Comment: Hurricane Kathrina

Q: How could Hurricane Katrina become such an immense political issue in the U.S.A?

C: In the past years the amount of tropical cyclones or hurricanes has dramatically risen and so has the standard of the warning and evacuating system...one should think. But when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, Louisiana, in August 2005 it demonstrated the raw force of nature by breaking through the levees, destroying buildings and connections and taking the life of 1464 people among those which weren’t evacuated. The flood covered eighty percent of the city with at least 15 ft (4.5 m) of water and people were forced to remain on their roofs. Truly a disaster of natural causes but was it really unstoppable. As the shocking pictures and videos of abandoned mostly Afro-American people struggled to survive, doubts came up and an issue of inequality began that was fought all over America.

There are different aspects to explain the extent of this argument with different reasons. One is that the victims of the hurricane in New Orleans almost only consist of poor Afro-American people. They are part of the “second “New Orleans, notorious for its high poverty and criminality rate. So the government was accused of abandoning these people due to their skin colour and their social status. This is a huge guilt for a land affirming to declare and to treat all men equally.

Another factor had been the miserable preparations for the catastrophe. The levees built to protect broke even though the force of the hurricane, against expectations, had decreased. The evacuation was not fast enough and many people were soon cut off from the outside of the city. These mistakes not only resulted in huge damages and the relevant cost but also in deaths. The responsibles were heavily criticized by the public.

The last aspect is about the insufficient help of the government after the crises. Many victims of the loss of property were helpless and unable to continue a proper life. And so they waited for help. And waited. And as they got impatient, they started looting. The criminality rose in order to survive and people died of exhaustion. The media showed the” black people looting” and “the white looking for food” and the public protested and demanded help for the falsely accused victims.

These and other aspects caused the controversial question of inequality to once again separate the public and heat their moods and show that the problem as old as America itself, is not solved yet. Sadly it took over 1000 lives to realise that, but hopefully the next step towards the promised land of Martin Luther King has been taken.

There is an excellent series of articles on race in the New York Times (they won a Pulitzer Price, which is like the Nobel prize for journalists in America). You can access it here. Very good job on the comment!