Katrina
I toured the worst hit areas in post-Katrina New Orleans this week. I decided to spend New Years day in The Big Easy this year. I've spent a lot of time there over the years and have always loved the city--the culture, the music, the food--but I'd stayed away since Katrina virtually destroyed the city a little over a year ago. I decided that they didn't need another disaster-tourist at that time (although they do now, which is another story).
Grey Line offers a Katrina tour, led by a driver and a guide, both of whom were personally victimized by Katrina. The 3 hour bus tour starts in the Central Business District and quickly drives by the Superdome, where the guides begin the story, even as the winking new dome in front of us belies the horror of watching the refugee-packed arena shredded by the winds.
The bus continues on around the city stopping by the offending culprits--the levies. We see the infamous Ninth ward, the newly constructed Musicians Village and other hard hit areas like Lakeview. The personal narrative helped set the stage, but the visuals spoke for themselves--much of the city is still beat up and used hard--buildings are condemned, huge piles of construction trash can be spotted every few blocks and the condemning house tattoos left by the rescue workers are everywhere , the 'X' hand-painted on the wall telling who checked the house and when and what was found. The bottom wedge of the big 'X' has a number, usually zero, which is the body count discovered inside the residence.
I asked many of the people that I saw there who they blamed-- Nagin the mayor, Blanco the governor, Bush, FEMA. Some blamed Blanco, most blamed the Army Corps of Engineers for doing shoddy work to begin with.
The insight that I got from seeing all of this was the fragility of humans and how vulnerable we are to the failure of complex systems. An entire US city was almost destroyed because a handful of levies were unable to withstand the storm surge. There's a lesson here for those of us who work in technology and are involved in rapidly transforming our world into one controlled by the vast, interconnected systems of digital devices. It makes me wonder what are our levies?
Posted on January 08, 2007