On the day after Hurricane Katrina was declared to be not as bad as
originally feared, it became clear that the effects of the storm had
been, after all, beyond devastation. Homeowners in Biloxi, Miss.,
staggered through wrecked neighborhoods looking for their loved ones.
In New Orleans, the mayor reported that rescue boats had begun pushing
past dead bodies to look for the stranded living. Gas leaks began
erupting into flames, and looking at the city, now at least 80 percent
under water, it was hard not to think of last year's tsunami, or even
ancient Pompeii.
Disaster has, as it almost always does, called up American
generosity and instances of heroism. Young people helped the old onto
rafts in flooded New Orleans streets, and exhausted rescue workers
refused all offers of rest, while people as far away as Kansas and
Arizona went online to offer shelter in their homes to the refugees. It
was also a reminder of how much we rely on government to imagine the
unimaginable and plan for the worst. As the levees of Lake
Pontchartrain gave way, flooding New Orleans, it seemed pretty clear
that in this case, government did not live up to the job.
But
this seems like the wrong moment to dwell on fault-finding, or even to
point out that it took what may become the worst natural disaster in
American history to pry President Bush out of his vacation. All the
focus now must be on rescuing the survivors. Beyond that lies a long
and painful recovery, which must begin with a national vow to help all
the storm victims and to save and repair New Orleans.
People who think of that graceful city and the rest of the
Mississippi Delta as tourist destinations must have been reminded,
watching the rescue operations, that the real residents of this area
are in the main poor and black. The only resources most of them will
have to fall back on will need to come from the federal government.
Those
of us in New York watch the dire pictures from Louisiana with keen
memories of the time after Sept. 11, when the rest of the nation made
it clear that our city was their city, and that everyone was part of
the battle to restore it. New Orleans, too, is one of the places that
belongs to every American's heart - even for people who have never been
there.
Right now it looks as if rescuing New Orleans will be a
task much more daunting than any city has faced since the San Francisco
fire of 1906. It must be a mission for all of us.
On the day after Hurricane Katrina was declared to be not as bad as
originally feared, it became clear that the effects of the storm had
been, after all, beyond devastation. Homeowners in Biloxi, Miss.,
staggered through wrecked neighborhoods looking for their loved ones.
In New Orleans, the mayor reported that rescue boats had begun pushing
past dead bodies to look for the stranded living. Gas leaks began
erupting into flames, and looking at the city, now at least 80 percent
under water, it was hard not to think of last year's tsunami, or even
ancient Pompeii.
