When discussing the bomb blasts that rocked Karachi during Benazir Bhutto’s return from exile, a friend wrote me what has to be the most depressing thing I’ve read in the last 2+ years:
“Katrina was a natural disaster — albeit one likely forced by climate change — and the bombing in Pakistan was a human act. The two are incomparable. Yes, there was human apathy, and f***-ups, and inadequacy, and so much more with Katrina, but the explosion in Pakistan was a complete and utter act of human hate.”
Through my astonishment, I replied with the usual litany of facts and news items we ourselves have been inundated with over the past two years, but none of it felt effective against the certitude with which someone I know has wrongly absorbed what happened in this city. The non-readiness of our levees for a Category 3 hurricane’s surge was completely a human act and an avoidable disaster waiting to happen. Yet America continues to talk of recognizing “that the aftereffects of Katrina were man-made” while allegedly educated on the topic.
Where did we go wrong? And why do I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut?
Of course, it doesn’t help when the local media says it — all the way from Lucy Bustamante to Diane Mack and Travers Mackel to Norm Robinson — and reinforces the notion of the New Orleanian natural disaster of 2005. Mack spoke the other morning of the Southern University of New Orleans (SUNO), the doors of which haven’t opened “since ravaged by Hurricane Katrina.” Ray wrote a great post on the re-opening rally there last week, along with pictures. A hurricane doesn’t do this, a levee-bursting flood does.
My first reaction to the aforementioned comment was utter revulsion, then disappointment, followed by a promise to never again engage this person in discussions that are remotely serious in nature. Unfortunately, it is the severance of such relationships and the subsequent building of walls that further rear ignorance and erode goodwill. I just have to find a different way to speak with him about this, preferably not over the internet, where often the tenor and intent of communication may be grossly misinterpreted. It’s also going to be tougher talking with someone who thinks he has all the facts. No one said there was only one battle or that it was going to be easy.
Going into tomorrow’s election, instead of reiterating my ticket, I ask you to vote for New Orleans and not your turf or peeps within it. What’s good for this city and its relationship with the state and nation, now and tomorrow? Your answer to that is most likely different from mine, but all I ask is to keep that question firmly in mind when hitting each choice. We cannot afford to lose this place again.
I just spent a weekend in Baltimore giving the same spiel over and over again to the repeated question, “So I guess it’s all back to normal now?”
It gets tiring.
I got shocked just reading what your friend said. Maybe we need to start burning CDs of our talks to folks outside of NOLA just to save our breath…
To us Katrina means the storm which caused the failure of the poorly designed levees and all of the consequences.
To everyone else it was just a hurricane.
Because of my mom sharing the storm’s name, and because of what Mominem said, I simply call it 8-29 and after. If 9-11 can be forever claimed by the events that happened on that day over six years ago, so can 8-29.
“The non-readiness of our levees for a Category 3 hurricane’s surge was completely a human act and an avoidable disaster waiting to happen.” The malice came in the form of intent. When the ACoE finally released all the data, it became clear, not just that the levees weren’t what they’d promised or claimed, but, most importantly, they knew it for years before the flood made it painfully obvious. Therein lies malice and intent. JMHO.