, Marines, and other battle units just back
from Iraq, there were even US Air Force Special forces to help restore
order.
When you think that the current administration were contemplating reducing the Federal budget for Levee maintenance by ± 80% !!! Well now Katrina's left them a hefty 26 Billion $ tab. Not to mention the death toll, which no one seems in a hurry to want to establish. One Louisiana Senator estimates the loss of human life at ±10 000 and New Orleans authority's announce an official death toll of...59 but expected to rise. That's announced on the date Sept 05. One week, day for day, after the Hurricane hit!
We
know its not easy for the World's 01st super power to have to ask for
international aid , especially when certain central American governments
were offering to send 1100 doctors into the disaster zone as if to say
that the Americans couldn't cut it. But people...Americans... were asking
if this was really happening in the USA? They couldn't believe it. CNN
couldn't believe it! Newsweek couldn't believe! These were the sort
of images they were used to seeing in Bangladesh, Banda Aceh, Somalia,
Ethiopia....anywhere but not in their backyard.
Some CNN talkinghead mentioned the fact that the newsreels only showed
Afro-American people but that's not really unusual when you think that
65% of New Orleans' inhabitants are of Afro-American origin and 30 %
live under the poverty threshold. Makes you wonder.
Lake
Pontchartrain - Courtesy
Nasa
Post scriptum I'm not forgetting the other places affected by the disaster and certainly not the folks in places like Biloxi , Bay Saint Louis or Gulfport , Mississippi, cruelly affected by the Hurricane Katrina, its just that after having visited New Orleans in 2003, for a Nephew's marriage, I have a certain affinity for the Big Easy, especially after having had to go through a Tornado, over Dallas/Forth Worth, to reach it!!!
© N.Richards 09/2005 & 11/2007