Katrina probes America's conscience

The effects of Hurricane Katrina will be felt for a long time in the United States. The states of Louisiana - especially the city of New Orleans - Mississippi and Alabama were affected by probably the worst natural disaster in modern US history. Thousands are believed to have died, New Orleans will be uninhabitable for many months, 100,000 jobs have been lost and the cost of the hurricane runs into billions of dollars. America's economic growth and its GDP will be dented as a result of the hurricane.

These grim statistics are bad enough, but what has really shocked the world and many Americans is the weak response of the US government and the very clear social divisions that emerged in New Orleans in the aftermath of the hurricane as well as the lack of preparedness for such a disaster.

The lootings, shootings, rape, anarchy, social disorder, total breakdown of law and order in New Orleans, as well as the slow reaction of the authorities to the plight of those who had remained in the city - which lasted for almost five days - was not what people expected to witness in a modern American city in 2005.

Here was the world's only superpower, which many of us look up to, admire and respect as the leader of the free world and the greatest economic power on earth, unable (some critics would say unwilling) to help its citizens, many of whom were poor and black, in the aftermath of this terrible hurricane. The initial hopelessness of the federal government's response made it seem like America was a third world country which lacked the resources to carry out a decent rescue operation.

The blame for the inadequacy of New Orleans' flood defences and the lack of a proper contingency plan must, of course, be spread between the city, state and federal government, but ultimately somebody has to assume political responsibility for this fiasco. Which level of government has the most resources at its disposal? And which government should have a contingency plan ready for a disaster of such magnitude? The federal government, naturally.

It is true that the residents of New Orleans were ordered to evacuate the city as the hurricane approached, but what about the old, poor and sick who had nowhere to go and who did not have the means to leave the city? They were all left to fend for themselves, and that is certainly not right.

President Bush cannot be blamed for Hurricane Katrina, but he can be blamed for his initial slow reaction to the disaster. The bottom line is that he failed to mobilise the federal government when he should have. Of course, he has since got Congress to authorise billions of dollars in aid for the disaster areas and he also sent thousands of troops to stabilise the situation, but that is not the point. He should have reacted sooner.

In 2004 President Bush, who was standing for re-election, was quick to react to four hurricanes hitting Florida. Cynics would argue that this time Mr Bush was not in need of votes and the overwhelmingly majority of those who remained in New Orleans were poor blacks who would never support this Republican administration anyway. I think this is nonsense but what has to be said is that the scenes the whole world witnessed on television shamed America and gave the impression that the world's most powerful country does not care about its most vulnerable citizens.

This hurricane disaster exposed the Achilles' heel of the great American economic success story. The most advanced economy in the world, which has a huge prosperous middle class, also has a permanent underclass of citizens, many of whom are black. This is nowhere more evident than in New Orleans, which is 67 per cent black, and where about a third of the population live below the poverty line. Yes, the US has made great progress over the years on social issues and the country's economic success has benefited all Americans, but the fact remains that this underclass is still there.

The chorus of disapproval and shock at what followed Katrina was not limited to the President's traditional political opponents. Newt Gingrich, the conservative Republican and former Speaker of the House of Representatives, asked how the federal government would have coped with a nuclear, biological or chemical terrorist attack if it didn't even have a contingency plan in place for the aftermath of a hurricane. After September 11, 2001, he said, one would have thought that some sort of plan would be in place. And Susan Collins, a Republican Senator from Maine, said she would launch an investigation in the Senate to see what went wrong with the federal government's response to the disaster.

Hurricane Katrina has also brought the role of the federal government under the spotlight. Five days after the disaster struck there were still no federal troops in New Orleans. After the massive earthquake in San Francisco in 1906, federal aid arrived within two hours of the tragedy. Why was the response so slow this time? It took Mr Bush four days to admit that the situation in New Orleans was "not acceptable". Furthermore, why was the federal government not prepared for such a disaster?

In 2001, the Houston Chronicle quoted the Federal Emergency Management Agency as saying that the three likeliest potential disasters in America were an earthquake in San Francisco, a terrorist attack in New York (this was before September 11) and a hurricane hitting New Orleans.

This is what the article said about New Orleans: "The New Orleans hurricane scenario may be the deadliest of all. In the face of an approaching storm, scientists say, the city's less-than-adequate evacuation routes would strand 250,000 people or more, and probably kill one of 10 left behind as the city drowned under 20 feet of water.

"Thousands of refugees could land in Houston. Economically, the toll would be shattering. If an Alison-type storm were to strike New Orleans, or a category three storm or greater with at least 111 mph winds, the results would be cataclysmic."

Hurricane Katrina was a category four storm, and we all know the consequences. There have been charges that although a hurricane hitting New Orleans was expected at some time, President Bush diverted funds away from the Federal Emergency Management Agency towards the Department for Homeland Security which in turn prevented money going to the city's levees, which were in need of repair, and which protect the city from flooding. This accusation certainly needs looking into. However, the role of the city council in this matter also needs investigating: New Orleans has a reputation for corruption and mismanagement.

Right now the priority is to help the victims and to try to get the city back to a sense or normality. But in the long run, America will have to ask itself a lot of questions and hope to learn something from this terrible disaster.