I will admit I didn't pay that much attention to the news and reports when Katrina first happened. I was a Sophomore in high school when the disaster occurred and I was only interested in sports, girls, and video games at the time so I would say I didn't really care about that at the time. All I can say is shame on me. I can tell you have have changed and grown up a bit since I have been to college and my interests and morals have changed a bit. I have changed even more after watching just two acts of the film, When the Levee's Broke, and I have learned a great deal about Hurricane Katrina and the people down in that area. They are resilient and blessed to have survived something like Katrina. But I also know one thing for sure that some people from there are or were angry. Angry that it happened to them and angry at the people in charge of this country. The President of the United States and the Federal Government. After watching that film tonight; I'm angry too. I don't think anyone will ever be able to explain why it took so long for FEMA to respond for help. How can our Federal government not have any intelligence on what has happened and what is needed for these people when other countries are coming over to aid our people before the Fed does. We need to ask ourselves what our country is all about when something like that happens to our own people. Why did we vote for this Bush guy? Because of his name? Because he had a C average at Yale? I don't know, no one well will ever know after his 2 terms. The only ones we can blame, is ourselves.
Anyways, moving on. I read that article by Elaine Enarson and I must say that it is a very powerful article. Some may read this article and deny this and say that it is just a scare tactic and she was just looking for some attention as a columnist. I'll tell them to shut it and accept the fact that she could be right and we must do something to change how we deal with these tragedies. I think as a nation we did well in recovering from 9-11. We came together and cleaned up the mess that was left and we moved on with our lives. This is a disaster that I don't think we were prepared for as a nation and it showed when people needed help in the most dire of times and they couldn't get any. I found a quote from her article very interesting, "In the many drawers of unused plans and unlearned lessons, policymakers will find planning tools for gender-sensitive emergency response and recovery—but will they use them?" I found this some what similar to what we watched today in class. Families were being split up and children were being taken away from their mothers. We did not show any sort of sympathy or empathy as a country while we were splitting up families and sending them on buses for 30 hours to cities far away from New Orleans. What is the child going to do without his or her mother or father? What is a wife going to do with out her husband. This article brought up some interesting points that I for sure didn't think about before I read the story. I heard this phrase around the time of 9-11, "Sometimes tragedies bring out the best of us as a nation." And I don't think the best of us showed up that week of Katrina. I don't think the people in charge did enough as soon as they could to save our own people. It makes me sad to say that as a citizen of this country.
But those people finally started to show remorse and sympathy for the people in New Orleans and help did come and people were saved eventually. People did come together and New Orleans is back and running and I have heard great things about the city. I'll end with a quote from Enarson, I just hope we can "prepare for, survive, cope with and recover from the next storm."
No comments:
Post a Comment