Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Life as we knew it ended today

Nagin: Entire City Will Soon Be Underwater

Why didn't the helicopters show up to try to block the breaks in the levee? That could have made a big difference, but we'll never know now.

"I love life as we knew it,
I just can't believe we threw it away,
Goodbye, that's all there is to it,
Life as we knew it ended today."
--Kathy Mattea, Life As We Knew It

It just seems to fit.

5 comments:

Kalleigh Hathaway said...

I find it sadly interesting that human beings always end up getting blamed for not sufficiently stemming/responding to acts of God. The article says the helicopters may have been diverted to rescue 1000 people in a church. I suppose it was up to someone somewhere to take a risk on fixing a levee (which may or may not have worked) or possibly let 1000 people die who could be saved.

What I find saddest is when I read before Katrina hit of the people saying, "oh, we're just going to try to weather it out here" and then later of the rescuers risking their own lives to save those people. Mandatory evacuation means get the hell out or face the consequences, and I think it's terribly selfish for people who CAN leave to stay for whatever reason they choose. I understand that there are poor people who just don't have the means to go anywhere but there are thousands of people who think that 1) it won't hit as hard as they say, 2) they've lived through worse, 3) they don't want to sit in traffic or spend the money for a hotel, 4) they don't want to be away from their stuff, 5) it might just be fun to weather the storm in an empty town, etc., etc. Then when the aftermath is what this has been, the work the emergency response teams should be doing to try to stop the damage and repair what's been done is set back because they're too busy rescuing people who should have left when they were told to but chose not to.

As for your earlier post about how New Orleans would never be the same, I'm not so sure about that. My parents lived there during Hurricane Betsy in 1965 and I remember them telling about the flooding and damage back then. Unless it's ripped clear away, it will eventually be restored. And that in a town that everyone knows is below sea level and will go through this again and again until the end of time.

I know it's easy for someone as removed as I am to sound so callous about it but it's frustrating to see the same cycle of events every time another hurricane approaches and think, "didn't anyone learn from the last one?"

The Anti-Wife said...

I feel horrible for everyone experiencing this...and even as it affects the extended families. Being so far away from acts of God like hurricanes, it's so hard for me to imagine the emotional, psychological, and financial impact. All I can do is hug my babies and be thankful I live up here in Michigan where the only threat is a tornado. And where I live, even that is a miniscule worry. My thoughts are with you and your family, Lisa.

Lisa @ The Plain-Spoken Pen said...

Yes, there are some acts of God that could never be prevented. It's just frustrating to know that New Orleans has dealt with this threat for years and years and years, and still the systems designed to prevent or lessen some of this damange weren't in place. Granted, even if all the defense mechanisms had been exactly right, exactly where they needed to be, that might not have stopped the flooding. But maybe it could have been lessened.

Re: mandatory evacuation - someone who didn't grow up living with awareness of hurricanes can't truly understand the mindset. I didn't live on the coast, I was far enough inland that hurricanes were never a serious threat, just some rough weather from them. But N.O. has dodged the bullet so many times that people *have* fallen into a mindset of "it's not going to happen here". Stupid not to leave when mandatory evacuation was announced? Sure. Would I have stayed? Hell, no. Understandable that some people might think that way? To someone who grew up there, yes.

And I'm not sure Betsy was as bad as this. K's mom lived through it, and she's described Betsy as a little rain shower compared to Katrina. I didn't directly experience either storm, so I can't comment personally. But she was saying that about Katrina before the city flooded and they knew for sure that their house was gone. And even if the city is rebuilt, it won't be the same - the character, the history will be completely changed. Buildings will be replicas of historical structures. Even if every detail can be made to match what the area looked like pre-Katrina, it will not be like it was.

Re: repairing the levees - maybe those helicopters were diverted to rescue people. I don't know. Maybe if they were, those people were in a life-threatening situation. But if they weren't, could more lives have been spared by trying to repair the levee than were saved by the rescue? I'm just glad it wasn't me having to choose which way to go, and sad that any kind of choice like that might have had to be made - save people or try to keep the city from flooding completely.

All I know is, it sucks ass. Should people learn from each successive hurricane? Yes. Are humans a little slow on the uptake at times? Sure. Are governments notoriously slow to take action? Absolutely. The best thing that could come from this is that finally, they *do* learn. It's just terrible that it has to be such a hard lesson.

And whatever Louisiana's faults, whatever should have could have would have been done or learned, this is my home state, and seeing this happen makes me sadder than I have words for.

Kalleigh Hathaway said...

I don't mean to sound uncaring, and I'd bet that if I do, it's because I do feel removed from it all. I found that on the one occasion when I watched television since easter (while on vacation two weeks ago), seeing things on TV hit me really hard. Now that I am getting cable TV today I'll bet that if I see photos of the Katrina aftermath I'll be more overwhelmed than simply reading accounts in online news bits.

I do remember being a kid and evacuating once, though, and even with more recent situations of hurricane preparation on the east coast ... if the government tells you to do something you do it.

Lisa @ The Plain-Spoken Pen said...

And I know I'm probably really sensitive because it is my home state - I'm sorry if I went a little overboard with my earlier comment. You're right - if the government says go, get the hell out. And the pictures are pretty awful. A friend on a message board posted an e-mail she got from a friend of hers who works in NICU in Birmingham. They flew in to take four of the NICU patients from one of the hospitals in New Orleans. His account of what he saw and of how the people there in the hospital were faring is just heartbreaking. It's stuff like that, from people who have seen it - regular people, not just media or government officials - that really gets you.