Natural Disasters Suck
Having this whole blog thing makes me feel that I should comment on various happenings in the world. It is my duty, for instance, to report fully on the Video Music Awards or Kanye West’s fabulous new album.
However, as kindergarten teachers can recite in unison, “It’s all fun and games until someone pokes out an eye.” And with Hurricane Katrina, the proverbial eye has been poked out.
I’m at a loss for words.
Here, though, is what the mayor of New Orleans had to say. “We’re probably looking at 12 to 16 weeks before people can come in. And the other issue that’s concerning me is we have dead bodies in the water. At some point in time, the dead bodies are going to start to create a serious disease issue.”
Whoa.
I still haven’t adjusted to the notion that we have “flood refugees” who are going to have to live in the ASTRODOME for an extended period of time. And now I have to accept the inhabitability of a major US city AND floating dead bodies AND massive outbreaks of diseases I like only to hear about on House.
Now is not the time to worry about whether the federal government is to be blamed for cutting flood prevention budgets or to figure out how many people are out there claiming that the hurricane is God’s punishment for abortion practices.
Let’s just pray for the people down there.
Again, people are LIVING in the Astrodome. Or not living. Or still waiting for rescue on top of apartment buildings.
Whoa.
However, as kindergarten teachers can recite in unison, “It’s all fun and games until someone pokes out an eye.” And with Hurricane Katrina, the proverbial eye has been poked out.
I’m at a loss for words.
Here, though, is what the mayor of New Orleans had to say. “We’re probably looking at 12 to 16 weeks before people can come in. And the other issue that’s concerning me is we have dead bodies in the water. At some point in time, the dead bodies are going to start to create a serious disease issue.”
Whoa.
I still haven’t adjusted to the notion that we have “flood refugees” who are going to have to live in the ASTRODOME for an extended period of time. And now I have to accept the inhabitability of a major US city AND floating dead bodies AND massive outbreaks of diseases I like only to hear about on House.
Now is not the time to worry about whether the federal government is to be blamed for cutting flood prevention budgets or to figure out how many people are out there claiming that the hurricane is God’s punishment for abortion practices.
Let’s just pray for the people down there.
Again, people are LIVING in the Astrodome. Or not living. Or still waiting for rescue on top of apartment buildings.
Whoa.
posted by OleNelson at 12:53 PM
6 Comments:
This is very ethnocentric of me, but this is the kind of thing I expect to happen in some other place - I thought we had evolved beyond destruction by such low-brow natural disasters. Anthrax attacks? Sure! A dirty bomb in Manhattan? I wouldn't be surprised!
Along the same lines:
am an expat from Bangladesh originally, and it's struck me that the name of my country has already come up in several blog posts & news reports. It's usually in a disparaging sense as in: "You expect to see things like this in Haiti or Bangladesh ARRGHH!" [...]
However, I can tell all the good readers and blog posters and US commentators out there that if some of the scenes that have been reported in New Orleans - especially things like looting and lawlessness, or even worse, dead people lying in the open - if all this had happened in Bangladesh, there would have been scandal and outrage, and a call for action and accountability at the highest levels.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/9/1/13467/88493
While walking through O'Hare I glanced at the front page of the Tribune, took a few steps, turned around, and thought "Do they mean New Orleans!?!?!" regarding the giant headline about anarchy. I thought at first it was about Iraq because there was another headline next to the big one about that. So I backtracked and looked more closely and was like "Whoa!" Then I got home and read more about dead people abandoned on street medians and the fact that the people in the convention center were basically abandoned by everyone and am just kind of dumbfounded. Maybe I'll send more money to Oxfam and hope they do the same good things with it that they did with my tsuami relief, as it seems that the federal government has kind of dropped the ball on this one.
I'm not a religious person, but I will send a little agnostic prayer out to everyone in New Orleans tonight.
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I just commented that people were living in the Superdome ("where the Saints of football play..."), not the Astrodome. But apparently both domes are temporary housing. I think the Astrodome would look pretty good if I was in the Superdome right now...and that's pretty depressing.
worse than natural disasters are disastrous leaders.
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