{"id":392,"date":"2005-08-30T21:51:19","date_gmt":"2005-08-31T05:51:19","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=392"},"modified":"2005-09-28T13:10:16","modified_gmt":"2005-09-28T21:10:16","slug":"so-far-second-week-not-so-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/?p=392","title":{"rendered":"So Far, Second Week Not So Good"},"content":{"rendered":"

Katrina made me unproductive today. Since late last night, when I first heard there was a break in the levee and the reporter got a second source to confirm it, I’ve been wandering over to the television to see new video on the aftermath.<\/p>\n

I knew the worst would happen, even before the hurricane hit. The signs were all there, and I wondered why they didn’t make evacuation mandatory. H.E. said they should have had all the school busses out, ready to take everyone who didn’t have a vehicle in which to leave town.<\/p>\n

What bothers me is the number of able-bodied people who did have vehicles but decided to stay, giving all the search and rescue people even more work to do. They had every available helicopter out and about, even one that H.E. said probably should have been in a museum for all its primitive equipment—one where the rescuer sat on what H.E. calls a penetrator. Having been rescued once by firefighters<\/a>, I have a deep appreciation for the work that these rescuers do, and I don’t like people making stupid decisions that needlessly put the lives of these rescuers at risk. There is no point in staying to protect a house or building from looting if the house or building will be completely destroyed anyway, no point in staying if there won’t be food or potable water to live comfortably, and no point in staying if the flood waters will only make people sick, whether or not they drink it.<\/p>\n

Even without the hurricane, the danger existed. The levees aren’t stone, and they were the only thing protecting New Orleans from being submerged. Even though they were saved from a direct hit by the hurricane, I had a feeling it would come to this.<\/p>\n

But what really pisses me off is hearing that Bush wants to visit. Right now, the only benefit in him visiting is for some photo op because as president he would have to take a large group of support people and security with him. There is absolutely nowhere for him and his support to land, and any helicopter he rides to view the devastation only takes away from the search and rescue efforts. It’s like the man has no clue that he would be far more hindrance than help if he insisted that he get to visit.<\/p>\n

I feel terrible for everyone there. I’ve lived through typhoons in the Philippines, where the flood waters forced my family to live in the second story of our house—I still remember staring with fascination at the roots of a very large tree, which had fallen in the storm and had broken the stone wall surrounding our yard, and I remember one of my uncles sitting on the staircase with a fishing pole in the living room (my aunts kept warning him not to eat anything he fished out of flood waters, but he did anyway because he’s a total idiot). I even remember going to school in a boat after that … because the flood waters didn’t recede right away. I’ve also been out in the streets during a storm in Pusan, South Korea, and I remember seeing a huge neon sign, the size of a car or truck, fall from the side of a building with a crash, barely missing fleeing Koreans. For some stupid reason, I wasn’t scared at the time; I was under the impression that it was a regular storm and didn’t find out until later that it was a typhoon.<\/p>\n

It’ll be at least a decade before things get back to normal in the areas affected by Katrina. I’d already committed to making regular quarterly payments to Red Cross to help with the tsunami victims because I know that the process of rebuilding is a long one and most of the charity giving world has a very short term memory, but now I think regular monthly<\/em> payments would probably be a better deal. With the loss of the day job, I won’t be able to give as much, but it makes me feel good to know that it might help save some other little girl, staring with fascination at the roots of a very large tree which has fallen on her home somewhere in the wake of Katrina.<\/p>\nShare this post:

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Katrina made me unproductive today. Since late last night, when I first heard there was a break in the levee and the reporter got a second source to confirm it, I’ve been wandering over to the television to see new video on the aftermath. I knew the worst would happen, even before the hurricane hit. The signs were all there, and I wondered why they didn’t make evacuation mandatory. H.E. said they should have had all the school busses out,…<\/p>\n

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