ma nature: August 2005 Archives

Around this time last year I wrote about the excitement of hurricane season and how part of me lusted for the excitement of experiencing nature's fury. Right now I'm eating those words.

Since Sunday night I've been glued to CNN. Watched the news leading up to the storm, heard the talk of how this could be the end of New Orleans. Woke up Monday morning to the news that the storm had shifted, and now towns further to the east were getting pounded, but it looked like the Big Easy had been spared. While my sympathies are most certainly with the people of Biloxi and other coastal areas, a big part of me was very very happy that this vibrant, soulful, colorful city had weathered the storm, so to speak.

I woke up this morning to much different news. News of rising water, people trapped in attics, and complete and utter disaster.

Its heartbreaking. I grew up on the Gulf Coast and know the area fairly well (altho not really as far north as Louisiana). If I had to pick (and I would never want that job!) ONE city or town to be demolished, New Orleans would be last on my list.

I am angered by the people who keep referring to this as "our tsunami". Of course this is an event of epic proportions in America, there is no doubt about that, but to compare this to the tsunami is preposterous. People had several days warning that the storm was coming. We have a huge country with a large infrastructure in place to deal with this sort of thing. The face of our entire economy wasn't changed in just one day. And the number of fatalities is staggeringly different. No doubt this is the biggest natural disaster we have experienced in a long, long time and the long term implications of this will be huge ... but its not the tsunami.

Hopefully this will make people think about how our cities are developed. About the steps we take to protect our towns and homes and families. About where we locate our cities. Obviously, New Orleans has been around for a while, but there is something to be learned from this from a planning perspective ... its time to reexamine the use of levees to control the smaller and more regular floods that maintain the natural soil conditions. Its time to take steps (and god knows I don't know how to do this) to prevent chemicals from our factories from leaking into the water supply in these types of situations. We need to take seriously the threat of these types of disasters. This time it was New Orleans ... next time it could be Miami or Key West or Panama City. Or it could be tornados ripping across the prairie or earthquakes rocking the west coast. What can we do to keep this kind of destruction from happening? I have an infinitely huge respect for mother nature's power .... how can we build cities that can withstand this sort of force? What can we learn from this??

I'm just rambling.

On a related ranting note, I watched the MTV VMAs (yay for watching trashy tv on the trainer!) Sunday night before being sucked into CNN. I was appalled appalled that no mention of the hurricane was made during the show, aside from "I'm happy to be here in Miami tonight ... glad the storm missed us!" ... NO well wishes for the people in NOLA, NO updates on what was going on. Nothing.

My thoughts are with those people who have suffered, and will suffer for a long time from this. I wish there was something I could do ...