Hurricane Katrina - Our Government's Response
As all of you know, Hurricane Katrina completely destroyed New Orleans and surronding cities, killing thousands, and leaving many without food, water, clothes, or shelther. It's been a real depressing week watching the news, trying to keep up to date with what is going on. What a horrible site to see: babies crying and by themselves, parents who have lost their children, children who have lost their parents, dead bodies laying everywhere, houses ompletely wiped out. I can't imagine what those people down south are going through right now. I hadn't been watching a whole lot of it, so one night when my mom had been watching it they were talking about how our federal government took so long to get down there. The special included many celebrities who spoke about our government, and primarily about our President. Jamie Lee Fox had been one of those celebrities and he had said something like: "It had taken a week for federal help to come because President Bush hates blacks." At the time, what he had said got me going quite a bit. I looked at my mom and said, how ridiculous! All of this is going on and all he has to say is that President Bush hates blacks. I had thought it was completely idiotic to bring racial issues into the devastation. Now, keep in mind, I hadn't been watching a whole lot on the news. My mom fired back by telling me that it has been a week since that had happened, President Bush was on vacation and chose to stay on vacation a few days after Katrina hit, and that when the Tsunami came, we sent help within a day. At the time, I argued back that I highly dought that our government, or President Bush hadn't sent out help because of the color of the people in New Orleans and that there probably was a perfectly good reason as to why. Surpise, surprise, I stuck up for our President. Well, I started to watch more and more of the situation and real quickly did I change my opinion. Just to see the state of things down there is enough to make you sick. Honestly, if somebody is not affected by what they see on Hurricane Katrina, there is somethign wrong with them. There are people down there with NOTHING; people are dying because they are not getting medical help and some are extremly weak because of no food or water. After I had seen all of this, I couldn't imagine what it must have been like to be in the mess of things for a week, and still recieve no federal help. Oh, President Bush did make a visit down to New Orleans, but he sure was quick to leave, not to mention it took him a few days to actually take a helicopter on down there to survey the damage. From what I have heard, President Bush had to declare it as a federal disaster in order for help to go down there. Wouldn't you think he would have went down there the next day!? I'm not saying I still agree with what Jamie Lee Fox said, but I don't care what color people are, it's no reason to let them suffer any longer than what they need. And all Bush has to say about it is: "We'll have to see what went wrong?" WHAT WENT WRONG!? I can tell you what went wrong, he was voted into office! Aren't we supposed to be One Nation Under God and be the country who helps all? I don't think I have ever been so dissapointed with our government. As far as the majority of U.S. citizens, what a wonderful job people have been doing. Millions have been donated, people are volunteering, it's just great. Let's hope they keep doing their part, and that our government regrets the course of action they took!