6:49 PM — Reactions, Comparison I've been mentally comparing my reactions to Sept 11, 2001, and hurricane Katrina. Sept 11 hit me immediately, but it took a while for the Katrina disaster to sink in. Part of this may have been because NYC is my hometown, and part may be because it took a few days for the levees to break and the city of New Orleans to flood. The horror stories about NOLA keep rolling in too. The anarchistic reaction of some of the NOLA populace undermines my hopes for humanity, while the NYC firefighters and cops running back into the WTC did a lot to help it. In the WTC, after the towers went down, there was no chance of finding further survivors. Hospitals in the surrounding tri-state area (NY, NJ, CT) were on alert to receive record high numbers of patients, individuals flocked to blood banks to donate, but neither the hospitals nor blood were ever used. In New Orleans people continue to die as I type, from starvation, dehydration, or pre-existing diseases that they have run out of medicine for. Many police have (understandably, I think) turned in their badges, and two have even committed suicide, shooting themselves with their own guns. On top of the tens of thousands of human fatalities we expect, I'm sure there were hundreds to thousands of pet deaths as well. Human bodies ARE being found, but there is no place to put them. I think this is a worse disaster for the country emotionally because the scale is larger, the location is more romantic, the disaster is spread out over a longer period of time, and there is no one for us to blame but ourselves, or maybe God.

How do your reactions compare? How do you think the two events compare?

Thanks for the many comments on my "Memories" post!  ¶ permalink | 1 musings