Gone with the hurricane
By Balbir K. Punj

Carol, Edna, Hazel (1954), Connie, Diane (1955), Donna (1960), Camille (1969), Agnes (1972), Alicia (1983), Gilbert (1988), Hugo (1989), Andrew (1992), Opal (1995), Floyd (1999), Iris (2001), Charlie, Frances and Ivan (2004), Dennis (2005) might sound a roll-call list of pretty guys-n-gals in a Midwest school. But these are the names of some of the hurricanes that have bedevilled the United States in the past.

The recent one named Katrina blew away our assumptions about US’ invulnerability like 9/11 had blasted the myth of US’ inviolability. America, a superpower, capable of retaliating a nuclear strike without being overwhelmed, conceded a moral defeat before a natural calamity.

This beautifully named calamity exposed an ugly side of US society. Nature’s tragedy was turned into an opportunity by hooligans. They indulged in looting, stabbing, arson and even rape. The police quarantined itself by bolting doors from the inside as chaos mounted.

Newsweek in its September 12 issue reports: "The giant Wal-Mart store in Lower Garden District stayed above the floodwaters and did a booming business — in freeloaders. Some people emerged with shopping carts full of food and water and medical supplies. Others appeared with TVs and DVDs... One gang chased away security guards and emptied the Wal-Mart of guns and ammunition, enough to arm a company of soldiers.

The police themselves may have helped trigger the lawlessness, as reports that some of their own had engaged in looting swept through the city. On Wednesday night, Mayor Nagin order 1,500 policemen — virtually the entire city force — to stop trying rescue people from attics and rooftops, and to turn instead to stopping the looting" (Lost City pp. 23-24).

According to another report, many swindlers in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama are making a fast buck in the name of raising funds for Katrina victims. They have propped up websites like katrinahelp.com, katrinadonations.com, katrinafamilies.com (After the storm, it’s swindlers,the Times Of India, September 9, p. 21).

India has had more than its fair share of natural calamities. It is not just Bihar and Assam that experience recurrent floods. Recently, Mumbai, India’s commercial capital, experienced terrible floods where the administration collapsed. Gujarat, perhaps the most prosperous state in India, was inundated. Last December, Andaman and Nicobar islands, Andhra Pradesh, Pondicherry, Tamil Nadu and Kerala were hit by a terrible tsunami. It will be wrong to boast that the government agencies that extend relief are honest.

Former district magistrate of Patna, Gautam Goswami, now incarcerated in Beur Jail, is facing trial for fraudulently siphoning crores of rupees meant for Bihar flood relief. There were massive irregularities in the supply of provisions to refugees from East Pakistan during the Bangladesh War in 1971.

But what explains the fact that there was no looting, assault, murder or rape in Mumbai during the floods although that city is a den of criminals? The same holds true for the tsunami, the Gujarat earthquake, and the Orissa supercyclone. Whenever disaster strikes, whether natural or manmade, volunteers turn out in numbers, at times risking their own lives. Others who can’t directly participate in these efforts make generous donations. Enmities are suspended, if not forgotten. People open not only their purses but veins as well to donate blood. There is a natural spirit of sharing and caring.

Another feature of relief operations in India is the participation of religious orders and social organisations. Ramakrishna Mission, Bharat Sevashram Sangha, Sikh gurudwaras, Chinmaya Mission, RSS-VHP, Iskcon, all participate in rescue and relief operations. NGOs play a vital role during such times. Let us not forget that the Church and missionary organisations also come forward. Asianews.it (a website that reports on Christian matters in Asia) said in April that only the Catholic Church was left on the Andamans to help the tsunami victims while all other agencies had left. However, it’s strange that no churchman reached the afflicted people in New Orleans. Is it because there were no souls left to be saved there and their bodies could perish?

The chaos of Katrina proved that the image and the reality of the US do not always correspond. Robert Putnam in his book Bowling Alone (2000), drawing on evidence from 500,000 interviews over the last quarter century, showed how Americans are getting disconnected from each other, family, friends, and democratic institutions. Post-9/11 that trend had been somewhat reversed but it’s still a long way to go.

People view the US as a dreamland where people want to migrate for career reasons. It may be true for the young and the dynamic, but the US is a cruel place for the old and the infirm. This was brought into sharp focus in the ordeal suffered by the inmates of an old age home. Devoid of electricity and air-conditioning, three of the old people died before a rescue AC bus reached from Texas after five days. The bus had to be provided with gunmen as a precaution against rowdy elements.

The soul of the US resides in its institutions. But institutions failed New Orleans miserably as federal agencies could not rise to the occasion. For instance, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was confident that it was ready, with ice, water, food, medicines, and rescue teams to move into areas as soon as it was safe after the hurricane-strike. But on August 28, a day before Mayor Ray Nagin placed the city under mandatory evacuation order, the director of FEMA, Michael Brown, said, "There’s still time to take action now, but you must be prepared and take shelter and other emergency precautions immediately." This made FEMA appear complacent immediately before the hurricane arrived. The same day the National Hurricane Centre was announcing that Katrina was intensifying into a Category Five (most intense form) Hurricane.

Ray Nagin’s mandatory evacuation order came barely 24 hours before it was a must. Time was inadequate to evacuate the sick, the poor and the indifferent. A stadium was converted into an asylum grandiosely named Superdome for those who could not leave the city. But it became a scene of chaos and several murders.

Hurricane Katrina was also the first major test for the Department of Homeland Security, created after 9/11. It was not until August 30, a day after the hurricane struck New Orleans that HDS secretary Michael Chertoff declared his National Response Plan. Public opinion found it inadequate and slow. It has now come to light that a Congressional inquiry in July had found that the HDS contingency plan was overbalanced towards meeting terrorist incidents involving chemical, biological, radioactive and explosive attacks, rather than natural calamities like hurricanes or earthquakes.

Discriminations against blacks might be the worst scandal associated to Katrina relief operations. The blacks who form the predominant ethnic group in New Orleans (67.3%), a city of almost half a million, feel they have been discriminated against. Even George Bush who had responded with alacrity during 9/11, was found lounging in his Texas ranch while thousands in New Orleans cried for food, water and medicine. He showed his off-hand approach from Louisiana when he visited Alabama to oversee relief measures.

The legal position and societal status of the blacks, who form 12% of US population have no doubt improved after the Civil Rights Act, 1964. But New Orleans exposed that the colour stigma still lives on. It is especially so in the "Deep South" of the US, once notorious for slavery, Ku Klux Klan, and racial segregation.