Emergency Unpreparedness

The thing that most struck me about Lee's film When the Levees Broke was the audio, I think of a news person or a local politician, stating that New Orelans residents were being forced to evacuate and that an emergency plan had been put into place for the evacuation. Seeing people struggling to get themselves and their loved ones and some belongings to the appointed shelters where there was no food, no water, no electricity or generators and then no running water was absurd.  The fact that there was no medical attention was atrocious.  Seeing people who needed oxygen, medicines and food and water is not an easy thing to digest.  Knowing that a local government failed and that the federal government did an even poorer job of assisting its citizens is devastating.

 Clearly what was demonstrated was that there was no plan; no plan to get the residents out in a timely manner, no plan on where they could be safely housed, no plan on feeding or providing medicines to those individuals who could not leave in the short timeline allowed.  Minnesota residents are lucky in many ways.  There are numerous emergency drills done by local cities and even by response teams on campus.  I am hopeful that one of the reasons that we are so prepared is because we have seen how some cities such as New Orleans have been so poorly prepared.  Of course, Minneapolis and Saint Paul aren't in the middle of a gigantic bowl where water can collect.  We are on the banks of rivers that overflow, but there is a lot of ground that is significantly higher than the riverbanks and so we are much safer.  While I love to visit New Orleans and find it a fascinating place rich in history to explore, a fun place to people watch and a fascinating conglomeration of people and cultures, I do not want to live there.  Ever.  I love to visit, and I would visit often given the chance, but the area is just too environmentally unstable for my tastes.  That was before Katrina.  Post Katrina I just wait for the Atchafalaya River to overtake everything.  The Army Corps of Engineers and the city are living on borrowed time.  Ask any geologist.  Nature always finds a way. When the Levees Broke was charged for me because it was such a catastrophic failure; hungry and thirsty people, people who needed medical attention, and people who just needed to be treated with some dignity were all left to their own devices.  People who paid taxes, who did the best that they could with the timeline that they were given or their ability to mobilize were left to fend for themselves for days.  At least the Coast Guard stepped in, threw out their own rules and just pitched in to help in whatever way they were able.

I think Lee did an excellent job in highlighting just who paid the highest price in this film.  It was the poor; those who had little ability to get themselves out of town under their own power, those who had little money to get themselves out and those people who had no place else to go.  Lee did a good job in reminding us that the United States has rushed in to assist with aid in countries around the world in less than five days and was able to air drop food and water, and assist with rescue efforts.  Why can we not expect and receive similar assistance within our own borders?  What is so fundamentally wrong with America?  Is it that we love to be able to rush in and help others, but too egotistical to think that bad things will not happen here?  Would the federal government have acted sooner and more completely if the city were different?  Given how FEMA has reacted to other disasters post Katrina, I do not think that the agency has learned its lesson.  It might be better, but it is certainly far from being a good or equitable system.