They keep saying on TV that Katrina taught us that we are not prepared. True, I guess. Maybe we have put all of our efforts into stopping a terrorist attack and have not prepared to handle a disaster after it happens. We certainly have not learned to prepare for the unexpected, considering that the disaster in New Orleans had been predicted for years. Somehow it caught us off guard.

We tend to think that if something didn't happen last year, or the year before, and maybe hasn't happened in our lifetime, it probably won't happen now. That's seriously flawed logic. Mount Saint Helens had not erupted in a long time. It had been decades since a plane hit a sky scraper in New York, and even hurricane Camile didn't do what Katrina did. After 1926 years, you would think we would be smarter than the people of Pompei.

Even with no preparation at all, you would think that no more than a day would pass before a helicopter would lower a supply of bottled water to the front door of the Superdome. You would think that enough boats would have survived the storm to begin bringing flood victims out almost as soon as the city flooded. There are so many small boats in southern Louisiana, that even if 90% were destroyed, there would still be a lot of boats to bring out survivors.

History is a good teacher, if only we would listen.
Howard