Katrina
Hurricane,
Horror & Heroes
Katrina will be known as the 'Perfect
Storm' when all elements came together to create the America's
largest tragedy ever. Hurricane Katrina or just Katrina,
as it will be referred to years from now, has destroyed,
decimated and derailed hundreds of thousands of lives in
the Gulf Coast region.
National
Environmental Satellite
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Katrina will also be known as a Perfect
Storm of Failure on the part of the government agencies
to protect, preserve and provide in a timely manner. Who
can forget the quick response of the emergency personally
after the September 11 tragedy in New York City?
For those in the Gulf Coast, if Katrina
has not killed, it has destroyed your homes, businesses,
employers, churches and disbursed you into new regions of
the country. Katrina has separated you from spouses, children,
family and friends and all that you once knew and loved.
Getting back on your feet is barely a thought as survival
is still fresh in your minds.
Katrina like all tragedies, points
out the heroes as well as the villains when it comes to
times of crisis. There will be plenty of time to deal with
the villains as what comes around will surely go around.
For the unspoken heroes in the Katrina tragedy, the ones
who stayed, the ones who came back, the ones who fought
their way to freedom and brought the young, the hurt, the
sick and the elderly with them, a big thank you doesn't
seem hardly enough.
Katrina has moved in and shaken up
our lives like no other national disaster has touched us
before. Not to take away from the terrible terrorist tragedy
of 9-11 or even the Indonesian Tsunami that has touched
us as well, Katrina has come at a time when we're all very
tired of one crisis after another. Throw in the Iraq War
and Afghanistan rebuilding and we're weary of just one more
thing on our plates to handle emotionally.
Katrina is not only one more thing.
Katrina is THE big thing. Katrina once again puts our own
mortality right in our faces. Katrina shakes the foundation
of our illusion of a safe world. And we need this illusion
just to survive.
The Katrina crisis is now, but the
effects of Katrina will be felt for generations. Besides
the killing and destruction that Katrina immediately caused,
she also has a longer term, insidious impact on the survivors
and evacuees. Katrina means post traumatic stress disorder,
anxiety, depression, suicide and homicide.
Who will ever forget the reports
of medical personnel and first responders being fired upon
from the watery, splintered remains in New Orleans? More
stories of human beings acting their worst will emerge as
time goes by, but hopefully the stories of humans at their
bests will also emerge.
What has been missing from the news
coverage of Katrina are the stories of the heroes. Not that
there aren't any Katrina heroes to report. There are probably
thousands. With the lack of communications within the Gulf
Coast region that was knocked out by Katrina, the reporting
of those stories has been less than one would come to expect
from a tragedy of this scale.
Time will tell the stories of the
Katrina heroes, though. Slow to come for now, the stories
will come out. Katrina will be powerless over the human
spirit contained in each act of bravery, compassion and
simply being of service to others during a time of intense
crisis.
Hopefully as we head into the next hurricane season we
will have learned many lessons from Katrina and the response
to a large-scale natural disaster that will make the response
that much more timely and effective the next time something
major happens.
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