Just some thoughts from someone who lives in Katrina's wake....
1. Most people in New Orleans heeded the evacuation order...90% if I had my guess. EVERYONE who has ever lived there knows the issue is not the Hurricane itself but the flooding of a levee breach. Nawlin's is a soup bowl surrounded by water. A Cat 4/5 storm straight up the goola into Lake Pontchartrain and/or the river WAS the worst case scenario - and it happened. The people that did not evacuate made that decision because a) they really thought they'd ride it out and would be okay (stupidity? yes, and also some experience as many,many hurricanes have been endured over the years) b) these people could not get out...they don't own cars, they are infirmed or so poor they simply could not get to an evacuation route/vehicle c) some of these people have never left their NEIGHBORHOOD let alone the city...ignorance and poverty...a dangerous combination d) a segment of the population decided to hang around and "clean up" in a city that was largely evacuated. Yep, there were folks sittin' out the storm waiting to take advantage of the situation. They would have looted, flood or no flood.
2. Panic has not been confined to the greater New Orleans area...outlying cities are overwhelmed with desperate people, which in turn have gotten the local residents scared and panicky. Gas lines are long even though trucks keep coming to refill, streets are jammed packed with cars and tempers are very short. Stores are picked clean. You have no idea. It is impossible to describe.
3. The devastation is on such a grand scale that families that have lost EVERYTHING are doing fine. They are genuinely just happy to be alive. HAPPY TO BE ALIVE. They don't care if everything they own is gone. They got an up close look at their mortality and realize just how close they came to being much worse off than losing their possessions.
4. The sobering thoughts that should plague everyone else in the country is that New Orleans is a relatively SMALL city. Yes, we have an entire population that must be resettled elsewhere. Many of these people are desperate, poor and with almost no prospects for a better existence than the one they had in the 9th Ward, Rampart street or housing projects of New Orleans. They are now going to be your neighbors. Will they get tucked into the poor segments of other cities? What will Houston and Dallas do with these people? If you think the scale of this disaster is huge...what would happen if city wide natural disaster (or terrorist act) created the same situation in New York, LA, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta?
An entire economic sector of our country was just obliterated. Innocent, good people are dying on the streets of New Orleans today. Truly innocent, good hearted people whose only crime was not leaving a home they loved or not being able to leave.
Other bad people are dying on the streets of New Orleans today too. We won't mourn them or miss them.
1. Most people in New Orleans heeded the evacuation order...90% if I had my guess. EVERYONE who has ever lived there knows the issue is not the Hurricane itself but the flooding of a levee breach. Nawlin's is a soup bowl surrounded by water. A Cat 4/5 storm straight up the goola into Lake Pontchartrain and/or the river WAS the worst case scenario - and it happened. The people that did not evacuate made that decision because a) they really thought they'd ride it out and would be okay (stupidity? yes, and also some experience as many,many hurricanes have been endured over the years) b) these people could not get out...they don't own cars, they are infirmed or so poor they simply could not get to an evacuation route/vehicle c) some of these people have never left their NEIGHBORHOOD let alone the city...ignorance and poverty...a dangerous combination d) a segment of the population decided to hang around and "clean up" in a city that was largely evacuated. Yep, there were folks sittin' out the storm waiting to take advantage of the situation. They would have looted, flood or no flood.
2. Panic has not been confined to the greater New Orleans area...outlying cities are overwhelmed with desperate people, which in turn have gotten the local residents scared and panicky. Gas lines are long even though trucks keep coming to refill, streets are jammed packed with cars and tempers are very short. Stores are picked clean. You have no idea. It is impossible to describe.
3. The devastation is on such a grand scale that families that have lost EVERYTHING are doing fine. They are genuinely just happy to be alive. HAPPY TO BE ALIVE. They don't care if everything they own is gone. They got an up close look at their mortality and realize just how close they came to being much worse off than losing their possessions.
4. The sobering thoughts that should plague everyone else in the country is that New Orleans is a relatively SMALL city. Yes, we have an entire population that must be resettled elsewhere. Many of these people are desperate, poor and with almost no prospects for a better existence than the one they had in the 9th Ward, Rampart street or housing projects of New Orleans. They are now going to be your neighbors. Will they get tucked into the poor segments of other cities? What will Houston and Dallas do with these people? If you think the scale of this disaster is huge...what would happen if city wide natural disaster (or terrorist act) created the same situation in New York, LA, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta?
An entire economic sector of our country was just obliterated. Innocent, good people are dying on the streets of New Orleans today. Truly innocent, good hearted people whose only crime was not leaving a home they loved or not being able to leave.
Other bad people are dying on the streets of New Orleans today too. We won't mourn them or miss them.