There is a certain element of "blame the victim" here. The evacuation plans that the city of New Orleans had in place for situations such as this hurricane were predicated on the idea of everybody having their own transportation. There was neither plan for nor last minute emergency mobilization of public transportation for those who, for various reasons, were simply, physically, unable to evacuate. So the obvious result of this is that those who are stranded in the city are predominantly low income, unemployed, elderly, and ill.

I venture to suggest that had those who were stranded been in much higher tax brackets, even if, disbelieving the danger, they had ignored the orders to evacuate, the response of the authorities, both local and national, would have been quite brisk rather than next to non-existent.

Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuala, despite having recently had a bullseye painted on his chest by the Right Reverent Pat Robertson, has authorized $1,000,000 of Venezuelan funds to be sent to the United States for hurricane relief. At the same time, he was a bit critical of George W. Bush's response to the emergency. Chavez referred to Bush as "The King of Vacations."

Points to ponder:—

I live in Seattle. Offshore of Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia, the Juan de Fuca plate is slowly sliding under the North American plate. This is the action of plate tectonics that produced the Cascade mountain range and is responsible for the rumblings under Mt. Baker and the recent eruptions of Mt. St. Helens. We keep hearing that, although it shows no signs at the moment and has not for centuries, Mt. Rainier is still active and can erupt at any time with disastrous results for the whole area. We also hear about "The Big One," an earthquake in excess of magnitude 9 (complete with tsunami on the coast), which would quite probably do to the greater Seattle area, or anywhere along the Juan de Fuca fault, what a similar quake did to Anchorage, Alaska back it the early Sixties. The word is "it isn't a matter of if, it's a matter of when." Even Missouri is not safe from earthquakes. One of the worst earthquakes on record happened there in the 1800s. It was so violent that it changed the course of the Mississippi river and rang church bells as far away as Boston.

Okay, this area hasn't had a quake as big as the predicted one for about 300 years, so, we are told, "it is imminent." In California, there is the ominous San Andreas fault that keeps sliding, sliding sliding, with a fair number of tributaries and other faults (as Lex Luthor said to Superman in the first "Superman" movie starring the late Christopher Reeve, "We all have our faults. Mine are in California.")   

My wife was born in Fairbury, Nebraska. I've been there with her a few times, visiting some of her relatives there and in north-central Kansas. One night while I was there, there was a tornado warning. I sat there in the house listening to the wind howling outside and wondering if we should all head toward the basement. That area is right in the middle of what is known as "tornado alley." After I saw the movie "Jaws," I decided I wanted to move to Kansas, but after that, I changed my mind.

Florida and the surrounding area (East Coast, the Gulf) gets several destructive hurricanes a year, as we have seen, especially in recent years.

And then, if that western half of La Palmas in the Canary Islands slides off into the ocean as the geologists tell us "is not a matter of if, it's a matter of when," a 700 foot tsunami is expected to surge out from the epicenter, do some real dirt to the coasts of western Europe, and roar across the Atlantic, taking out the east coast of North America, much of the Gulf of Mexico including the Caribbean islands, and a fair swath of the east coast of South America. On the U. S. East Coast, the wave is projected to go as far inland as twelve miles at various points.

Parable:    Elmo Nervosa decided that one of the few places in the world that would be relatively safe from natural disasters would probably be the Arizona desert. Then walking one warm night, breathing the clear, clean air, and gazing at the glory of the stars, he was struck by a meteorite about the size of a piece of pea-gravel traveling at an estimated 17,000 miles per hour, or roughly ten times the velocity of a rifle bullet. He never knew what hit him. Those who found his remains weren't too sure either. Due to the hydrostatic pressure of being hit by a projectile traveling at such a high velocity, he literally exploded. All they found were some bits of skin, a puddle of miscellaneous bodily fluids, and a sufficient number of teeth to identify him through his dental records.

Granted, it's not too bright to build on a flood plain, in a slide area, or somewhere prone to forest and brush fires, but where on earth are you going to live that's really safe?

Don Firth