THE DEVASTATION brought on by Hurricane Katrina in the United States has revealed, as storms tend to do, the weaknesses in physical infrastructure in public buildings and the homes of private citizens. But it has revealed much more about the social infrastructure.
Many commentators across the world and in the United States itself have expressed surprise at the scenes of misery, mayhem and chaos in Louisiana, Mississippi and to a lesser extent Alabama that were hit by Hurricane Katrina earlier this week. They have suggested that the scenes are what one would expect in a poor Third World country, not affluent United States and certainly not in its urban centres.
In reality, the forces of nature or what the insurance companies call acts of God, are not as discriminating as people. They hit rich and poor alike at different times but sometimes with more dire consequences for some than for others.
Among the other ironies of the tragedy in the Gulf Coast cities of the United States in the wake of Hurricane Katrina is that unlike the earlier predictions it veered slightly before hitting New Orleans yet still caused devastation of biblical proportions.
With the destruction, the best and worst of human personality have come to the fore. People have rallied to help complete strangers, often putting their lives at risk to save others. Yet these acts of compassion have been overshadowed by the rampant criminality and looting. Some of this had nothing to do with immediate needs for survival but rather greed being manifested at its worst. When policemen and women could be shown helping themselves in department stores with equal aplomb as civilian looters, it speaks to a deep underlying social malaise.
The Federal response to the disaster has been spearheaded by President Bush himself, declaring the catastrophe as one of the greatest natural disasters to have hit the nation. But the initial relief efforts seemed to have been stymied by the geography of the delta on which New Orleans was sited below sea level. The breaching of protective levees left much of the city submerged posing a challenge in which rescuing victims was complicated by the surge of criminality. So far Washington has politely refused offers of help from overseas. But sometimes even the high and mighty need to realise that we all need each other and that they would not lose face were they to accept some tangible help from others who have been the beneficiaries of their generosity in the past. For starters they may want to get advice from the people of the Netherlands on how to build better and stronger levees.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
