Thursday of this past week, I was convinced civilization was coming to an end. I had watched three days of national news coverage depicting the abandoned people of New Orleans dehydrating, starving, dying, committing suicide in the hot sun. Reporters were speculating that the devastation in Louisiana and Mississippi would soon cause shortages of food and electricity in the Southeast. Here in town, hundreds of miles from the epicenter, every gas pump was dry as folks hoarded fuel. Looking back, I realize everyone believed we were one gas tank away from the same conditions the citizens of New Orleans were facing. In my saner moments, when I wasn't overwhelmed at the sight of so much human misery, I started to notice that television news was showing the same pictures day after day, that the footage of "looters" on Tuesday was the exact same footage on Thursday. When I got home Friday, I decided to change my source of information and read online newspapers from Mississippi and Louisiana. From them, I got a completely different perspective.
I know the entire region affected by Katrina. My father currently lives in Dallas, and since I prefer driving to flying, I have taken I-10 west through Pensacola, Mobile, Biloxi, and Gulfport—all those cities we have heard so much about this week. I know Gulfport especially well as one trip I spent an entire week there walking the beach and eating pancakes twice a day at IHOP. From Gulfport, I always drive Highway 49 north to Jackson [described as a "war zone" on Wednesday in the national news], passing through the lovely Hattiesburg and the De Soto National Forest. From Jackson, I catch I-20 into Dallas, further traversing Mississippi and Louisiana. My father used to live in Houston, to the south of New Orleans, and I have visited the French Quarter with him [a cheaper alternative than sending me to Paris when I was studying French in college].
I also have hurricane experience. In two months' time last summer, I survived three storms. Right before Frances blew through, when we couldn't believe our bad luck getting hit twice [a third time was utterly inconceivable], my colleagues were swapping in email this animated gif [only half in jest]:
Because I know the region well, because I am a hurricane survivor, I couldn't believe everything that I was seeing in the national news. So I first read the major newspaper out of Jackson, The Clarion Ledger. Rick Cleveland, one of its reporters, drove south to Hattiesburg, his hometown, and wrote an article titled "Katrina Creates a Hattiesburg I Never Knew." In it, he describes the devastation he found:
Far too many [pines] have fallen on houses, across roads, onto cars, over fences and everywhere else you might imagine. Indeed, with nearly every turn, I see another tree that has crashed through another rooftop. Many times, I must dismount [my bike] and walk around downed trees.This Hattiesburg might be new to him, but I recognized it as the day after Charlie here in Central Florida. When a major hurricane comes through, significant wind damage will result. As I read further about life in central Mississippi, I discovered that each day thousands of residents were having their power restored, crews were clearing trees from roads, folks were wondering why the garbage collectors hadn't taken away all of their storm debris stacked at the curb. Once people start worrying about brown spots on their manicured grass, you know things are going to be okay. Louisiana newspapers likewise reported how things were getting better. On Friday, for example, the Louisiana SPCA had begun rescuing animals left in flooded homes.
Yes, Katrina is responsible for some deaths. When she made landfall in South Florida—at the time only a category one hurricane—four people died right away. Two of them were struck by falling trees because they chose to stand outside during the storm. The other two hit a tree when they lost control while driving as Katrina roared ashore. I could argue that human stupidity killed these four men, but I'll let Katrina take the rap. We can justifiably blame her for everyone along the Gulf coast who drowned in the 30-foot storm surge. She is responsible for the fallen trees, crushed cars, battered houses, and collapse of the power grid. But this storm was a regular hurricane: destructive but survivable. What will happen, though, [and here I get angry] is that authorities will end up blaming Katrina for all of the death, misery, and destruction in New Orleans when those poor people died—and survivors lost their entire lives—because federal, state, and local governments failed their citizens. The city needed either 1) adequate protection from a category five hurricane, 2) an evacuation plan that could get everyone out, or 3) immediate federal response. Any of the three would have done the job.
The big lesson is that our government is inept, so we need to take more responsibility and prepare better for all types of disasters. How many bottles of water can any of us say we have on hand right now?
