Nature's wrath

I was shocked to see on television the extent of devastation that hurricane Katrina eft in Louisiana and Mississippi. I couldn’t believe it was happening to America, which is supposed to have everything in the world to protect its people.

I was especially touched to see Americans wading in waist-deep floodwaters and waving white clothes and placards from their rooftops to ask for help.

In one instance, a young mother was helplessly clutching her five-day-old baby on a roadside until the police saw her and took them to a safer place. In another scene, a teary-eyed mother, who obviously didn’t know what to do and where to go, was hugging her sick three-year-old boy as they sat in a stairway.

Everybody was tired, confused, scared and hungry.



Elsewhere were flattened houses and debris from the massive destruction. There were people everywhere and some of them had to loot groceries just to have food. It was, as President George Bush said, the worst natural disaster in American history.

And, as it turned out, despite America’s super infrastructures, it wasn’t super enough to protect its own people. The massive flooding in New Orleans was caused by a breached levee and no sandbagging was able to stop the rampaging floodwaters from submerging the whole city.

Fortunately for them, they are in America. Unlike in a third world country, they won’t have to wait for international aid anymore to rescue and rehabilitate their people. Although it took more than 24 hours before the American people realized the extent of the damage, it didn’t take long for government officials to organize rescue and medical teams.

There were helicopters everywhere. Five hundred buses were sent to New Orleans to evacuate the homeless to neighboring Texas. Truckloads of food and water were also sent to the area. Even their battleships were mobilized. America, indeed, had everything and those of us who are in poor countries could only wish we had the same resources during natural calamities.

If at all it was any consolation to us, it was while watching Fox News that I learned that the people in New Orleans were already told to evacuate even before Katrina’s landfall. But they did not budge, just like the way many of our people here react when told to move to higher grounds.Hard-headedness, after all, is international.

As the world watches America rebuild New Orleans from its ruins, there will always be lessons to learn, especially in the areas of flood mitigation, rescue and relief operations, evacuation and rehabilitation. But, to my mind, the most important lesson has been learned – that even a super power is no match to nature’s wrath.

ENDNOTES: By the time this paper’s issue hits the newsstands, Vice Mayor Alvin Fernandez shall have again assumed as acting city mayor. From what we heard, Mayor Benjamin Lim will be in India for a personal trip from Sept. 3-10… Last Thursday, Vice Mayor Fernandez and the Rotary Club of Dagupan, which he heads, conducted fogging operation in Barangay Carael upon the request of Barangay Captain Perfecto Velasquez, to destroy the breeding grounds mosquitoes, especially those cause the dreaded dengue fever. The activity also involved the City Health Office.

QUICK QUOTE: When you reach the end of what you should know, you will be at the beginning of what you should sense. --Kahlil Gibran