HURRICANE KATRINA VERSUS COLLAPSES OF HISTORY Abstract

This paper explores the events that took place after Hurricane Katrina passed through the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, in August of 2005. It will go into the effects of the storm and those of the succeeding floods on New Orleans society and community. By comparing the way that New Orleans and the Bush administration handled this crisis to the ways in which other societies handled disasters and crises, a thesis on whether Americas collapse is possible in the near future will be argued based on evidence from cited sources. Jared Diamond outlines very well, the things that make societies great, in his book Guns, Germs, and Steel. In contrast, he also lays out a clear picture of just what causes societies to decline and collapse, in his other book, Collapse. Many of Diamonds theses and ideas will be examined against the ideas of other writers of similar topics, while all of these are to challenge how we see the effects of Katrina. This paper aims at persuading the reader to take up action towards the goal of avoiding a societal collapse that would surely shake the worlds current standing. History shows that if we do not learn from the mistakes and problems of past civilizations and societies, we will indeed be doomed to repeat their fates. Keywords: Jared Diamond, collapse, Katrina, guns, germs, steel, New Orleans, Bush

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August 23rd, 2005. A storm starts to form over the gulf coast. Its hurricane season for the southeastern region of the United States, so its no abnormality. But as the storm grows in strength, people in high places become worried. Theyre predicting the worst for the coastal states of the Gulf of Mexico. And as misfortune would have it, one short week later, the biggest storm in half a century would cause the near destruction of one of Americas most treasured cities: New Orleans, Louisiana. The storm was named Katrina, and as the name suggests, she came near the middle of 2005s storm season. Over the course of 8 days she made her debut, grew to full Category 5 strength, on some days reaching winds over 150 mph, then she disappeared, leaving wreckage and chaos in her wake. Katrina passed through six states, starting in Florida, and reaching as far north as Ohio in her last days. Although she only made landfall as a Category 3 hurricane, and quickly dissipated into a tropical storm for the rest of her journey through Alabama on northward. (Using APA, 2005) Which begs the question, how is it that Katrina caused such a major disaster situation in New Orleans, whose storm walls and levees were meant to withstand exactly the force with which they were assaulted: a Category 3 hurricane? The answer truly lies at the heart of the government responsible for its own failures, and in the ways in which societies and civilizations prosper, as well as how they wither. Jared Diamond, in his book Guns, Germs, and Steel, writes about many different societies throughout history, and how they were more or less successful based on their environment, time in which they arose, and their abilities to withstand hardships and cooperate with others around them. However, Diamond also writes about the exact opposite option in his book Collapse. In this book he describes the five major causes of a societys decline and collapse. These are all important points to understand to really get why New Orleans became such a disaster area after Katrina passed through. Failure of the US government to provide proper aid, as well as its failure in the

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prevention of the flood conditions that caused such mayhem were the most crucial blows to New Orleans security, as well as the simplest answer to the aforementioned question. Although in order to recognize the reasons for these answers, one must go further back, into the histories of some of the most and least successful societies that have inhabited the earth. Diamond discusses many situations in both of his books, but one of the most intriguing is the example of the Maori and Moriori peoples. The Maori people are a Polynesian tribe considered to be the natives of New Zealand. They have a long and sometimes dark history, and are known for being a very outwardly aggressive society, however they do keep good relations with others that they deem worthy. In the 16th century, a small splinter group of more pacifistic and peaceful Maori immigrated to the Chatham Islands, a pair of tiny islands southeast of New Zealand. These people became the Moriori tribe, a group that kept with most of Maori tradition, but were significantly less aggressive. Over time, the Maori who stayed on the mainland became less nomadic, and began to farm the fertile lands there, as well as domesticate animals like sheep, that were brought over by Europeans. The Moriori however, having a much lower quality of surrounding lands, were unable to settle down and begin a farming society, and thus continued to be hunter gatherers. (Diamond, 1998) This example is used as clear evidence that the success or progress of societies is highly dependent on its surrounding area, as well as the ability to cooperate with its neighbors. Because of the peaceful nature of the Moriori, in the 19th century a band of Maori was able to invade Chatham and wipe out a large percentage of the population there. The Moriori were unable to live harmoniously with their Maori neighbors, which led to their near demise. This accentuates one of Diamonds main points on why societies collapse, and it is distinct proof of why many small societies who have nothing to contribute to their neighbors are ultimately destroyed by them.

HURRICANE KATRINA VERSUS COLLAPSES OF HISTORY While the situation in New Orleans is quite different to that of the Maori and Moriori,

there is a similarity to be seen, which is the helplessness New Orleans faced in light of Katrinas wake. When the city of New Orleans was eight feet under-water, as well as facing temperatures rising above 100o Fahrenheit, the residents there found themselves forced out of their homes, with nothing to eat or drink, and very little shelter, for nearly an entire week. (CNN, 2005) The entire urban area, as well as most of its surrounding suburban neighborhoods, was covered in at least four feet of water for almost two weeks. There was no greater feeling of helplessness in the country at that time than right in the heart of the Big Easy. The icing on the cake, and this is where a sign of collapse truly shows itself, was the federal governments lack of response to the entire problem. To make matters worse, many local governments were being denied permission to send help, and those that sent it anyway were blocked by FEMA from entering the city. Convoys of much needed supplies were stopped for days on the highways outside of New Orleans, waiting for the chance to go and help their fellow Americans. Even the president of Venezuela offered to send in some of his own police force to aid the evacuation efforts. The federal government wasnt cooperating with its Venezuelan neighbor, or its own people for that matter. This is one of Diamonds five characteristics towards a collapse, so theres no mystery as to why New Orleans fell to pieces. Another key trait of a failing society is its inability to adapt to, or properly use its surrounding environment. In Collapse, Diamond gives another example of a society that truly failed, the Norse settlements on Greenland. While also due to their lack of cooperation with the Inuit people there, the Norse settlers in Greenland failed because of their inability to correctly utilize the environment around them. The Inuit tribes of Greenland were there when Norse peoples originally came, but they successfully stayed around during and after the Norse settlements ultimately died out. The environment of Greenland has a much harsher climate than

HURRICANE KATRINA VERSUS COLLAPSES OF HISTORY that of Iceland or Norway, as well as less useful terrain for farming, due to a loose soil base that easily eroded. In addition to poor farming conditions, Greenland was not home to dense forests,

so the Norsemen that settled there quickly used up all of their wood supply, literally burning it all away. Had the Norsemen learned from the Inuit how to hunt and utilize all parts of whales, they may have stood a better chance of continuing their colony. In the end, it was these two factors that caused the demise of the Greenland Norse. (Diamond, 2005) In the area of a surrounding environment, New Orleans has not got too much going for it. The main portion of the city lies roughly six feet below sea level, and the city itself is about 60% surrounded by water, with the bulk of it in lakes Pontchartrain and Borgne. Most of the flooding was actually caused by a break in the flood wall surrounding Lake Pontchartrain, after the Category 3 hurricane overfilled its limits. While the geographic location of New Orleans isnt ideal, the people there have learned to live with minor yearly flooding. They build their houses on frames at least four feet off the ground, and there are many city administrations in place to remove minor floodwaters. However, in yet another example of the failure of the American government, the walls built on the southern border of Pontchartrain failed when hit with only a Category 3 hurricane, a force which they were meant to withstand. In the 1990s, the Army Corps of Engineers, in charge of managing the seawalls, was not fully funded by Congress when attempting to upgrade them. A decade later, even after a FEMA warning that a hurricane in New Orleans was in the top three most likely disasters to occur in the future, Congress cut funding of the Corps of Engineers completely. Once again, just as it happened with the Norsemen in Greenland, a combined failure of environmental awareness and cooperation within itself as a nation, a collapse was more than imminent under the proper circumstances. And those circumstances came in full force in the summer of 2005. (NatGeo, 2005)

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There is a vast amount of information on just why New Orleans did indeed collapse in the aftermath of Katrina, but it all comes down to the United States federal governments inability to properly respond to the issue at hand. However this raises another question, one thats slightly more controversial: the topic of race and how New Orleans demographic may have affected a government response. It is indisputable that over the course of history, the most powerful civilizations to arise were of light-skinned populace. The most successful and prosperous nations today are all run by primarily white people, of Anglo-Saxon origin for the most part. While China and Japan arent considered white countries, they are still on the lighter side of the skin-color spectrum. So how did white civilizations come to be more powerful than all other societies, even when the birth of civilization began in the Middle East, where the population was primarily dark skinned? The answer lies in guns, germs, and steel. Diamond explains that guns, germs, and steel are not simply their stated items, but symbols for the three things that affect societies growth and prosperity. Guns represent conflict, or more simply, how societies interact with each other. As there have been throughout history, and there will undoubtedly be in the future, wars are a staple of the human population of Earth. They are the most black and white method of deciding a solution to a problem: whoever isnt dead wins. Although in the modern world, they seem barbaric and useless, warring seems to be ingrained in our nature. Germs are the natural disasters and epidemics that we face as we attempt to inhabit the planet we do. Think of it as Earth fighting back against our will to enslave it. The domestication of animals is what brought both literal and symbolic germs into the mix. When humans learned how to utilize animals to their advantage, an unforeseen disadvantage came about as well. Animal borne plagues ravaged the civilized world in the 13th and 14th centuries. Large percentages of populations across Europe and Asia fell victim to the bubonic plague,

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leading to a period of darkness and halted progress. This would ultimately lead to define the age, and make way for a new birth of knowledge and science in the 15th and 16th centuries. Which leads us to steel. Diamond describes steel as the culmination of human technological progress and achievement. Steel, which itself was a technological marvel when it was first invented, has been around for centuries, and is still a large part of the structure of modern societies. As for why these three things encouraged the white, Anglo-Saxon population to become dominant in the world, it is simply because, even though they may not have discovered them, it was the white societies who capitalized on it all. Noted, gunpowder originated in Asia, and was taken westward by trade routes, but the western civilizations were the ones to advance warfare into the state in which it exists today. Animals were also first domesticated in Asia, but the Europeans were able to expand on the number of species that could be utilized, as well as having a better environment in which to do so. It is no surprise that Europeans went on to create the most technological innovations of the ages, and they still do. The super hadron collider in Switzerland is probably the greatest scientific achievement of the past 30 years, and every day the physicists and engineers working there are discovering more and more about the universe in which we live. So it is a definite possibility that the fact that New Orleans demographic is primarily black Americans affected government response time. With an administration run by white, power-elite politicians, and a recent history of racial prejudice and segregation in the nation, its no surprise that the federal government wouldnt put a number one priority label on helping the citizens of New Orleans. That doesnt make it any less wrong, however. The Secretary of State at that time was Condoleezza Rice, a black American woman. How is it that she, being the third in line of the executive hierarchy, couldnt draw more attention to the critical situation in Louisiana? And the obvious problem of helping the flooded city wasnt the only thing that was

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hurting the population. When residents of New Orleans began to return home after months away, they gained a true realization of just how broken their school systems were. Many parents had seen their children excel at an unrecognizable pace in the school systems of neighboring states that housed the forsaken citizens when they evacuated New Orleans. (Levy, 2005) The people who came back to rebuild returned with expectations of a better system to be created. They raised their standards of how they wanted to live, and now, nearly ten years later, the rebuilding efforts are in full swing, and stronger than ever. Its true that Hurricane Katrina was a horrible disaster for the city of New Orleans. And in its aftermath, the government revealed a side of itself that should never be forgotten. The event is marked as one of the greatest failures of our nation, and wed do best to not forget it. But its also true that the rebuilding efforts are providing a fantastic opportunity to the large population of impoverished and unemployed citizens of New Orleans. Public works programs were some of the best successes when the US was climbing out of the Great Depression, so it can only be a good thing to get people involved in the restoration of a city that is loved by the whole nation for its cultural wealth, and diverse population. New Orleans is one of the best examples of the principles that the United States of America were built upon, and it seems fitting that it be a shining example of the best and worst sides of the country. The good being a rich culture and diverse populace, and the bad being the exposed underbelly of American politicians skewed priorities.

HURRICANE KATRINA VERSUS COLLAPSES OF HISTORY References

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