Over the last few days I have felt a great deal of shame. A disbelief, felt by many, that the world's sole remaining superpower could not, or at least did not, respond more quickly to a disaster that had been our own government's worst-case scenario for years. Around the nation, the world, my household and Brown, the reaction to Hurricane Katrina's devastation went far beyond the usual political reactions and blame game, although that is changing as time passes. Flooding and looting has "humbled the most powerful nation on the planet," and showed "how quickly the thin veneer of civilization can be stripped away," as the Daily Mail of London said.
It is now clear that the decision to make Federal Emergency Management Agency a part of the Department of Homeland Security was an unconditioned disaster. What had previously been one of the most effective agencies in the government was stripped of talented leaderships, deprived of appropriate resources and diverted from its primary mission. The results are apparent to everyone. A 2001 FEMA study claimed that a hurricane in New Orleans was one of the three biggest disasters this country could face, yet it is obvious that in the days leading up to Katrina little was done to prepare.
It was long known that a Category 4 hurricane would cause New Orleans to flood. The levees simply weren't designed to withstand a hurricane of that magnitude. On Saturday night, the National Weather Service said Katrina was a Category 4, and was headed for New Orleans. As shown by the evacuation order, officials were aware the hurricane was likely to hit the city. Though we knew it was a Category 4 hurricane, and that such a hurricane would most likely break the levees, it appears that nobody started trying to figure out what to do if New Orleans flooded until after it happened.
Everything we have seen suggests that the administration was simply nowhere to be found. Key White House officials were away from Washington on vacation, so much so that FEMA's own director didn't even know about all the refugees at the now-notorious convention center until journalists informed him of it.
The people of New Orleans, southeastern Louisiana, and the Gulf Coast are all suffering in the aftermath of the storm. What they need is sympathy, the prayers of those who believe prayer can help and, most of all, as much aid from the rest of us as possible. Last year when the tsunami devastated countries half way around the world, the Southeast Asian Students Association took the lead on planning a coalition of students groups to raise money. Either through tragic timing or confusion, students groups seem to be organizing on their own or not at all in response to this tragedy. Brown-wide student action will only occur when a group step forwards to fill this leadership void; otherwise we will all lose our chance to make a significant contribution.
But money is not the only thing we can contribute. New Orleans needs thing we can't provide. They need things the federal government isn't providing. They need troops. They need buses to get people out. They need the power to make executive decisions. This is much more than an economic problem; it's a political problem.
When the mayor of New Orleans was asked what he needs, he responded: "Organize people to write letters, make calls to their to congressman, to the president, to the governor, flood their doggone offices with requests to do something. This is ridiculous."
Brown prides itself on being an activist community. As we move into the future we must do more than raise money; we must participate in the national debate of what went wrong and why and who is accountable. These are questions that should be on the mind of every concerned citizen. We have brilliant political and activist minds on this campus and they should be trained to address what is quickly becoming the largest disaster of our lifetimes.
Zachary Townsend '08 is a former copy editor for The Herald.
