September 27, 2005
Katrina 24/7
By Gwenne Lally

Over the past few weeks we've been seeing coverage of hurricane Katrina 24/7. We keep hearing that we are neither immune from disaster nor prepared for it. We're repeatedly warned how dependent we are on local government and how slowly and clumsily help can be in coming from Washington. Over and over, but maybe still not often enough, we're reminded that those who have the least and need the most are the most likely, in their desperation, to get the least of what they need.

The failure was not that nobody knew what might happen. In 2002, the New Orleans Times Picayune published a five-part series that essentially predicted Katrina's aftermath, from breached levees to 20,000 evacuees sheltered in the Superdome. They cited detailed projections made by computer models developed at Louisiana State University and other institutions that described what would happen if water flowed over the levees or if the levees failed.

The failure was not that nobody planned for the worst. In July 2004, more than 40 federal, state, local and volunteer organizations carried out a five-day exercise dubbed "Hurricane Pam" where they responded to an imaginary storm that destroyed over half a million buildings in New Orleans and forced the evacuation of a million residents.

After the fact, we have seen an overwhelming outpouring of compassion from across the country and around the world. But the fundamental failure is that until Katrina hit, few of us cared what might - what inevitably would - happen in New Orleans.

If we'd cared, we would never have allowed one of our loveliest cities to be crippled by grinding poverty. If we'd cared we would not have allowed the administration to whittle away at funding for emergency management year after year while they spoon-fed tax cuts to the rich. If we'd cared we might have applied pressure to preserve FEMA's effectiveness instead of sacrificing it to that post 9/11 political showpiece: the Department of Homeland Security.

If we'd cared about the social toxins that have polluted the lives of New Orleans' poor, largely African-American residents for generations, we might not now be shocked by the sight of their bodies struggling through - or floating in - streets filled with toxic water.

Eventually the intensive coverage will fade. Other stories will dominate the news. But we will still be living with Katrina, 24/7. Because every hour of every day there are Americans we care about as little as we cared about the victims of our indifference who became the victims of Katrina. They're in our cities, our suburbs, our countryside - and even our town. They're people whose daily struggles are invisible to us - even when we pass them on the street.

In the face of escalating taxes and home prices, some Killingworth residents are in danger of being marginalized or even forced out of town - particularly the young people who add vitality to the community and step up to fill the dwindling ranks of our volunteer fire and ambulance services, and our older, long-term residents. And while their difficulties lack the intense drama of hurricane evacuees, they are no less important.

The Killingworth Democratic Town Committee is committed to help all our residents. Our elected officials and volunteers will work to provide for the housing and other needs of these valuable citizens while accommodating the desires of the entire community for a well-maintained infrastructure, a well-funded library, athletic fields and other recreation facilities, open space and social services in a fiscally responsible manner. And we'll do it 24/7.

( For more about the Killingworth Democratic Town Committee visit our website at www.killingworth.dems.info)

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