A Series of Unfortunate Events
As if Hurricane Katrina wasn't horrible enough, the southwestern part of the United Stated suffered another attack by a natural disaster. Hurricane Rita made its move across the Texas-Louisiana border by dawn on Saturday. The effects were all too familer for the storm-shattered Gulf Coast.
One thing was apparent on Sunday; the aftermath of the hurricane was bad, but not catastrophic. As I mentioned in my "Thank You" entry, the government learned from their mistakes made during Katrina. Rather then underestimating the strength and danger of Rita, like they did Katrina, precautions were taken and lives were saved by mandatory evacuations. Officials estimated about 90 percent of residents in the hard-hit area got out before Rita’s pre-dawn arrival on Saturday. In contrast to Katrina, with its death toll of more than 1,000, only two deaths had been attributed to Rita by Sunday — a person killed in north-central Mississippi when a tornado spawned by the hurricane overturned a mobile home and an east Texas man struck by a fallen tree. Twenty-three evacuees were killed before the storm hit in a fatal bus fire near Dallas. Petrochemical plants that supply a quarter of the nation’s gasoline suffered only a glancing blow, with just one major plant facing weeks of repairs. The reflooding in New Orleans from levee breaks was isolated mostly to areas already destroyed and deserted, and could be pumped out in as little as a week. Police, National Guard troops and other rescue workers also arrived in stricken areas quickly, so there was no repeat of the looting and chaos that besieged New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. To get a better understanding of what people in the southwestern region of our country are going through, check out these slide shows to see the aftermath of Katrina and the preparation for Rita.
I am going to leave you with a story that has a happy ending. Good friends of my family moved to Mississippi three years ago. Unfortunately they were among the many who lost everything due to Katrina. Their daughter had always dreamed of going to the University of Maryland. She recently contacted the school and found out that she is getting a full scholarship for softball. In addition, her father has been asked to return to the Philadelphia office of the company he works for. They are going to stay with us, while they look for a new house.
posted by Natalia B @ 7:28 PM
2 Comments:
That is a nice story. And you are welcome I enjoy reading your blog. However I feel that the government both state and federal did not learn their lesson in the aftermath of Katrina. Obviously a much better job was done in the wake of Rita as opposed to that of Katrina. But you must remember, nothing at all was done in the wake of the first hurricane.
Many improvements must be made in the evacuation of major cities. I would think that Homeland security, the biggest bureaucracy in the federal government whose job it is to protect us from terror, would have sophisticated plans for evacuations. This was not the case with Rita. At a crawl, it took up to 12 hours to get out of some parts of the hurricane zone and south all but ran out of gas. To me this is not an evacuation to base future mass migrations on.
I am glad you shared that story about your friends. Unfortunately, for every happy story you hear, there are about 10 sad and unfortunate ones. It seems like most people were not as lucky. As if Katrina wasn't enough, just when people thought it couldn't get any worse....RITA HIT. I think the government did a decent job learning from their mistakes from hurricane Katrina, however, it wasn't good enough. Just looking at the mass exodus of cars trying to get out of the area, in a stand-still on the highway, I feel like there has to be a better, more efficient way to evacuate people. If I was in that situation, I probably would have just got out of my car and started running! I really look forward to reading your blog, you keep me informed on all the good details. Most especially, I like the stories, good or bad, I think they are very touching.
Post a Comment
<< Home