Katrina, Katrina... It will forever be the calamity that exposed the absolute worst in humankind in my mind. It seems like a powerful force of nature isn't enough to stop social strife.
Ever since the initial storm warnings, I could sense that Louisiana was never going to be prepared for the onslough. Did you see how low the barriers were? What were the bleeping engineers who build that bleeping thing thinking? Or smoking maybe?? And to house evacuatees in the stadium within the walls instead of getting them out of the state? A building jammed in among other buildings? How were they ever going to transport supplies? And why didn't they have any supplies in the disaster centre? So many danger signs that are so blindingly obvious... makes you wonder why there was no person to point them out. Why the national guards are so slow eventhough they had at least 2 days to mobilise help... Why, if the US Army Engineers had planned for the possibility of the levies collapsing and had it "sitting on a shelf", did it take 5 days to start the sandbagging operation?
Judging from the witness accounts, I can't help but marvel at the contrasts between the Asian Tsunami and Katrina. Perhaps it's the media coverage, perhaps it's the lack of international help.... it just seems like the US is inadept at handling crisis, especially when you look at the efficiency of the UK authorities at handling the London attacks. Perhaps also a chance to reassess the right to arms?
