It’s Like Comparing Apples and Tsunamis

Many were quick to compare Hurricane Katrina with the tsunami last December that devastated Southeast Asia. While Katrina was and is devastating, and the worst news has yet to come from New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf, to call this event ‘our tsunami’ is grossly misleading, blatantly arrogant, and just plain wrong.

While those of us who stayed out of harms way can’t imagine the large-scale destruction the storm caused, comparing it to another natural disaster we can’t fathom doesn’t do the trick. When the body counts began to trickle in from across the Pacific, quickly leaping from 5,000 to 250,000, we felt heartbroken, having never seen those casualty rates outside of a war. The counts from the Gulf will be much lower than the 2004 tsunami. As will the damage.

While billions of dollars worth of insurance claims will be made soon, let us remember that the lives lost and uprooted in Banda Aceh and elsewhere could make no such claims. Who provides insurance for huts, shanties, tents, and slums? How do you rebuild the infrastructure of a village with a GDP less than we’re now paying for a tank of gas? One of America’s great shining points has been its resilience to rebuild in the face of tragedy, which will be the painstaking process that will eventually get New Orleans back on its feet. But what do you do when you don’t have the infrastructure, spirit and emergency plan to carry on?

In the aftermath of Katrina lies the reality of the third world. People unable to get out of harm’s way are left to the whim of Mother Nature. People without means to procure food and supplies fend for themselves in a worst-case scenario of survival of the fittest. This past Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday look like any Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in AIDS-stricken Africa, poverty-stricken Eastern Europe, or caste-stricken Asia. And because it’s now our American brothers and sisters who are left to line up to escape like refugees, we feel the need to label it worse than it really is. Like other cheap, American imitations, calling Katrina ‘our tsunami’ belittles the tragedy of last holiday season, and only brings to light America’s privilege to rebuild and the rest of the world’s daily routine.

The best use of our energy now is not to place blame, imagine what could have happened, or talk about how horrible everything is. The best use of our energy is to welcome the new residents to our states, provide them the houses and staples of life they need, and support the efforts of the people on the ground along the coast that epitomize the word sacrifice. To call Katrina ‘our tsunami’ is to belittle Asia’s loss, and to call the task at hand ‘impossible’ belittles the American spirit we’re once again seeing in the face of danger. Like legacies, cities are not built in a day. Give Katrina a rightful place in history all her own: the point at which Americans gave more than they ever thought they could, rising from the rubble once again.