Betsy and Katrina

Today in class, we watched a film about Hurricane Katrina. In the film, people who survived Hurricane Katrina talked about their experience and what they witnessed. We learned that a natural disaster is not all natural, especially hurricane Betsy and Hurricane Katrina. The film not only talked about the environmental issue of it, but also brought up the issues of government, religion and social class.


In hurricane Betsy, the levees were actually blown up so that the less expensive, lower class part of town would get flooded instead of the more expensive, upper class part of town. This left the people who lived in the part of New Orleans that got flooded, feeling resentment and anger toward the government and so know they don't trust them. When Hurricane Katrina came along, the people heard a boom, a lot like the boom in Hurricane Betsy that broke the levees. When water started coming in through a hole in the levee, the people automatically assumed that the hole was made by the government to flood out the lower class area. Even after everyone found out it wasn't actually the government, they were still mad because it was still the governments fault. The government said that the levees could hold, just to satisfy the people, but they didn't hold and the government lied.


A few days after the Hurricane, people were stranded on top of their houses and in buildings because everything was all flooded. The people in the ninth ward were holding up signs saying "help me" and "SOS" but all of the people in the helicopters that should have been helping them just flew by to help the people in the wealthier neighborhoods. There was no help provided to the people of the ninth ward until all of the other people were okay. That is not fair and is another reason for the people who live in the ninth ward to be mad at the government.

So now the main question: In what ways did Hurricane Katrina change the way people live their lives?
This is a question we were asked to think about while we watched the movie in class. Well, for starters, some people lost everything; their families, their possessions, their house, and even their own lives. It is devastating to think of all the people who were left with nothing. Also, like I talked about before, some people lost their trust with the government. The government was not helping the people in the ninth ward when necessary and they even lied to the people about the levees being strong enough to hold. Their lives are changed by this because they have lost a sense of trust in the government that they may have had before. Since the government wasn't being truthful and the people didn't trust the government, they will be living in fear for the rest of their lives in New Orleans because they will never know if the government is just trying to calm people down or if they are telling the actual truth. Not only will they be in fear because of the government, but also, a hurricane is a natural disaster which means that there is nothing to prevent them from happening again and being even stronger time after time.