Social Class and Hurricane Katrina

The recent disaster in New Orleans has brought the reality of poverty in our country face to face with the world. For a long time America has been in denial about the separation of social class and the poverty level, believing that everyone is part of the middle class. Every once in a while something terrible happens that forces us back into realty. In August 2005 that disaster was hurricane Katrina, the largest natural adn economical disaster in American history.

The news showed pictures of people stranded on roof tops, wading through filthy water, and dying on roadsides. One thing most of these people had in common was that they were not white and they were not middle class, they were black and they were poor.

A lot of claims have been made about the time it took for relief to get to the victims, one of which is discrimination against the poverty stricken. Some blame the victims of the hurricane for not leaving the city, not realizing that some people cannot afford to pack up and leave everything behind, but the government is responsible for public safety to some extent, especially for those who face death due to poverty.

Scientist have been warning of a category 4 or 5 hurricane on the Gulf coast for years. Knowing the destruction a storm this size would cause, why wasn't the city prepared for the hurricane?

It was 1995 when six people died from flooding in New Orleans. That is when congress decided to fund a program called Southeast Louisiana Urban flood program or SELA (www.mvn.usace.army.mil ). Although the program started out with high budgeting, since the first year the budget has been consistently depleted, the money put towards other things, recently the money has been invested in the war in Iraq.

Although safety in our own country should be top priority, for some reason the government felt it was necessary to take funding from a town, in grave danger, and put it over seas. Some things come to mind when thinking about why more caution was not used regarding the danger New Orleans and its inhabitants were in. I am sure that if Washington, Hollywood or New York were about to be flooded no limit would be set on the value of saving it.