New Orleans is known for Bourbon Street, a losing football team, the Superdome, and for letting the good times roll. These are the city’s universal identity and its claim to fame. Now, New Orleans, once called the city that care forgot, is now known as a city with an uncertain future, and so is Louisiana?s future because believe it or not Louisiana’s future is tied to New Orleans future.
For the past week New Orleans and the plight of its citizens has been all the news in this country. Ever since Katrina swept through this city and the Gulf Coast, it has been top news. With New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina, and the war in Iraq, nothing else has been able to squeeze in a spot on the evening news.
The television cameras tell the whole story. There are pictures of a city laid low and covered with water; fires; and uprooted citizens in pain, misery plastered all over their faces. There are pictures of a convoy of buses going to Houston and other places looking for new homes and new hope.
There are people looting stores, looking for items to eat and drink and to ease human suffering. There are people looting for television sets and guns, showing that even in the midst of one of the worst situations there is still room for human greed and still a place in time for the worst behavior in mankind to flow to the top.
Where will these people get help as their lives ease right out of their body? The city of New Orleans, the state of Louisiana and the United States government had no clue. Food, water, and basic necessities were slow and late coming. There was no systematic way of rescuing and evacuating people and the city just went wild. Was President Bush the blame for any of this?
President Bush was quick to act when it came to taking lives in Iraq; he knew what to do then. However, on this occasion when it came to saving lives in New Orleans he didn’t know what to do.
Still thousands of American citizens and organizations quickly gave of themselves, they pitched in, gave money, and support from all over the country. New Orleans with the help of God will someday rise again… but it won’t be soon. Hundreds of lives will be scarred and have to start all over. Our prayers are with the victims of hurricane Katrina.