In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina it seems many questions have arisen. In the midst of the pain, the heartache, and the loss, it seems as if anger has taken over because of the government?s lack of response to the disaster.
Who is actually to blame?
Should we be playing the blame game?
Did race play a roll in the low response to Katrina?
We are surrounded by students, faculty, and staff who are either from the Gulf Coast or have friends or family who were directly affected by the disaster. It is no surprise that strong opinions and emotion about the catastrophe are all around us.
It seems as if President Bush is at the top of everyone’s blame list, but is he actually the one to blame?
We have to take into consideration that Hurricane Katrina was a natural disaster and no one knew the damage and the actual effect that this disaster could have on the United States. So can we actually point the finger at man due to a natural disaster?
Sure, I think that we would all agree that the response to the hurricane was horrible. We all have seen the footage of the thousands of people stranded in a city that was 80 percent underwater. However, we can’t be so quick to pull the race card or point fingers until we get the logistics of the situation.
We know that there was a lack of response or even a lack of communication between the government and the people, but we shouldn’t be so quick to make assumptions as to why. In class the other day people were comparing the response of the government to the response after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Many stated that the government’s response in New York City was faster and better than that of Katrina. We have to understand that the 9/11 attacks spread less than 20 square miles. Hurricane Katrina devastated parts of three states, destroying over 90,000 square miles of land.
These two events can’t even be compared.
We owe the government a chance to explain themselves as to what actually went wrong. Was it on the local level, the state level or the national level? And what is the government going to do to ensure that something like this doesn’t happen again?
There are a lot of questions to be answered and a lot of situations to be worked out but we should allow the government to work these things out before we just blame them for this disaster. We have to get facts before we point the blame.
Now is not the time to play the blame game. We should be focused on the survivors of this disaster.We have to be thankful not only for the material things we have in life, but for life itself. We should live each day as if it is the last.
Montree Reynolds is a senior mass communication major from Pittsburg, Calif.