KATRINA
Posted: 07 May 2026, 01:24
KATRINA
4 September 2005
We live in a technological age where our every need is instantly catered for. Light and power at the flick of a switch, water on tap and relative ease of movement. With modern means of communication it is very easy to leap to instant judgement and opinion from the comfort of our homes. We saw this with the shooting at Stockwell and you can all think of numerous other examples.
The tendency is always to look for someone to blame rather than search for the roots of the problem, mainly because concentration on recent events requires less research, there is more chance of an instant response from the newsrooms. Unfortunately, politicians are only too well aware of this and are forced to react in like manner with photo opportunities and instant sound bites. George W. hugging two black ladies and the phrase ‘correct anything that is wrong and duplicate anything that is right’ are prime examples. Good PR sound bites but they don’t deliver any practical comfort or assistance to the masses made destitute by the disaster.
It is fairly clear that in terms of forward planning and instant response, the US government agencies were caught napping. The temptation is to assume that energy and expenditure has been focussed on events abroad rather than the possibility of disaster at home. This may well be right but is not really the most important aspect we should be concentrating on.
Let’s have a closer look at some of the fundamental flaws that have been highlighted by the event. We have to go back 150 years to a quotation from the London Illustrated News which commented on the fact that New Orleans was a totally unsuitable site for a major city because it was built on a swamp and was a prime example of the greed of entrepreneurs triumphing over common sense and good town planning. The Americans regard New Orleans as a ‘historic’ town, in reality it is a 19th century construct containing a few landmark structures that has expanded enormously in the 20th century at the expanse of the wetlands that were a natural protection against storm surges. Like Holland and Venice, much of the new construction is on land threatened by the sea.
The weight of construction on unstable strata exacerbated by the draining of the land have resulted in shrinkage and the city is slowly subsiding even further. This of course includes the levees or banks that hold back the water. This has long been recognised by the US Corps of Engineers, the body responsible for maintaining the defences and they warned against the possibility of flooding but over the last twenty years they have had their budget cut due to other pressures on finance. Add to this the warming of the Gulf waters which inevitably increases the power of hurricanes and the size of the resulting storm surges and all the ingredients for a disaster were in place many years ago. It was just a matter of time before it happened.
How about the question of race? Michael Moore asked how many white people were on the roof tops. It would have been more accurate to ask ‘How many rich people?’ It wasn’t colour that determined people’s ability to flee, it was economics or health. If you were disabled by poverty or health you automatically had less chance of survival.
The breakdown of law and order was a natural consequence of the anarchy produced by the complete failure of all support systems. In circumstances like these the fittest will fight to survive. Much of the ‘looting’ described by the press was simply people stealing water and food to survive. One old lady described how the young black men went out and scavenged for food and water for the old people and very young. Of course there was an opportunistic element who went for guns and valuables but even that can be understood in a society that measures worth by the ability to consume and constantly rubs the faces of the poor in their poverty by a barrage of advertising and TV content that demonstrates the life style of the affluent. None of this excuses theft but does proffer some reasonable explanation as to why it happened.
It would appear that a proper rescue mission is now under way and there is little doubt that the US government will throw huge resources into supporting the survivors in the short term and getting some semblance of order into the area. The question is what lessons have been learned and what long-term measures will the Federal government take to avoid any repetition?
The obvious lessons are that much careful thought should be given to whether it is even possible to reconstruct the city. Is it good policy to rely on a fragile area like this for 25% of the US oil production? Should some thought be given to global warming and the consequences? What is the possibility of another, even a greater hurricane in the Gulf? What infrastructure should be put in place to deal with such an eventuality in future? Can the richest nation in the world survive with a massive underclass which is so vulnerable to stress on society and whose only recourse in such an event is to embrace anarchy in order to survive? The pressure cooker isn’t fuelled entirely by race although this is a factor, it is a question of equality of opportunity and distribution of wealth.
On a wider front, what lessons should the rest of the world be taking from what has happened? In 1956 there was a storm surge in the North Sea which devastated large parts of the East Coast. Scientists and engineers are continually warning us that large areas of many of our low-lying cities are vulnerable to exceptional storm surges. Suppose it had been London’s defences that had been overwhelmed?
Look even more carefully at the sequence of events after Katrina. The single crucial trigger for all the events that followed was the breakdown of three crucial public services, electricity, water and transport. Ask yourself what would happen if these services were knocked out in your own area. How long would you survive before driven to anarchy if food distribution, water and energy failed? These are the crucial areas of society where the government of this country has abdicated control over the last twenty years, leaving security of supply and continuity of service to the private sector.
I think I’ve gone far enough for you to realise where I am heading. I shall not risk boring you. Rather than concentrating our energies on the blame game or smug satisfaction that it couldn’t happen to us because we live on a hill, we should be thinking very carefully about the lessons of Katrina. Hopefully the US government will do the same.
As I said at the beginning of this piece, we live comfortable lives supported by modern technology. The blow delivered by Katrina to New Orleans should have reminded us all of the fragility of our modern lives. At government level a lot of thought should be given to putting pressure on the private utility companies to develop strategies to ensure their ability to respond to natural disaster. On a private level we should be looking at our life styles and giving some thought to how we would survive. In truth, we are less able to fend for ourselves than the peasants of the Middle Ages who had to provide their own services. They had a stock of food, a well or spring nearby and a woodpile for heat and energy. Simplistic I know but they were better off than us.
This isn’t to say I am advocating extreme survivalism such as we have seen in the past when there was the possibility of a nuclear holocaust. We don’t need to build a bunker or take into account fields of fire from our homes. However, it would be sensible to consider what would happen if the electricity, water, gas and food distribution system broke down. Have we got an open fire? Do we know where the nearest stream is? Have we any stock of basic foods in the house? Do we have candles or an oil lamp and some paraffin? What resources would we be able to offer the old or the sick?
So, let’s spend a little less time dissecting the plight of New Orleans and a little more time considering the lessons. It makes sense.
4 September 2005
4 September 2005
We live in a technological age where our every need is instantly catered for. Light and power at the flick of a switch, water on tap and relative ease of movement. With modern means of communication it is very easy to leap to instant judgement and opinion from the comfort of our homes. We saw this with the shooting at Stockwell and you can all think of numerous other examples.
The tendency is always to look for someone to blame rather than search for the roots of the problem, mainly because concentration on recent events requires less research, there is more chance of an instant response from the newsrooms. Unfortunately, politicians are only too well aware of this and are forced to react in like manner with photo opportunities and instant sound bites. George W. hugging two black ladies and the phrase ‘correct anything that is wrong and duplicate anything that is right’ are prime examples. Good PR sound bites but they don’t deliver any practical comfort or assistance to the masses made destitute by the disaster.
It is fairly clear that in terms of forward planning and instant response, the US government agencies were caught napping. The temptation is to assume that energy and expenditure has been focussed on events abroad rather than the possibility of disaster at home. This may well be right but is not really the most important aspect we should be concentrating on.
Let’s have a closer look at some of the fundamental flaws that have been highlighted by the event. We have to go back 150 years to a quotation from the London Illustrated News which commented on the fact that New Orleans was a totally unsuitable site for a major city because it was built on a swamp and was a prime example of the greed of entrepreneurs triumphing over common sense and good town planning. The Americans regard New Orleans as a ‘historic’ town, in reality it is a 19th century construct containing a few landmark structures that has expanded enormously in the 20th century at the expanse of the wetlands that were a natural protection against storm surges. Like Holland and Venice, much of the new construction is on land threatened by the sea.
The weight of construction on unstable strata exacerbated by the draining of the land have resulted in shrinkage and the city is slowly subsiding even further. This of course includes the levees or banks that hold back the water. This has long been recognised by the US Corps of Engineers, the body responsible for maintaining the defences and they warned against the possibility of flooding but over the last twenty years they have had their budget cut due to other pressures on finance. Add to this the warming of the Gulf waters which inevitably increases the power of hurricanes and the size of the resulting storm surges and all the ingredients for a disaster were in place many years ago. It was just a matter of time before it happened.
How about the question of race? Michael Moore asked how many white people were on the roof tops. It would have been more accurate to ask ‘How many rich people?’ It wasn’t colour that determined people’s ability to flee, it was economics or health. If you were disabled by poverty or health you automatically had less chance of survival.
The breakdown of law and order was a natural consequence of the anarchy produced by the complete failure of all support systems. In circumstances like these the fittest will fight to survive. Much of the ‘looting’ described by the press was simply people stealing water and food to survive. One old lady described how the young black men went out and scavenged for food and water for the old people and very young. Of course there was an opportunistic element who went for guns and valuables but even that can be understood in a society that measures worth by the ability to consume and constantly rubs the faces of the poor in their poverty by a barrage of advertising and TV content that demonstrates the life style of the affluent. None of this excuses theft but does proffer some reasonable explanation as to why it happened.
It would appear that a proper rescue mission is now under way and there is little doubt that the US government will throw huge resources into supporting the survivors in the short term and getting some semblance of order into the area. The question is what lessons have been learned and what long-term measures will the Federal government take to avoid any repetition?
The obvious lessons are that much careful thought should be given to whether it is even possible to reconstruct the city. Is it good policy to rely on a fragile area like this for 25% of the US oil production? Should some thought be given to global warming and the consequences? What is the possibility of another, even a greater hurricane in the Gulf? What infrastructure should be put in place to deal with such an eventuality in future? Can the richest nation in the world survive with a massive underclass which is so vulnerable to stress on society and whose only recourse in such an event is to embrace anarchy in order to survive? The pressure cooker isn’t fuelled entirely by race although this is a factor, it is a question of equality of opportunity and distribution of wealth.
On a wider front, what lessons should the rest of the world be taking from what has happened? In 1956 there was a storm surge in the North Sea which devastated large parts of the East Coast. Scientists and engineers are continually warning us that large areas of many of our low-lying cities are vulnerable to exceptional storm surges. Suppose it had been London’s defences that had been overwhelmed?
Look even more carefully at the sequence of events after Katrina. The single crucial trigger for all the events that followed was the breakdown of three crucial public services, electricity, water and transport. Ask yourself what would happen if these services were knocked out in your own area. How long would you survive before driven to anarchy if food distribution, water and energy failed? These are the crucial areas of society where the government of this country has abdicated control over the last twenty years, leaving security of supply and continuity of service to the private sector.
I think I’ve gone far enough for you to realise where I am heading. I shall not risk boring you. Rather than concentrating our energies on the blame game or smug satisfaction that it couldn’t happen to us because we live on a hill, we should be thinking very carefully about the lessons of Katrina. Hopefully the US government will do the same.
As I said at the beginning of this piece, we live comfortable lives supported by modern technology. The blow delivered by Katrina to New Orleans should have reminded us all of the fragility of our modern lives. At government level a lot of thought should be given to putting pressure on the private utility companies to develop strategies to ensure their ability to respond to natural disaster. On a private level we should be looking at our life styles and giving some thought to how we would survive. In truth, we are less able to fend for ourselves than the peasants of the Middle Ages who had to provide their own services. They had a stock of food, a well or spring nearby and a woodpile for heat and energy. Simplistic I know but they were better off than us.
This isn’t to say I am advocating extreme survivalism such as we have seen in the past when there was the possibility of a nuclear holocaust. We don’t need to build a bunker or take into account fields of fire from our homes. However, it would be sensible to consider what would happen if the electricity, water, gas and food distribution system broke down. Have we got an open fire? Do we know where the nearest stream is? Have we any stock of basic foods in the house? Do we have candles or an oil lamp and some paraffin? What resources would we be able to offer the old or the sick?
So, let’s spend a little less time dissecting the plight of New Orleans and a little more time considering the lessons. It makes sense.
4 September 2005