Retrospective: Hurricane Katrina

It’s been a year already.

Time really flies by, and it’s been a year after the disaster that destroyed New Orleans.

We learned more than what a hurricane can do to a city: waist-deep water, roof-less houses, and everything turned to a ruin. But perhaps more importantly, we learned that the government is slow to respond, and there is still a clear division on skin color and classes.

The media (and everyone) was quick to notice that a unreasonably slow response was given to New Orleans residents, whom is mostly colored. Reading back my journal at that time, I saw that I made a note that 99% of the people that were strained, standing helplessly on the roof, and crying frantically at the Dome were black. The images were hear-wrenching and hard to watch. It was surreal that New Orleans suddenly became like a place in the Third World, yet, this was in America.

The Administration has the money to invade other countries, but couldn’t respond correctly to a place of their own. And even now, a year later, we don’t see any significant re-build of the city.

Another hurricane, Ernesto, is moving to the direction of the Gulf Coast, and just how much can New Orleans take if it is hit again? I doubt that the hurricane will hit directly at New Orleans again, but not only is New Orleans’ dams fragile; people’s hearts are now also fragile.

Now I suddenly wanted to watch the footage of Kanye West’s classic blurt out: “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” You know, I was fortunate enough to
see the footage live last year, along with Mike Myers’ face filled with absolute horror. I hope someone puts it on YouTube.