Equality in Evacuation

Was there a great enough effort to evacuate everyone in New Orleans before the Hurricane Katrina hit?  Sure, everyone was told that there was a mandatory evacuation. But many residents didn’t own cars, and many means of public transportation were either too crowded or too expensive to get out quickly. Therefore, I pose the question, did the mayor declare mandatory evacuation of New Orleans primarily to protect the citizens, or to make the government look like it was being responsible even though it didn’t pull together all of the resources it could have?

            In the documentary we watched about Hurricane Katrina, we saw a large number of government officials pointing fingers at each other for not doing everything they could have to develop clear rescue plans.  While these people were quarreling about who should be in charge of helping the victims of the recent storm, they could have been working together to execute a massive rescue mission to save thousands of people in New Orleans together.

Instead of immediately doing everything they could to help the needy, these officials kept passing the responsibility of heading a rescue mission.  Subsequently, if someone were to be blamed for not taking the right action, they could protect their political images.

The idea that the government did not having everyone’s interests in mind in a time of crises is similar to what many believe happened during Hurricane Betsy in 1965.  In that case, people believe that the levees were purposely blown up so that the water would run into the lower 9^th ward and not the wealthy neighborhoods.  Much like this situation, the wealthier citizens with cars and money were able to evacuate more easily.  The poorer people either had to sit at home and hope that nothing would happen to them, or to grab everything they could and try to find some public transportation.  Clearly, the state and federal government did not make a great enough effort to evacuate everyone. 

            Personally, I believe that the easiest way to have fixed this problem would have been for New Orleans to run more buses and trains that usual, and to have them all have been free.  This way, all passengers could evacuate without having to spend money.  Even the poorer citizens could find a way to get out of New Orleans before the storm hit. 

            Hurricane Katrina is a perfect example of certain members of society being treated unequally. When lives were on the line, not enough was done to save the individuals who couldn’t save themselves.