I have been highly impressed by the response to hurricane Katrina and the flooding of New Orleans. The town was evacuated ahead of time. Before the hurricane hit ground, the Red Cross had people gathered around New Orleans waiting to help. After the town flooded, helicopters were in the air rescuing people who stayed and were stranded on rooftops. The tragedy of hurricane Katrina reminds us not only of Nature's power, but also what a marvelous age we live in that we can respond so adeptly and in such numbers.
True, the relief effort could have been done better, and many people are already discussing possible improvements. I'd like to remind those who focus on improvements, however, that you be careful about the claims you throw around. Here are a few links that remind us of how much has been done:
Some of the complaints about the emergency response have gone over the top. There is much discussion about how much preparation there should have been, but let's remember that there was quite a lot of preparation even if, in hindsight, more would have helped:
"National Guard Responds to Hurricane Katrina"
There have also been complaints that rescue operations started too slowly... Yet, rescue commenced immediately, before the hurricane had even passed:
"Coast Guard Rescues At Least 1,200 Stranded Victims"
It is hardly like people were left abandoned while the outside world fumbled around. There were people on the scene immediately.
Such positive facts tend to get airbrushed over by commentators intent on using this crisis as political football. For example, Paul Krugman spins the hurricane as a way to attack the current president, and in doing so he does not shy away from deeply insulting those relief efforts that did occur. Here's one typical comment:
"As many people have noticed, the failed response to Katrina shows that we are less ready to cope with a terrorist attack today than we were four years ago." -Paul Krugman, "Killed by Contempt"
Failed? It is one thing to say things could have been better, but the vast majority of people that were not killed instantly have indeed been helped at this point. In dollar counts, the federal contribution to Katrina relief will likely surpass the entire yearly budget of Louisiana. (Louisiana takes in $16 billion per year, whereas an emergency session of congress just authorized $10 billion of federal spending on top of the resources already poured into FEMA.) The feds, whatever else you say, have made a massive and very helpful response.
Even more insulting are commentators who compare the situation to disasters in third world countries. Here's a typical example:
A country that prides itself on its achievements in space, its high-tech weaponry and its ability to pulverize nations has by all accounts delivered a third world response to alleviate the painful suffering of its own people. -"Katrina and America's tipping point"
This is absurd in a number of ways. Just to begin with, the body counts in third-world countries' disasters tend to be ten or more times larger:
"Tsunami death toll tops 56,000"
Overall, let's not focus so much on how things could, in hindsight, have been done better, that we forget the massive relief that has occurred. Let's remember that even though a catastrophic natural disaster has wasted an entire city, most of the city's populace has survived, and people around the world have reached out to help at enough of a level to reaffirm one's faith in humanity.
The people of New Orleans are not alone.