A Commentary on Two Disasters
The inferno in Southern California rages on unchecked, but already comparisons are being made to the last major natural disaster in the U.S. – Hurricane Katrina, which walloped New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in 2005, taking over 1,800 lives and destroying $81 billion worth of real estate.
Because of the very nature of the SoCal disaster – several wildfires over a fairly wide area, the death toll stands at a mere handful, several of them elderly people who died in falls, although over 800,000 people have been evacuated and over 1,100 homes have been destroyed as of Wednesday morning. The damage certainly will run into the billions of dollars.
But there is another big difference between the twin tragedies – poor people.
This is not to say that there aren't plenty of poor people in the seven-county Los Angeles-San Diego area affected by the fires, and the middle-class housing market collapse there in recent months has been enormous. Nor can the loss experienced by a family from Malibu Canyon who saw their $5 million home and various Mercedes and Lexi incinerated be considered less awful than the loss experienced by an unwed mother with three children burned out of her public housing unit in north San Diego or an elderly retiree who had to leave behind all of his worldly possessions when he was evacuated from a nursing home clutching only his medications.
Devastation is devastation, and the fires certainly are not discriminating along socio-economic lines.
As it is, 20,000 or so people are hunkered down in San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium not because they are availing themselves of free massages, bean sprout sandwiches or the children's shows put on by a golden-hearted ventriloquist of my acquaintance, but because they have nowhere else to go.
Media reports portray a party-like atmosphere at Qualcomm compared to the abominable conditions at the New Orleans Superdome during and after Katrina, which may be true, but give it a few days and we'll see how many people are smiling.
Let's also give it a few days to answer this looming question: The wretched federal and state response to Katrina was all the more awful because so many of the victims were poor and black. There is no question that these victims were marginalized during and after the disaster because of who and what they were.
It is hard to imagine a similar response in Southern California, and there is no way that most fire victims will be living in FEMA trailers two years from now as is the case with hurricane victims in Louisiana. But we'll be watching, as well as awaiting the inevitable stories as to whether the response to the fires has been hampered because of California National Guard equipment and personnel diverted to Iraq.
Yup, the full-blown politicization of this disaster is only a news cycle or two away, with right-wing sickos like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck already blaming it on America-hating pâté eaters and tree huggers. (Links intentionally not provided.)
A light rain is falling outside my window as I write this some 3,200 miles away from the inferno. The sound would usually be soothing, but not today. We don't need the rain. The people of Southern California do. Desperately. All I can offer is prayers.
Please pray for them as well.
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8 Responses to “A Commentary on Two Disasters”
Shaun, The devastation in California will probably be greater, but the conditions for evacuees is much greater. In SD I believe they have utilities, shelter, water and food. There is transportation to shelter areas, in NO transportation and roads were gone. The fires occur yearly in California, the NO hurricanes happen once a generation at best.
But nuts from both sides of the spectrum will use this, Glen Beck very bad and the lt. govenor of California not as bad. Does SD have a Grena bridge or hospitals and nursing homes to amplify the lack of support, I think not?
Actually, there IS a question of whether that had anything to do with it. Simply accepting the assertion, or rejecting it, out of hand, is unacceptable without evidence of some sort.
Mind you, it’s a question to ask, it’s a question I asked myself some posts down. Clearly there is a difference of magnitude in the disaster, but I get the nagging feeling that there is also a difference in preparedness, organization, civil behaviour and resources. You mentioned the others being poor and black. These are separate issues:
Poor: Not only are more people in San Diego middle class, California has tremendous resources as a state. The fact that SOCAL had huge fires not so long ago means that recently large amounts of resources have been put into emergency planning. You’d have to ask how many people were able to evacuate in their own vehicles. I remember with NOLA people complaining that they were told to evacuate but they didn’t have cars to do it with.
Black: I think this is harder to prove and you’re likely to decide based on your pre-conceived notions on race in America. You Shaun, and undoubtedly David as well, will see it as blatant, but others won’t. Personally I think the best control case would be if there was a disaster of similar proportions in Appalachia, so we could see how much of the difference has to do with poor, and how much with black.
Additionally, the presence of the Mexican border allows for the presence of large numbers of National Guard troops (lets not forget that many of Louisiana and Mississippi troops were in Iraq) than governor Schwarzenegger has mobilized. Probably less people have decided to “hold out” as many did for Katrina. People thought they might be able to hang tough and then when they realized they wouldn’t they were trapped. No one tries to “hang tough” through a fire, so people have obediently evacuated when they were told, allowing authorities to make the evacuation more orderly.
I seem to recall that news accounts of NO exaggerated the rapes and violence in NO. The actual deaths and rapes in NO were small or consistant with the crime rate.At the Superdome and Convention Center the people were basically abanonded, by the situation and slow response by all parties. We don’t see elderly people dieing in their Lexus yet.
Speaking of Appalachia, here in East Tennessee we are suffering under one of the worst droughts in 100 years. The effects on daily life have been relatively minimal up to now – except for farmers. The water supply is dangerously low, even in the Smokies where our water comes from (they usually get 80 inches of rain a year up above 5000 ft whereas down here in the valley we get about half that). It’s a slow-motion disaster and folks around here think climate change is a contributor (even in heavily GOP East TN, politicians here have a green streak in them and they don’t discount global warming in these parts).
But SoCal is suffering so much worse. We’ve had forest fires around here this summer but because they’ve occurred within the actual forests where nobody lives, the damage has been minimal. The worst consequence is that the bears have been unable to eat enough for hibernation season, which means we may getting some not-so-friendly ursuline visitors in town this winter. I couldn’t imagine facing utter destruction of neighborhoods from fire. It looks like Baghdad after a car bomb.
[...] The Moderate Voice – less awful than the loss experienced by an unwed mother with three children burned out of her public housing unit in north San Diego or an elderly retiree who had to leave behind all of his worldy possessions when he was evacuated from a nursing home Read More [...]
This disection of the black/poor relationship will get us nowhere. Being black and poor is simply a different experience than being white and poor, and there are two wrong elements in musing about it.
1) The attention on the black and poor has an alement of condemnation about it when it’s so often pointed out that it’s their own fault for being poor. The cases where that may be true reflects on the whole group, and an individual experiences that condemnation whether it applies to him or not.
By the same token, the white and poor are largely ignored. It’s been a long time since poverty in Appalachia was a hot news point of attention.
Being forgotten has the advantage of escaping condemanton but the disadvantage of being forgotten as a cause for concern.
And yes, even a millionaire losiig his luxury home suffers.
The point its, that individuals suffer. Some suffer more because of their group identity and how that is viewed, or not viewed.
After the fires are put out, do not hope for rain, because that will mean mudslides. Worst of all would be rain followed by an earthquake. (The lefties can and likely will blame both phenomena on anthropogenic global warming.)
And the right can blame it on a vengeful god smiting those who anger him. Almost the same arguement come to think of it.