Still more on Katrina
Aug. 31st, 2005 10:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thebratqueenI don't think there's anything that makes my blood boil faster right now than hearing people talk about how the people who didn't evacuate and/or the people who had the bad taste to simply live in a hurricane zone deserve what they got.
Allow me to explain this to you in very small words: NOLA gets hit by hurricanes yearly. NOLA survives hurricanes yearly. We're talking about a town with buildings in it that are centuries old. If a city that has managed to stand for CENTURIES isn't one that people can consider to be a good candidate for long lasting life, I'd really like to know what is.
Moreover, hurricanes are not predictable. Yes, there was a call for mandatory evacuation. However as anyone who lives in a hurricane zone is well aware, storms can turn on a dime at the last minute. It wasn't that long ago that NOLA had a mandatory evacuation that instructed everyone, including rescue personnel and equipment, to go to Mississippi... where the hurricane in question veered unexpectedly and smacked down on everyone who'd heeded the call to evacuate.
On top of that NOLA is not easy to evacuate at all, and that's in the best of circumstances that assumes you have a vehicle and the money to get yourself elsewhere. As I've said before, the city has a great deal of poverty. There are also the old and infirm who couldn't get out even if they wanted to.
NOLA can handle a lot, but Katrina was above and beyond what anyone could consider normal life. Saying that people who lived in that area deserved a Katrina is like saying that those who worked in the Towers deserved to die for taking jobs inside of buildings that couldn't withstand the impact of two jet planes. It's so utterly ridiculous that I can't even comprehend it.
For those interested in helping out,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
elke_tanzer, patron saint of all things linkage, has this post and this post which have links, both in the posts and the comments, for good places to get information about what's happening, plus where and how you can send aid. I'll again pimp ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
fandom_charity. Those who know of other links please feel welcome to put them in the comments for others to find.
(And again, no intent to ignore Mississippi and the non-NOLA places hit, I just can't speak about them knowledgably. I'll still smack anyone who says they deserved it though.)
Allow me to explain this to you in very small words: NOLA gets hit by hurricanes yearly. NOLA survives hurricanes yearly. We're talking about a town with buildings in it that are centuries old. If a city that has managed to stand for CENTURIES isn't one that people can consider to be a good candidate for long lasting life, I'd really like to know what is.
Moreover, hurricanes are not predictable. Yes, there was a call for mandatory evacuation. However as anyone who lives in a hurricane zone is well aware, storms can turn on a dime at the last minute. It wasn't that long ago that NOLA had a mandatory evacuation that instructed everyone, including rescue personnel and equipment, to go to Mississippi... where the hurricane in question veered unexpectedly and smacked down on everyone who'd heeded the call to evacuate.
On top of that NOLA is not easy to evacuate at all, and that's in the best of circumstances that assumes you have a vehicle and the money to get yourself elsewhere. As I've said before, the city has a great deal of poverty. There are also the old and infirm who couldn't get out even if they wanted to.
NOLA can handle a lot, but Katrina was above and beyond what anyone could consider normal life. Saying that people who lived in that area deserved a Katrina is like saying that those who worked in the Towers deserved to die for taking jobs inside of buildings that couldn't withstand the impact of two jet planes. It's so utterly ridiculous that I can't even comprehend it.
For those interested in helping out,
elke_tanzer, patron saint of all things linkage, has this post and this post which have links, both in the posts and the comments, for good places to get information about what's happening, plus where and how you can send aid. I'll again pimp fandom_charity. Those who know of other links please feel welcome to put them in the comments for others to find. (And again, no intent to ignore Mississippi and the non-NOLA places hit, I just can't speak about them knowledgably. I'll still smack anyone who says they deserved it though.)
