At first, I thought "Here we go, another Hurricane" and didn't really pay attention to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I mean, we were in the middle of "The Great Styrene Evacuation of 2005" here in Cincinnati. Then over the past few days, I've watched countless hours of news on this tragedy... and it's made me very sad.
Some random thoughts.
- New Orleans is going to be some freaky ghost town for the next three months. There will be mobs roaming the streets, fighting over whatever food / supplies are left, living in filth, in the dark, in the water. It's like the scariest horror movie you could imagine.
- This is what you get when you live below sea level. Nothing against the people of New Orleans, but living below sea level is asking for trouble. Now is the time to raze the city to the ground, build it up, and start over. Seriously.
- My mom had a good point - anyone who gets caught looting electronics or clothes or anything other than food and basic necessities should be charged with manslaughter. If the police and national guard have to worry about these idiots, they're not rescuing people they should be.
- What in the world happens to all the businesses that were centered around the Mississippi Delta? How do you just shut down for three or four months? Do people still get paid?
- Anyone who complains about the cost of gas should immediately be forced to donate $1,000 to someone who lost everything they owned in the Hurricane.
- No one has any idea how they're going to get things back to normal. The engineers involved in pumping the city dry admit they're pretty much doing the Brian-math-style "Guess and Check" technique.
- This is an environmental and health nightmare. Waste is everywhere. This is how things like the bubonic plague re-enter a society. Once they get the city's pumps working, it's going to pump all this waste into the Gulf of Mexico. That's not good either.
- New Orleans may be dead. A lot of the history and old buildings are gone. People have insurance, but rebuilding takes a lot of time... and who's to say another Hurricane couldn't hit? At what point do you throw in the towel and say "God doesn't think people should be living here"?
Sad.
You can donate (totally tax deductible!) to help people here:
1 comment:
I did a clinical rotation the Red Cross and I have this bit of advise: For those that are going to donate to the Red Cross, please donate to the Natural Disaster Relief Fund, not the Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund. During the earthquake that rocked the World Series (1989?) people gave money to the L.A. earthquake relief fund. There was so much money that a lot of it wasn't used and, since it was tagged for the earthquake, now it sits idle and the Red Cross can never touch it again. The Natural Disaster Fund is a blanket fund that can cover any natural disaster that has occured or may occur in the future.
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