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Institute for Crisis, Disaster, and Risk Management Crisis and Emergency Management Newsletter Website |
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February
2006
Volume
10 - Number 1 |
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My Perspective on Hurricane Katrina
By Simone Thigpen No one expected Hurricane Katrina to leave behind
what she did. Meteorologists expected severe weather damage; houses and businesses
destroyed, cars overturned, people out of work…the usual after effects of
a storm. What was left behind was far greater than any weather storm could
have brought. Hurricane Katrina shined a new light on the United States and
how it conducts business.
The pictures and the stories pouring out of New Orleans late in August tested the world’s sense of reality. It was almost as if we were no longer the great and mighty superpower; almost as if we were now the third world country that the U.S. was so accustomed to helping in times of need. People were swimming in sewage water, screaming for anyone to come to their aid. Everyone including old and young, black and white; they were all in the muck and grime and chaos together. Shortly after the visuals from Hurricane Katrina came the talk. People saying that the government purposely ignored the citizens in the gulf; people saying they were ignoring Americans because they were black. The part that angers me is that people are so focused on race. Yes, the majority of the people living in the most ravaged part of the country were black. But ALL of the people affected in that area were poor. The socio-economic divide in this country is appalling. More than 90,000 people in each of the areas hit by Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi earn less than $10,000 per year. I’ve heard a few people say that ‘those who are in a situation like that choose to be in that situation…they must not want anything more for themselves.’ Why would anyone choose to suffer like that? Anyone who knew better would want help in bettering themselves. No one chooses to live under the poverty line. By focusing on the race of the U.S. citizens that barely make ends meet and rely so much on U.S. government public assistance is focusing on the wrong area. Progress cannot be made in this country if we, as a nation, cannot acknowledge our shortcomings. Hurricane Katrina revealed a side of our country that all of us know about but very few of us (1) acknowledge or (2) feel like we can do anything about. I believe there are lessons to be learned that have nothing to do with where the fault from the aftermath of Katrina lies. This country is entirely too focused on being reactive to situations. It’s so easy to say “we should have done this” and “there was a bill that wasn’t passed that could have prevented that.” Let us, as a country, focus on why there are people living here that, without the assistance of public transportation, would die if a natural disaster occurred. Let’s focus on why we, as a nation, were so ill-prepared for a disaster that people were slowly withering away from starvation. Let’s focus on why days went by and there were tax payers wading through filth, being housed in a building that had no electricity, no running water and no protection from harm. Tax payers….U.S. citizens….not Iraqi people….not victims of the Tsunami. Our own neighbors. Shouldn’t we be doing something about that? |