Beaver County Times, PA
Sept 14 2005

After the shock

Was the immediate response to the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe a
portent or an aberration?

It matters.

Think back to Dec. 7, 1988, and the earthquake that hit Armenia in
the Soviet Union. About 25,000 people were killed, 15,000 were
injured and some 517,000 people were left homeless. Virtually the
entire infrastructure – roads, bridges, hospitals, schools, water
lines, etc. – was wiped out.

The tremor and its aftershocks did more than reveal shoddy
construction standards. It also revealed the total inadequacy of
government in the Soviet Union at all levels to deal with a
large-scale domestic emergency. It showed to the world the
overwhelmed Soviet Union for what it was – a hollowed-out superpower
that could not provide aid and comfort to its people in their time of
need.

In the coming days, weeks and months, local, state and federal
authorities in the United States will have a chance to reverse their
dismal performance immediately before and after Katrina devastated
Louisiana and Mississippi.

Most of the effort must fall on the shoulders of the federal
government, if for no other reason than those two states are among
the poorest in the United States.

How this task – indeed, if this task – is accomplished will make a
difference. What happened in the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic
in December 1988 was a portent of things to come for one of the
world’s two superpowers. It was rotting from the inside out.

Americans can only hope that the initial, bungled response to the
Katrina catastrophe was an aberration, and that our nation’s can-do,
take-charge attitude will reassert itself.

But if recovery efforts continue to be bungled, it could be a portent
of things to come.

Like we said, it matters.