Remembering Katrina

Some random thoughts as we mark Hurricane Katrina...

The newspapers, websites, and TV are full of Katrina stories today; how far we've come -- or haven't -- in a year. We're seeing pictures of the homes still gutted, the new levees, hearing the heartfelt stories of searches for people still listed as missing, and the those of people who have made it back and have gotten on with their lives. We listen to the up-close and personal stories, shake our heads, be glad it wasn't us, and get on with the latest update on JonBenet.

As for the people in authority at the time and now, it's their chance to see how the first anniversary of Katrina can be used for their agenda. President Bush will spend a couple of days on the Gulf Coast, look at some new casinos, slap a few backs, promise more help, and then go back to doing whatever it is he does while Karl Rove tries to figure out a way to link the hurricane to terrorism, Iraq, gay marriage, the destruction of stem-cells, and the treasonous New York Times. Mayor Nagin will back water on his hole in the ground comment, and politicians will chastise him for being insensitive to New York as they prepare to mark the fifth annivesary of 9/11 and see how they can fit that into their own agenda of self-promotion.

Whatever the reasons are, the fact that it is a year later and there are still places in the Lower Ninth Ward that look as bad as they did a year ago, there are still people waiting to get into "temporary" housing, and officials are still making excuses for things not getting done and blaming it on the bureaucracy (full disclosure; I work in a bureaucracy and I know that if someone high up enough wants something done right away, it gets done). It happens in every disaster; Floridians who survived Hurricane Andrew in 1992 will tell you the same thing. But that doesn't get the houses built, it doesn't get the infrastructure back on line, and it doesn't give us the confidence to believe that the next time this happens -- and there will be a next time, perhaps in the next ten days -- we will be any more prepared for what will come or ready to deal with it after.

Meanwhile, there are still people who could care less about the politics if only because they had something worth caring about to begin with. For every tragic story and picture of devastation we'll see out of the Gulf Coast this week, there are untold stories of recovery and rebuilding; things that happen without getting the attention of Anderson Cooper or President Bush, being done by people who do not want the attention. They just want to get on with their lives.

That's because we human beings are amazing creatures of habit. Once we settle into a pattern, it causes consternation and trauma if it is disrupted and we become obsessed with going back to the way things were before. It doesn't matter if we weren't particularly happy with the way things were before, but it's such a sweet trap to think that if only we had what we had back then, life could go on as before and we wouldn't feel so lost about facing the future.