A small note about Hurricane Katrina & those who met it

2 Sep

I am meeting people in person, everyday, here in California who are telling me that the misery of the people who were within the Hurricane Katrina rampage is their own fault. Their argument is simple and goes like this : “Those people knew a Hurricane was coming, and thus could have left easily. Assuming that this hurricane is going to be like others was a weird assumption, and now they are suffering. How more stupid can you be?”

This argument is simple for one main reason; it doesn’t hold much ground. An argument is supposed to be there to serve a purpose; the purpose of this very argument is simply to argue about something because either one is bored, or one tries to understand the situation of others by “not” placing their own selves in the shoes of others, or by simply assuming everyone else has the same opportunities as them. These people who argue this way have not seen a hurricane like this, nor lived for long periods of times in areas like the ones that have been destroyed. Those people in the areas of LA or MS or AL see hurricanes and tornados the same way Californians see earthquakes; I never saw people in California running away and leaving the entire state because of an earthquake, whenever there is an earthquake warning or we know earthquake is on its way in one form or the other.

All those people in the Hurricane Katrina path thought the Hurricane was going to pass, like all the other hurricanes that have passed “easily” before. It simply didn’t, and it’s not the fault of the people. Also, many people in those areas do not have transportation; they don’t have cars or new bikes like many of the “well-off” people in California, because they can’t afford one. Therefore, even if the people wanted to leave in AL or LA or MS, majority of them couldn’t, and it is those people who either didn’t want to leave because they thought the disaster won’t be so big, or simply couldn’t pack their stuff and leave because of jobs and family, who are stuck out there now. How were they going to leave? Hitchhike with their entire families and belongings? Walk out of the state? They couldn’t afford a plane ticket out because of an assumption back then, nor a bus ride all the way to another state.

If people expected the ones who are suffering right now to have left before the disaster struck, they should also have expected the businesses to offer a system for their employees to go on paid leave or a leave that won’t affect the employees financially. We should have a system in place where every job in the “supposed disaster” area offers a “paid leave” option to all the people so they can leave in case of a disaster, or simply as a precaution before the chaos even comes close. Businesses keep running while the danger approaches, and while people can leave, they won’t be paid as the companies will say “The disaster isn’t happening yet, you are simply leaving because of fear. You won’t be paid.” No sick leave, and no pay amounts to nothing for you and your family, and on top of that, someone else might take over your job, someone who doesn’t leave. How many of those people could afford that? Not many, thus they had to stay and work and make the ends meet for themselves and the families. How many of us will leave our jobs and go to some other state if there was a warning today saying that an earthquake might hit certain parts of California within a few days? Again, not many, as even this year and last year we got a lot of warnings of big earthquakes, and we all continued on with our lives since many people are mostly “used” to the earthquakes here. Even I was here and ‘blogged‘ about it, and left only to go away from the computer to a safe area. One can say that comparing a hurricane to an earthquake is a stretched comparison; however, it is the best comparison I can think of at the moment. If you think there is a better comparison, please let me know.

For now, I suggest to those who blame the people starving for more than four days now, to please stop blaming those people who are dying there every hour, and only focus on helping them or at least wishing the best for them. If one definitely must rant, we can appreciate peace and relief organizations carrying almost majority of the burden in providing food and assistance in all the areas and at the same time rant about the government help coming in very slowly, if at all, in the different areas [I would like to talk about this also]. We can save the high school gossips and rants for the day when others around us are doing better too, or when we are out of new topics to talk about and out of responsibilities to fulfil.