Let’s face it, life is a continual learning process: A realization from Katrina
Isabel P. Ball
October 10, 2005
Mother Nature, time and time again, has demonstrated and proven to be the power to contend with, so prodigious it wrecks havoc to humanity, with suddenness, and like death, it can’t be prognosticated as to when it will specifically do its landfall.
In another awakening magnitude, Mother Nature has displayed that formidable force with the recent visit of hurricane Katrina, and an event that will be in the annals in history of America. The entire nation in aftermath continues to reel as the search and recovery activities are uncovering the devastation to life and properties in colossal double digit billions of dollars. Tending to the living, so huge in numbers, and displaced for good, is a Herculean task undertaken by the Federal and local governments, including the Red Cross and other catastrophe response organizations. Refugees are being channeled to places other than their own, since their homes no longer exist or the environment has been declared uninhabitable. Streaming videos shown to the public were like a fictional Hollywood scene in a movie, not earthly, shocking, and surreal.
In its wake, and another eye-opener event for mankind, even for America, the victim, and the most progressive and advanced nation on earth--was caught flat-footed--unable to transcend the event promptly into order. Chaos reigned as mass of displaced residents gather on the high grounds on the empty freeways of New Orleans, and from sky view they were like ants disturbed converging as a colony. High water is all around and rapid currents pose danger to them. Much later it has stagnated like a cesspool. Residents were disallowed to return due to contamination.
In the midst of the event, FEMA, the federal agency under the Home Security Department, is empowered to rise to the occasion on such an event is unable, and now being blamed for many of the shortcomings that had caused misery to thousands of victims. This week, the ousted FEMA Director, Michael Brown, scathed by criticisms and complaints hurled at him by the local government officials, faced the congressional inquest, and he puts the blame back on the mayors and governors of the devastated areas.
Yes, intelligent minds amongst us have succeeded in copying a great deal of Mother Nature these bright minds are all over the world enveloping the entire landscape studying it up closely. In the person of biologists assigned out in the fields they are literally swinging in trees to try to study the monkeys, forest canopies, birds, insects, plants. . There are also the astronomers and astronauts looking and traveling up in the heavens for stars and planets in its effort to unravel about our origin, and whether or not there is another earth up there in the universe. Similarly, marine biologists are under the vast bodies of water exploring, mapping out, and studying everything about the marine life. Geologists are examining the earth mantle looking deep into the rock formations and earth core, and on the surface are gamut of other scientists, systematically, inch-by-inch, examining the earth surface biology, examining minute things under the microscope. Undoubtedly, humans are on massive sleuthing endeavors in this age of enlightenment.
These study activities are prodigious projects and are essential to our overall understanding about our existence; it is also an attempt to control and subjugate the powers of Mother Nature to suit to our purposes, and for self-preservation being our utmost human need. Technology, a human creation, is a big help in every human endeavor, and statistics has proven, for instance, in the weather forecasting, its ability to save many lives and properties, so long as the people would heed, cooperate, and follow what the forecasters advice in plenty of time ahead.
Katrina case is one example, a modern day hurricane, and which was predicted to be strong and catastrophic in intensity. But people falling under its human characteristics were lackadaisical, apathetic, complacent, or to the extreme, mired in poverty, they have no means, nor resources to make the move. The loss of lives and properties were astronomical as happened to the many victims in New Orleans, areas in Mississippi, and Alabama.
Talking about the many victims who were a great numbers were blacks. Expectedly, the race factor is being raised as an issue for the slow rescue efforts. The havoc affected mostly the less fortunate members of the society, the poorest in the nation, the handicapped, and infirmed citizens from the tri-affected states.
While I do believe that there may have occurred subtle implications of racial neglect, in all, everything just wrapped up like a rolling stone, gathering everything and everyone in its path and forming a metaphoric ball of holocaust proportion and destruction.
As a denizen of the tropical zone, where in my island, the Philippines, considered to be in the typhoon belt, I have witnessed a great deal of typhoons occurring. Some were historical enough in strength to have left deep scars in our emotion and psyche. The sight of chaos and devastation in its aftermath was, to say the least, a common dreary sight. Compared to America Philippines is a third world country. With no original technology to protect it from any magnitudinal impact, and for reasons that weather forecasting was far from being accurate, and other factors like typical homes in the rural areas and of the poor in the cities were much more flimsy in built because of poverty, almost always, destruction was catastrophic. But in the case of Katrina hitting the tristates with full force, in my estimate, its impact would have been avoidable. Inundation occurring in the New Orleans town, a naturally low-lying area, was protected by a levee that for decades has stood as a formidable wall. Finally, it gave way on the event of the hurricane, thus compounding the property and lives destruction in the area. This is an emphatic point that I’m trying to cite here as an example of a human oversight falling within what we call human frailty. Had these structures been maintained and checked for durability, flooding could have been obviated.
But for whatever reasons, I’m in the conclusion that man can never truly outsmart Mother Nature. Mine is not a defeatist outlook, but maturely banking on realism. Our history is replete with incidences from which to learn a pattern, that everything within our earthly realm is governed by massive force and a system that we are barely scratching the surface of knowledge about.
So along the way of our search and quest for knowledge, in our ephemeral human journey, is a realization that improvements and advancements that humans create by invention, there is always that small percentage of uncertainty, which I’d call our vulnerability zone. Synonymously, it is our imperfection, a writ by Mother Nature, so true, and acknowledging the fact that it is our Achilles Heel would make us more aware responsive, and safer.
In another awakening magnitude, Mother Nature has displayed that formidable force with the recent visit of hurricane Katrina, and an event that will be in the annals in history of America. The entire nation in aftermath continues to reel as the search and recovery activities are uncovering the devastation to life and properties in colossal double digit billions of dollars. Tending to the living, so huge in numbers, and displaced for good, is a Herculean task undertaken by the Federal and local governments, including the Red Cross and other catastrophe response organizations. Refugees are being channeled to places other than their own, since their homes no longer exist or the environment has been declared uninhabitable. Streaming videos shown to the public were like a fictional Hollywood scene in a movie, not earthly, shocking, and surreal.
In its wake, and another eye-opener event for mankind, even for America, the victim, and the most progressive and advanced nation on earth--was caught flat-footed--unable to transcend the event promptly into order. Chaos reigned as mass of displaced residents gather on the high grounds on the empty freeways of New Orleans, and from sky view they were like ants disturbed converging as a colony. High water is all around and rapid currents pose danger to them. Much later it has stagnated like a cesspool. Residents were disallowed to return due to contamination.
In the midst of the event, FEMA, the federal agency under the Home Security Department, is empowered to rise to the occasion on such an event is unable, and now being blamed for many of the shortcomings that had caused misery to thousands of victims. This week, the ousted FEMA Director, Michael Brown, scathed by criticisms and complaints hurled at him by the local government officials, faced the congressional inquest, and he puts the blame back on the mayors and governors of the devastated areas.
Yes, intelligent minds amongst us have succeeded in copying a great deal of Mother Nature these bright minds are all over the world enveloping the entire landscape studying it up closely. In the person of biologists assigned out in the fields they are literally swinging in trees to try to study the monkeys, forest canopies, birds, insects, plants. . There are also the astronomers and astronauts looking and traveling up in the heavens for stars and planets in its effort to unravel about our origin, and whether or not there is another earth up there in the universe. Similarly, marine biologists are under the vast bodies of water exploring, mapping out, and studying everything about the marine life. Geologists are examining the earth mantle looking deep into the rock formations and earth core, and on the surface are gamut of other scientists, systematically, inch-by-inch, examining the earth surface biology, examining minute things under the microscope. Undoubtedly, humans are on massive sleuthing endeavors in this age of enlightenment.
These study activities are prodigious projects and are essential to our overall understanding about our existence; it is also an attempt to control and subjugate the powers of Mother Nature to suit to our purposes, and for self-preservation being our utmost human need. Technology, a human creation, is a big help in every human endeavor, and statistics has proven, for instance, in the weather forecasting, its ability to save many lives and properties, so long as the people would heed, cooperate, and follow what the forecasters advice in plenty of time ahead.
Katrina case is one example, a modern day hurricane, and which was predicted to be strong and catastrophic in intensity. But people falling under its human characteristics were lackadaisical, apathetic, complacent, or to the extreme, mired in poverty, they have no means, nor resources to make the move. The loss of lives and properties were astronomical as happened to the many victims in New Orleans, areas in Mississippi, and Alabama.
Talking about the many victims who were a great numbers were blacks. Expectedly, the race factor is being raised as an issue for the slow rescue efforts. The havoc affected mostly the less fortunate members of the society, the poorest in the nation, the handicapped, and infirmed citizens from the tri-affected states.
While I do believe that there may have occurred subtle implications of racial neglect, in all, everything just wrapped up like a rolling stone, gathering everything and everyone in its path and forming a metaphoric ball of holocaust proportion and destruction.
As a denizen of the tropical zone, where in my island, the Philippines, considered to be in the typhoon belt, I have witnessed a great deal of typhoons occurring. Some were historical enough in strength to have left deep scars in our emotion and psyche. The sight of chaos and devastation in its aftermath was, to say the least, a common dreary sight. Compared to America Philippines is a third world country. With no original technology to protect it from any magnitudinal impact, and for reasons that weather forecasting was far from being accurate, and other factors like typical homes in the rural areas and of the poor in the cities were much more flimsy in built because of poverty, almost always, destruction was catastrophic. But in the case of Katrina hitting the tristates with full force, in my estimate, its impact would have been avoidable. Inundation occurring in the New Orleans town, a naturally low-lying area, was protected by a levee that for decades has stood as a formidable wall. Finally, it gave way on the event of the hurricane, thus compounding the property and lives destruction in the area. This is an emphatic point that I’m trying to cite here as an example of a human oversight falling within what we call human frailty. Had these structures been maintained and checked for durability, flooding could have been obviated.
But for whatever reasons, I’m in the conclusion that man can never truly outsmart Mother Nature. Mine is not a defeatist outlook, but maturely banking on realism. Our history is replete with incidences from which to learn a pattern, that everything within our earthly realm is governed by massive force and a system that we are barely scratching the surface of knowledge about.
So along the way of our search and quest for knowledge, in our ephemeral human journey, is a realization that improvements and advancements that humans create by invention, there is always that small percentage of uncertainty, which I’d call our vulnerability zone. Synonymously, it is our imperfection, a writ by Mother Nature, so true, and acknowledging the fact that it is our Achilles Heel would make us more aware responsive, and safer.
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