A Veiw From Lake Charles
I was asked to Post this e-mail From a Relative in Lake Charles LA:
I've tried to keep up with the NO disaster coverage as best as possible and I truly feel for those people. But I also feel the same way as you do. I said the very same thing in fact. Most of these people had able bodied legs & feet to walk out themselves. It doesn't cost money to walk! Granted there are the elderly, sickly, etc, that can't. What's wrong with calling the police? The Red Cross? Your church? The Salvation Army? I could go on. Someone in any of those would have found a way for those incapacitated to get a ride out.
If the governor had seen miles of walking people, walking side by side, next to a hundred mile line of vehicles or greater that could move only 5-10 mph, believe me, she would have done something about it. But the storm victims just stayed. Warnings were given two days or more before the storm to get out of town. I can walk a long ways in two days on a pocket full of change and a few dollar bills living on Slim Jims, peanut butter crackers, bottled water and fruit juice, if that's all you can afford. At least those things have some nutritional value. Get a wagon at the Dollar Store and carry some goods with you, anything but just sit in your doomed home to be washed away.
There are those that say "why live on the coast?" Disasters happen all over the world such as quakes, tornados, land & snow slides, shifting earth, flash floods, tidal waves, fires, lightning, etc. But if you notice anything about those things, these events don't give any fore warning, they just happen within a few minutes or even seconds. We can see hurricanes coming DAYS IN ADVANCE and can prepare and or evacuate. That fact alone disqualifies many excuses for not getting out of the way of a deadly storm such as Katrina. And it doesn't mean that people shouldn't live on the coast. Again, disasters happen all over the world, no matter where you live. Now we do have lightning and fires. Tornados are rare or come with hurricanes as well as floods, but the rest are near impossible to get here in Louisiana just due to the nature of the land. So you really can't go anywhere in the world to be 100% safe from natural disasters. So the negative critics shouldn't blame the people for living in Louisiana or anywhere on the coast.
There are those that even blame the people for living in NO itself. I guess they'd also blame then entire population of the Netherlands country as well, because most of their country is below sea level too. So they (the critics) would have those people abandon their way of life and property for the same reasons? I don't think so. NO has been an established community since the early years of the birth of this nation. If there was a time to decide not to build NO, it was then, in the beginning, not 200 years after the fact. You can't "unring the bell".
If there is any blame to be slung, I'd blame the powers that be, in not making the levee system better, improving the pumping systems, etc. But those problems existed decades before anyone alive today were ever born. If you blame anyone in office today for not fixing them, then you have to blame anyone and everyone that held those positions before as well, no matter what party of politics they represented.
Let's face the facts. Katrina was a NATURAL DISASTER. Communities in Mississippi and Alabama were wiped out even more so than in NO, and they didn't have a levee problem!
People keep trying to place blame in any way or form to make it political or racial in some nature. And that burns me no matter who's in office. The President didn't create the storm and tell it where to go. That's insane! I don't blame the President no more than I blame the buildings that fell in 9-11. And yes, there are those that do. But let me tell you this. Can you imagine if the buildings weren't designed to collapse the way they did? They would have toppled instead and there would have been multiples more of damage and loss of life if they fell differently. I actually commend the twin towers designers. But you say they fell anyway!?! They were hit by jumbo jets loaded to capacity with fuel that burned for hours. No different design of a building would have kept people from dying or the buildings from being lost in that scenario. REMEMBER, 9-11 wasn't an accident! Nor was it a natural disaster. And you can't design something that is full-proof against anything and everything. It's impossible.
To the negative critics. This is far from anytime to criticize the Katrina disaster. It's time to pray for both the victims and the ones that are helping in the efforts. It's time to help those that need help. Remember, the WORLD is watching us and listening more than ever now.
4 comments:
First, thanks for comming and commenting on my blog. Most of the comments on my blog are stright spam. Second, on this post, I agree that people should have gotten out of the path of the hurricane when they could. But much of the hurricane strength is being aruged that it was caused by the ever increasing global warming. many say, and I somewhat agree, that Bush and his predecessor's should have enacted and pushed for laws that DECREASED the global warming trend. I think that much of the storm strength could have been avoided.
It has not been shown that global warming is a fact, and even if it were, the Kyoto Treaty does nothing to curb the polution of the world's 2 biggest poluters, China, and India. Also, Scientisits have shown that the earth has been in a cycle of of low power, and low number of hurricanes, it was time for a powerful one to hit. it happens about every 40 years or so.
I believe that global warming is happening and most of the studies that say it is not happening have been funding by the OIL INDUSTRY. I am not saying that this tragity could have been avoided, but I believe that some of the strength could have been decreased.
After reading your blog, I have to say you've profiled yourself correctly...and that's about the only thing you did get correct.
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