Social effects of hurricane Katrina in the Gulf region - Essay Example

?FINAL PAPER ON SOCIAL EFFECTS OF HURRICANE KATRINA IN THE GULF REGION Research suggests Hurricane Katrina negatively impacted the Gulf region because it led to loss of lives, civil disturbances, and property damages. However, due to the political context in which the natural disaster struck, which included the second administration of the Bush presidency and the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the impact of the event on America’s name and reputation internationally was increased with negative consequences. The reason for this is in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, in the unilateral vision of the Bush administration, the United States was able to act without restraint from international governing bodies such as the United Nations in conducting foreign policy internationally in a militaristic manner. This included the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq in a type of political revenge attack against the terrorist activity led by Osama bin Laden. The hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in one of the worst times for America in Iraq, when the opposition attacks were at their strongest. The failure of the American government to help its own people in the aftermath of the hurricane contrasted sharply with the political rhetoric of the Bush administration, exposing its hypocrisy internationally on truly humanitarian and vital issues of domestic security. From this point on, the Bush administration would lose whatever political authority and respect it retained in America, eventually ending in the election of President Obama in the 2008 election. It is important to recognize how Hurricane Katrina eroded the political authority of the Bush administration at a time when it was conducting two unpopular political wars abroad. The symbolic effect of the images broadcast internationally displayed America as no different from the “Third World” nations that it perennially derides and rejects in building its political myth of superiority. The public, both domestically in America and internationally in civil society, are aware of the duality between the ideals proclaimed by the political leadership in America, and the actual actions taken by authority. For example, in talking about peace and justice, the U.S. administration at the time was practicing torture, extraordinary rendition, and other forms of illegal detention such as in undisclosed, secret prisons and Guantanamo Bay. This is a hypocritical stance in many ways, despite the way that it was posited by the Bush administration under the rhetoric of Homeland Security and public safety. What Katrina did is publicly expose the hypocrisy in this rhetoric to full international view, showing that the Bush administration really was not concerned with people’s safety, health, and welfare at all, especially if they were not in a wealthy, Wall St. constituency. Thus, the first major effect of the Katrina disaster was to erode the public authority of the Bush administration and to associate it publicly with hypocrisy. (Brinkley, 2007). This result is quite important as the theme carried over into the 2008 Presidential election and led to the election of Barrack Obama and a Democratic majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. As a political symbol, Katrina showed the dichotomy between rich and poor in America, and how those in positions of power are more likely to be serving their own interests rather than that of the public good or public need. This is important as it creates a type of despair popularly, a political vacuum of sorts that the “hope and change” mantra of the Obama administration capitalized on in 2008. From this it is legitimate to conclude that Hurricane Katrina caused a major change in political perceptions in America, and that this included a loss of faith in the ability of the government to provide services in an emergency situation. (Brown, 2005) Consider the vast destruction and number of deaths and injuries that took place in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and it is evident that this is precisely a situation where the government’s emergency response services must be prepared and efficiently activated for service in the aftermath of the storm. (Reed & Theiss, 2005). For example, the New York Times summarizes the events of the time as such: “On Monday, Katrina's storm surge overwhelmed the levees, eventually leaving 80 percent of the city underwater. (A recent report by the Army Corps of Engineers accepted responsibility for flaws in design and construction.) Americans were shocked by images of families huddled on rooftops and stranded on highway overpasses. The flooding produced a toxic swill of sewage, chemicals, rats, snakes and bloated corpses. Fires raged because there was no water available in a drowning city. Looters stripped stores of CD's and Nikes as well as bread and diapers. The New Orleans police performed dismally. Some officers fled the city in their cruisers; others stole Cadillacs from a dealership, claiming the cars were needed to transport Katrina victims. If that had been the case, Brinkley says, ‘they could have taken the Chevrolets.’ By Tuesday, public order had collapsed. Survivors straggled into the Superdome and the convention center, the refuges of last resort. Brinkley's descriptions of the living conditions, based on richly detailed interviews, are not for the faint of heart. Rarely have so many desperate Americans been so completely abandoned by their government.” (Oshinsky, 2006) The problems with community infrastructure caused by the flooding can be categorized to include property damage by water, fire, and looting, as well as disease, theft, drowning, and people being trapped on rooftops with no way to escape. After the hurricane, many people were without adequate supplies of clean food and water, something many say encouraged the looting in the area. Yet as the times notes, even those popularly portrayed as victims in the situation did not act altruistically or in the best interests of society in making a personal response to the disaster. Instead, many stole out of greed, taking whatever they could: electronics, fashion items, luxuries, etc. Thus it can legitimately be recognized that there was a total breakdown in law and order, police services, emergency services, and that there were very few public emergency response facilities available to the people living there at the time. In looking at the social results from this, there can be seen to be a few major factors that override the others in seriousness. These are primarily: Economic Destruction – Loss of business, property, infrastructure, inventories, etc. Health and Disease Risks – Increased in the aftermath of the disaster Social Upheaval and Dislocation – People losing their homes, jobs, and property Loss of Community and Trust in Public Services – Transferred to other function of government. The economic destruction resulting from Hurricane Katrina was widespread and unprecedented in modern American social life. As ABC News reported: “Thousands of people lost their jobs and were forced to move to other cities. Oil production and refining operations shut down for weeks. Gasoline prices soared, along with other energy prices. Close to 2.3 million people were left without power. The port of New Orleans was damaged, disrupting the nation's shipping industry. To gauge how the economy responded to the most devastating U.S. natural disaster on record, the ABC News business unit contacted more than a dozen economists at various organizations, such as investment banks and trade groups, by e-mail and asked them to evaluate how the U.S. economy fared in the year after Hurricane Katrina made landfall.” “The 2005 hurricane season set new records as the busiest, with 28 named hurricanes and tropical storms, and most destructive, with more than $61 billion in insured losses. Hurricane Katrina caused the greatest amount of the misery. Insured losses from Katrina alone totaled more than $40 billion, according to the Insurance Information Institute. That was nearly double the amount of damage caused by the previous record holder, Hurricane Andrew, in 1992. Andrew left a wake of destruction in South Florida that totaled more than $21 billion in insured losses in today's dollars. More than 200,000 homes, mostly in New Orleans and the surrounding area, were destroyed by the hurricane, far surpassing any previous disaster.” (Herman, 2006) Economically, Hurricane Katrina was the most costly natural disaster to hit America in modern times, and the impact to the economy was felt in a number of ways. The first was through the increase in gasoline prices which occurred through the disruption of off-shore drilling and refining activity in the area. Related to this but more local was the extreme property damage which destroyed thousands of homes and businesses as well as other forms of livelihood related to the ocean and fishing industries on the coast. (Rodger, 2007). People’s homes were totally destroyed by the winds and rains leaving them homeless, while in New Orleans many found their houses completely underwater and their families trapped on a roof. (Pietras, 2008). The inability of the emergency response structures to assist these people and rescue them in a timely manner, in comparison to the activity of private groups and media services is telling in the public narrative. It is from this desperation and despair that a larger political dissatisfaction grew in the region and nation, ushering in political change. The disease risk also increased tremendously in the aftermath of the Hurricane, with millions left without clean water, fresh food, or electricity following the storm. Sydney Spiesel of the Yale School of Medicine writes about the threat of Cholera, Dysentary, and Typhoid Fever following the disaster: “Cholera: In serious cases, diarrhea can be so gushing and uncontrollable that a patient can pass in a few hours from perfect health to death by dehydration. This is caused by the germ Vibrio cholera. We rarely see cholera in the United States, because sewage systems and water supplies are of good quality. But ominously, a few isolated cases of cholera have been diagnosed in Louisiana and Florida within the last 15 years. Those cases were caused by inadequately cooked local seafood, not sewage. But they tell us that the germ is present locally. On Monday there were reports of an outbreak of a relatively mild cousin of cholera caused by the bacterium Vibrio vulnificus....” “Dysentery: This occurs when enteric disease becomes more invasive and includes bloody, mucousy diarrhea with great cramping, and sometimes fever besides, caused by Salmonella, Shigella, and a few other bacteria. There have already been 20 suspected cases of this disease among hurricane victims in Biloxi, Miss....” “Typhoid fever: This disease begins in the bowel but then invades and damages other organs of the body, which can easily lead to high fever, collapse, and death. It is caused by certain Salmonella infections. Typhoid fever is a risk when sewage control and water purification break down because there is always a source of typhoid in the environment, from a small number of ostensibly healthy people who once were infected and continue for the rest of their lives to shed the germ in their stool.” (Spiesel, 2005) While these diseases were a problem in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, other health care and disease related problems linked to the Hurricane are still occurring in the region. Some of the longer term health effects of the disaster can be found in increased risk for heart attack, increased stress and tension, as well as increased risk of cancer from exposure to chemicals in the water during the disaster. (Palser, 2007) In many instances, entire health care facilities were destroyed by the storm, forcing an increase in public expenditures to repair the facilities. Insurance may have covered a large number of the property claims in the region, but just as millions lacked proper property insurance during Hurricane Katrina, so too millions lacked adequate health insurance or access to health care facilities following the disaster. As noted previously, this is a failure based on socio-economic factors and affects the poor in the region most severely. Where poverty issues are discussed in relation to social services in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the problems engaged must also be reviewed in the context of legacy racism and the claims made by activists targeting racism in the local response. The most popular expression of this was the musician Kanye West’s flat declaration that “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” This eruption struck a nerve with the public as it seemed to explain the situation in which the “stranded” people at the Superdome in New Orleans were predominately African American by racial identity. (Brown, 2005) This issue points to legacy conflict in America over race issues as well as the unresolved nature of the racial situation in the country contemporaneously. Leaders in the racial identity movement and civil rights struggle were forced to remark on the situation even if living far away from the problem. The way the images were broadcast across America and the world displayed a social justice problem based in racial identity issues and socio-economic problems that were heritage to the South. That there were no easy solutions is a given, but that there were no social services provided and no safety net in evidence recalled images of what Arianna Huffington called “Third-World America”. Social upheaval and location were evidenced by millions of people losing their homes in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Thousands were bused to other parts of the country, given temporary shelter at the Astrodome in Houston, and set up in temporary living facilities in trailers that later turned out to be poisoned with formaldehyde and other toxic chemicals. (Brown, 2005) The government failed in providing the safety net of social services the public expected in the situation, and they furthermore held the Bush administration accountable for this failure in public opinion polls and national elections. Following the disaster, the administration lost credibility to a far greater degree with the public than even through its handling of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The response to Katrina came to symbolize popularly the failure of government response to social problems, as well as the inherent corruption in government service activity and its inefficiency compared to people who are truly motivated altruistically to help and assist in a situation of need. Nevertheless, the community of New Orleans has healed and recovered economically in a way that was very uncertain in the days following the disaster. The community that saw the loss of social services during the tragedy has the ability to reflect on that situation and build new public policy tools to repair the problems should they occur again. The same is applicable to the infrastructure and public utilities such as the dam and levy system that was destroyed in the flood. These are being rebuilt, bigger, better, and stronger and with the ability to withstand much greater loads of water pressure and water levels than previously. The result is in theory a safer city but it is also a lesson from the disaster that no amount of public planning can prepare for natural disasters fully. In other ways, the lessons from the experience of Katrina can lead those who lived through it to greater courage to address needed reform within the police and political system in the region. This includes addressing legacy racism and the problems that it includes within the structures of the police, military, and social services networks. This can simultaneously strengthen democracy if people become involved in the reform process, rather than rejecting it as broken or corrupt. Similarly, by electing new candidates with an informed philosophy of change related to the response to Katrina, the people can change the way the actual budgets allocate funds so that pressing issues and needs are met with public expenditures where agreed upon. Similarly the economic regeneration of the area is being driven by the insurance claims and the need for businesses and home owners to rebuild. This creates a surplus of high paying construction job opportunities for many who may be in need of a job following the disaster, and also allows for migration of skilled labor to the area. (Desroches, 2005) The ability to rebuild creates a counterforce to the disaffection felt after the tragedy, when government failed to respond. The reconstruction builds an identity of overcoming, that people and New Orleans’ culture can survive and rebuild even from the worst situations. The city goes on and what passed becomes part of its history and heritage. In the same manner, stark reflection on the problems that arose in the response can build a collective will to reform institutions in the public. In many ways, a people must suffer through the worst situations in order to recognize what is precious and valuable in their lives, not only materially, but also in values. Thus, the reconstruction of New Orleans involves a reconstruction in values, bringing out the best in people where previously the response can be seen to have brought out the worst elements in society in a desperate urge to survive the horrors of the flood. Research suggests Hurricane Katrina negatively impacted the Gulf region because it led to loss of lives, civil disturbances, and property damages. In many ways these estimates were overstated in the aftermath of the tragedy, though significant legacy health effects and property damage in the billions of dollars occurred. Hurricane Katrina remains America’s most costly natural disaster, with over $40 billion dollars in losses directly attributed to the wreckage. (Herman, 2006) The health care effects range from exposure to toxic chemicals to increased rates of stress and cardiovascular heart attacks in victims, as shown in statistical studies. The worst effect of the tragedy was to the brand of “America” internationally, which was forced to accept “Third World” elements and poverty within its own borders as shown so drastically in the video of the survivors struggling in the aftermath. Criticism has been raised that even the labeling of this spectacle as “Third World” introduces the structural racism of legacy stereotypes and imperialist type of thinking that contributes to the perpetuation of race based patterns of poverty in America. It is clear that Katrina exposed the underside of poverty and Black culture in New Orleans to the international gaze in a desperate manner, but in the same way it exposed the racism in the police department and other public services. In many ways, the Katrina disaster led to the final erosion of credibility in public opinion of the Bush administration, as people lost faith in the government’s words when they were not backed up with responsible actions. This led in many ways to Obama’s victory in the Presidential election of 2008 and the Democratic majority across the country in that poll. Therefore, it is easy to see how a loss of credibility in a crucial, emergency situation can become a major political issue able to bring down governments. In many ways, Katrina has become like Watergate a symbol in American politics. But where Watergate points to corruption and cover-up in politics, Katrina points to basic inefficiencies in providing core government services, including the social safety net of emergency response services. (Hoffman, 2007) In a country that is battling terrorism as a major public policy issue, the Katrina response points to greater issues as to preparedness in the face of other emergencies. It is easy to state that following the 9/11 attacks, the government should have overhauled its emergency response preparedness and been able to respond properly in search and rescue operations following the hurricane. Yet, the failure or inability to do so punctured the aura of invincibility associated with a superpower and which so much of Executive branch activity is dedicated to enriching and maintaining. This is America’s “brand” as an economic superpower, as the country with the world’s greatest army, with the strongest economy, and with the richest and most luxurious lifestyle for the people. If America is to continue to exist as a popular ideology as a dream for the world’s people, then it cannot display the images of Katrina for it will be reduced to the level of Haiti in popular view. (Fradin, & Fradin, 2010). This is the importance that popular opinion has in the modern world in determining the course of affairs, and in this manner the Katrina disaster was a public opinion nightmare for the Bush presidency. (Palser, 2007) The fact that the officials displayed no true compassion or understanding of the suffering of the people has made it symbolic in the collective imagination in a way that is much stronger than any of the socio-economic effects. Sources Cited: Brinkley, D. (2007). The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, FIRST HARPER PERINIER ed., New York, NY: HarperCollins. Retrieved February 6, 2011. Brown, D. M. (2005). Hurricane Katrina: the first seven days of America's worst natural disaster, Retrieved February 6, 2011. Herman, Charles (2006). Katrina's Economic Impact: One Year Later. ABC News. Retrieved February 6, 2011 http://abcnews.go.com/Business/HurricaneKatrina/story?id=2348619&page=1 Hoffman, M. A. (2007). Hurricane Katrina. New York, NY: The Rosen Publishing Group Inc. Retrieved February 6, 2011 Desroches, R. (2005). Hurricane Katrina: Performance of Transportation Systems . Retrieved February 6, 2011. Fradin, B. J., & Fradin, D. B. (2010). Hurricane Katrina, AL: Marshall Cavendish Benchmark. Oshinsky, David, and Brinkley, Douglas and Horne, Jed (2006). Hell and High Water, New York Times, July 9, 2006. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/09/books/review/09oshi.html Palser, B. (2007). Hurricane Katrina: Aftermath of Disaster, AL: Compass Point Books. Pietras, J. (2008). Hurricane Katrina. New York, NY: Infobase Publishing. Retrieved February 6, 2011. Reed, J., & Theiss, M. (2005). Hurricane Katrina: Through the eyes of storm chasers. AL: Farcountry Press. Retrieved February 6, 2011. Rodger, E. (2007). Hurricane Katrina. New York, NY: Crabtree Publishing Company. Retrieved February 6, 2011 Read More