Ina Mina Katrina..

I think the first named hurricane I ever heard of was Ivan. I remember wondering what's the big deal about a person called Ivan destroying something. It was only later I realized that Ivan was not a person but a hurricane. I really thought naming a storm was a stupid practice. Imagine!! If the practice ever reached India, the tsunami would probably be named as "Kaali maata" or the earthquake in Gujarat would probably be something like "Shiv Tandav" ;-) :-D But later I did some research and found a reason for the naming here:

Reason to Name Hurricanes

Yeah I did change my mind about the naming factor after reading the article :)

There have been many hurricanes/named storms in US. Recent ones we know of are Charley, Ivan and Jeanne in 2004, Arlene, Dennis, Emily, Franklin, Harvey, Irene, Jose, Katrina and Ophelia till now in 2005. Since september is supposedly the peak for hurricanes, there are surely more to come. But none of them have been like Katrina before...

Katrina exposed another harsh truth about US, the first one being exposed by the 9/11 WTC incident. The response was pretty pathetic and this time George Bush couldn't repeat his all-time favourite dialogue "The United states of America will stand united against all terrorism" :-D Sadly, a natural disaster can in no way be named as an act of terrorism, even Bush doesn't have the power to call God a terrorist. In a way, I'm pretty sure the real terrorists must have been really happy. They didn't have to do anything this time and there was utter chaos!! But I was surprised when Bush said "I'll take the responsibility" :-D. Man, its late, but good. You atleast now realize that you are responsible for something. And that vacation at your ranch in Texas isn't your only responsibility :-p. The News channels really had a field day with his statement ;-). They actually made it sound as if Bush was the cause of Katrina :-D.

I recently got this mail from a friend. I dunno how many of the so-called facts are actually facts, but here it is:

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New Orleans vs. Aamchi Mumbai

Inches of rain in New Orleans due to Hurricane Katrina... 18
Inches of rain in Mumbai (July 27th).... 37.1


Population of New Orleans... 484,674
Population of Mumbai.... 12,622,500


Deaths in New Orleans within 48 hours of Katrina...100
Deaths in Mumbai within 48 hours of rain.. 37.


Number of people to be evacuated in New orleans... entire city (almost)
Number of people evacuated in Mumbai...10,000


Cases of shooting and violence in New Orleans...Countless
Cases of shooting and violence in Mumbai.. NONE


Time taken for US army to reach New Orleans... 48 hours
Time taken for Indian army and navy to reach Mumbai...12 hours


Status 48 hours later: New Orleans is still waiting for relief, army
and electricty.
Status 48 hours later: Mumbai is back on its feet and its business is as
usual


USA: World's most developed nation
India: Third world country

Oops!! Did i get the last fact wrong???

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Even though the rains in Mumbai cannot be compared to Katrina, the fact is that the response here in US was sluggish to say the least :-p. Is it really necessary that a governor ask specifically for a particular kind of help, when the whole country has a huge warning being flashed from all sides about the hurricane? Ok they might not have had a warning for the 9/11 incident (I still cannot believe that), but hello? You had one clear and bright here!!!

First of all, I don't understand building a city like New Orleans. According to them the simple steps to create a city seem to be:

1) Find a pit between a high huge river and another high lake.
2) Make sure this place is near the sea from where storms/hurricanes can come anytime.
3) Construct pathetic levees for the river and the lake.
4) Build a city that's completely below the water level of both the river and the lake.
5) Live in the city and declare "I'm safe :)".

I really don't understand why they are rebuilding the city either. Now that they know how unsafe it is, why rebuild and again invite another disaster to happen? Most of the people have already been shifted to other places, being given jobs, shelter and they probably won't want to come back once the city is "rebuilt". Why not keep the city as it is as a "New Orleans Memorial" as they did for WTC :-D? Jokes apart, if they are definite about rebuilding, then they must make sure that the levees this time are higher and stronger than the Great wall of China...

The problem with the people here in US is that they depend too much on the Government. "The Government didn't send us buses, the Government didn't make sure we were all evacuated, the Government didn't get us food and water at the right time" etc etc and etc. I know people in India too depend on the government, but its usually only for the compensation they get later ;-) But this is too much! C'mon, 2 days before the hurricane struck, the warnings were being issued. There were evacuations ordered. What do these people expect? That someone should come, check each and every house, if there are people push them into a bus and carry them out of the city??? Roof top evacuations were being telecasted after the storm and I remember people begging to be rescued. They didn't listen to the warning, did nothing to avoid the hurricane and want to be rescued? Sheeeeeeesh!! Even worse than this was the way the people behaved when put in the superdome! Rapes!! God!! A man is in a life and death situation and all he can think of raping a woman who is in the same situation as him? Its totally outrageous and unacceptable behaviour!! God, why did you make men this way? Is there any logic in looting people and raping women where you should probably be helping them out? And yup, they can always claim that "The Government locked us up in the superdome and didn't monitor us"!! I guess people are animals, if they are not in a controlled situation, they return to the ancestral monkey behaviour :-p Quod Erat Demonstrandum from Katrina!

The other problem I've found is too many good facilities. They say "Too much of something is not good" and thats precisely the problem in US. The electricity is continuous and there are no power cuts. So none of the buildings have generators!! In India, I think there's a stipulation that every building with a lift should have generators (I am not sure but I think so). Heck, most of the upper middle class families have invertors for their houses. I know its due to the common power cuts, but its good. In a way, we are prepared for emergencies :) Here most of them do not. Because they are oh-so-confident about the power. No wonder the whole Los Angeles city stopped working at the recent power outage. Moreover everything else depends on electricity. I heard one of the news channels actually issue a warning saying "Don't use any of the food in cans which have been outside the fridge for than 4 hours". The food last only 4 hours without electricity? :-o? What the heck?? So if I'm stranded in my house without electricity, I can't even eat the food in the house after 4 hours?? What's the use of storing food then? I just don't have the words to express my disgust here..

My heart went out to the many people who were sitting in front of the superdome waiting for help. There were children, old people, new mothers with babies and nothing was being done for them. I really hope that Katrina is a lesson learnt and things are much more smooth if a disaster strikes again (God Forbid!). We are in mid-US and the chances of us being attacked by a storm is pretty less (but Lexington it seems, is a tornado prone area, just my luck :-p :-D). But there are millions of people living on the coastline who may be hit any time by a hurricane. Hopefully next time, may all of them have the intelligence to get out of the storm path when warned and stay away until its all quiet, calm and safe again :)