Katrina

     I’ve been reading about Hurricane Katrina and had no idea it was so huge. I saw somewhere that it’s the worst storm ever to hit this country, and is creating the biggest emergency state. I hear about the hurricanes off and on, during the summer, but I never thought that much about how bad it really is. I’ve never lived anywhere that had such extreme weather, so it doesn’t seem as real to me. That’s not an excuse, but proximity does make a difference. It’s easy to distance yourself from a lot of the things you hear about in the news, since the news is mostly a bunch of crises. But now, hearing about how New Orleans and other areas are destroyed, I can see how terrible it must be. Now there are all these refugees trying to get out of the area, food and water shortages, and all the continuing problems. It’s a huge emergency, and it seems like it happened so suddenly.
     It shows how society and our lives seem stable and predictable, and then something uncontrollable happens, and everything changes. Everyone who owned houses, had a job, and was stable is now a refugee with nothing. It shows how tenuous our lives are, and it makes me appreciate that I haven’t been in any real emergency situations. Of course, I feel bad for those people who have to deal with that situation. It sounds like a war zone, almost. There’s looting, people are dead, and everything’s destroyed. I can’t really comprehend what it must be like.