Hurricane Katrina in Black and White (9/5/05)
by Dean Hartwell
Recently, a caller on a talk radio program responded to the comment that many victims of Hurricane Katrina were not rescued. He said "that is too bad."
I wonder what else he would have said if the host had not cut him off. It sounded like he really meant:
Too bad if you are black.
Too bad if you are poor.
Too bad if you are handicapped (5,000 patients in New Orleans need dialysis).
The media has picked up on this theme. They have shown pictures of black people taking necessities like water, food and diapers from stores and called it “looting.” But what did they say about white people who broke into casinos and made off with money? They called it “taking.”
President Bush hasn’t done much better. The day after Katrina struck, Bush played golf and attended a meeting where he promoted his political plans. He then belatedly made a visit to sites in Mississippi and New Orleans and hugged a number of black people on television.
Bush has acted quickly in other situations before this one. When Congress passed a bill to keep a feeding tube in the brain-damaged Terri Schiavo, he swiftly traveled from Crawford, Texas to Washington, DC to sign the bill.
But it took awhile for help to show up. Where was the National Guard? It turns out that many of them are fighting in Iraq. Where were the troops? They have slowly arrived upon the scene after some delay. Where was FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency? Its budget has been cut by the Bush Administration since being folded into Homeland Security in 2003.
All of this shows a lack of priorities by the Bush Administration. If we can’t take care of our own people, why are we getting involved overseas? We lack the moral authority to do so.
It also shows a lack of planning by all levels of government, the City of New Orleans, the state of Louisiana and the federal government. All of them could have worked out an emergency plan long before Katrina hit but no one apparently developed an effective one.
The federal government was in the best position to render assistance. But the Bush Administration failed to provide the federal money to fix levees in New Orleans, the same levees that broke down and caused so much flooding. Also, Ivan Van Heerden, an expert on disaster response, said he briefed the White House on ideas for handling emergencies several months ago, but no one heeded his warnings about flooding in New Orleans.
And even when the local government did render its mandatory evacuation order, it failed to take into consideration who could actually follow it. Many of the poor in New Orleans lacked the money for a vehicle or even money to buy gasoline. These people got left behind in the disaster and many of them lost their lives.
If the majority of people stuck behind in a natural disaster were rich, white, healthy people, the media would stop parroting the Republican National Committee’s talking points about the wonderful job Bush is doing, the President would have responded immediately and an emergency plan would have been in place to rescue everyone. Cruise ships would have been dispatched at once to pick up the disaffected people.
But it’s all too bad. It’s too bad our media lack objectivity. It’s too bad our leadership lacks real values. It’s too bad our emergency planners lack the necessary preparation. But most of all, it’s too bad we still live in a society divided by race, class and physical ability when it comes to the management of disasters.