This is soley about the reponse of the Hurrican Katrina. That is it.
Hurricane Katrina was a large response from the US. There were many
faults that happened, but some people were blamed when it wasn’t their fault.
Bush was put to blame when he had nothing to do with the response. It was a
failure on many, many hands but for some reason…people were blamed. You can
start at this source. There are many sources at the bottom that prove this. (http://articles.latimes.com/2005/sep/27/nation/na-rumors27)
This might seem like a tangent but I think I would like to share a
perspective about disaster responses. This overall response to hurricane Katrina
was under-reported and many people were then set to be “blamed” for the
supposed lack of response. FEMA, the President, the Mayor of Louisiana and the
military were blamed for many things but a lot of this was not reported
correctly, even false reporting. This may happen to us in the future where our
efforts may not be publicized and this is an excellent example of the heroes
involved in the rescue effort.
That hurricane was devastating, powerful and killed many lives. It left
people in turmoil and without homes, even to this day. What surprised me is
that it seemed that there was a complete lack of help for those affected
most. I quickly changed this point of view
entirely when my friend was deployed to help with the hurricane relief before
it even hit Louisiana.
Knowing that my friend (who is in the National Guard) was deploying
before the hurricane even hit, I wondered why much of our news outlets failed
to recognize the help efforts. One can certainly argue that more should have
been done after watching the news channels but thousands of U.S. Troops were
already on their way as the hurricane hit. Troops responded from all over the
country, including other branches of the armed forces.
Right after the hurricane passed,
I remember watching reports from the news about Navy Corpsman, military
helicopters dropping off large shipments of food/water and medical supplies.
However, these reports were hardly recognized or they seemed undermined from
some news reports. According to this
news article from the U.S. Army’s website, “By the end of September, the Army
and Air Guard had flown over 10,200 missions, airlifted over 88,000 passengers
to safety, moved over 18,000 tons of supplies and relief aid and saved over
17,000 lives” (Orell). This was one of
the biggest disaster responses in U.S. history.
Much to our knowledge, many
minorities were certainly affected but we must keep in mind that much of the
demographics of that includes many minorities, compared to other parts of the
country. With this said, the elderly were most affected by this hurricane and
many of them perished. What is also not discussed is the mere idea that many
people didn’t leave their homes because of various reasons, leaving them
behind. There are many reports, news articles and testimonies that prove this.
I know this is supposed to be
largely about our response to a disaster but I needed to get this off of my
chest because I feel as though the relief effort was under-reported, even
though it was one of fastest and biggest responses in U.S. history. Our roles
in healthcare means we must face such sacrifices similar to what our troops
experienced in this response and at times like these, we will certainly need
their help.
References
Orell , J. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.army.mil/article/44368
Thevenot, B. .
Retrieved from http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=3998
Benett, B. C. Department
of the Army and Air Force, Office of the adjutant general. (2005). Written testimony
of major general bennett c. landreneau. Retrieved from website:
katrina.house.gov/hearings/10_27_05/landreneau_state102705.pdf
http://articles.latimes.com/2005/sep/27/nation/na-rumors27
