Commentary

Forgetting about Hurricane Ike

For the past few days I’ve been obsessed by the carnage
unfolding on Wall Street and the latest revelations about Sarah
Palin, McCain’s choice to fill his VP slot. (She seems to be an
odd blend of both Bush and Cheney.) As a result, I am a bit
clueless as to the tragedy occurring in Texas and Louisiana
as a result of Hurricane Ike.

I’m probably not alone. The home pages of the major news
sites are filled with stories concerning the financial chaos that
is engulfing the world of finance. (I was following the news
herd too; like a good lemming I penned a piece about Lehman
Brother’s collapse yesterday afternoon.) And, the 24 hour news
channels are obsessing over Governor Palin to the point of
inducing fatal bouts of nausea in all but the hardiest of
viewers.

President Bush’s visit to the devastated Gulf Coast did make
the home page of the Ny Times yesterday- in the center column
below an article about Pentagon officials lunching in Pakistan.
As the days pass, the situation grows more worrying.

According to the Times, at least 2 million people remain without
power, and thousands of homes lie in ruins across the gulf region.
Food, water and basic necessities are in short supply at the
hundred’s of shelters housing Ike’s victims. And the receding
storm waters are revealing an even bigger mess. Galveston
Island, on the Texas coast, is so unsanitary that evacuees are
not allowed back and the 15,000 residents who faced Ike’s fury
are being ordered to leave.

While the rest of the country, myself included, obsesses over
the dramatic headlines of day, millions of Gulf Coast residents
are living like refugees in a faraway, war-ravaged land. The scenes
of devastated towns and crowded shelters should put things into
perspective for this nation of self-absorbed rumor junkies- I live
here too, and I’m admonishing myself as well.

Natural disasters have a blunt way of exposing just how frail our
existence actually is, and how poor local, state and federal
agencies are at handling large scale emergencies. The suffering
of others is quite real and it’s happening in our own backyard.
It’s time to ignore the irrelevant polls and cynical talking points,
and start asking some uncomfortable questions. Why does this
continue to happen in a wealthy country like ours, and what can
be done to lessen the painful impact the next time the unexpected
forcefully reshapes our lives?

© 2008 Splendid Marbles.