The recent hurricane in New Orleans occurred less than a year after the tsunami devastated the coast South Asia. Since the laws of science and weather don't follow any rubric of 'rich country/poor country', we can trust that natural disasters will continue to occur in a non-discriminatory fashion -- they will happen everywhere. And with global warming, scientists tell us they will happen more and more frequently. What might differ according to the wealth of countries will be the way the disaster is handled. The two most recent natural disasters offer a glimpse of what those differences will look like. Since the scope of the disaster in New Orleans was much smaller (the tsunami's effects were felt over 4,000 miles from Indonesia to the East Coast of Africa while Hurricane Katrina's effects were largely confined to three states), it is difficult to compare the disasters themselves. What is interesting, however, is to look at what is comparable: how the disasters were handled (or not handled) and how the media represented each case. I will take each in turn. Since New Orleans is my hometown, you will have to excuse the New Orleans bias.

Handling Crisis

Despite reports that the hurricane hit Louisiana unprepared, the breakdown in communication leading up to Katrina was not comparable to that of the tsunami. Contrast reports of American scientists sitting around their labs scratching their heads over who to call about the tsunami with the first ever mandatory evacuation of New Orleans. Contrast no warnings whatsoever about the tsunami to backed up highways as people left New Orleans, to (albeit not enough) buses to transport those with no other transport, to (albeit not enough) space allocated in the Super Dome and the Convention Center to house those who did not/could not leave. Retrospect can tell us that not nearly enough was done to prepare for Katrina, but not anything was done to prepare for the tsunami.

The aftermath of each crisis displayed different problems as well. Hundreds of NGOs in Sri Lanka and Indonesia set up shop and began to compete for resources, slowing recovery efforts. FEMA, the US department in charge of handling crisis, has allowed for very minimal competition to allow things to move quickly, leading to fears that those getting contracts may have been chosen according to their connections rather than their reconstruction abilities. In the case of Katrina, private parties interested in donating have known pretty much exactly which NGO to support -- the vast majority of donations have gone to the Red Cross. Both approaches have their problems, but the differences may have significant effects on how quickly life as usual can resume.

Media

A friend of mine often states that crisis always strikes at the most vulnerable place. Images on TV and in newspapers of the poor and dispossessed were rampant during and after both tragedies. There existed a subtle difference, however. Coverage of the tsunami took the deprivation for granted, and the tsunami became number one on a long list of problems we already knew the region was facing. It was different with Katrina. Rather than adding to a list, the hurricane was represented as revealing many of the problems that are rife in Louisiana and in the United States more generally. The massive inequalities, the proclivities to looting and gun violence, the three days of bureaucracy before New Orleans was brought under the control of the Federal Government, the incompetence of the director of FEMA -- all of this came out during Katrina coverage. It was with a bit of delicious irony that editorials noted how far Bush's emphasis on homeland security had gotten us, and it was secretly satisfying to hear the word 'refugees' being used in reference to people in the richest nation on earth for once (although according to international definitions, of course, the New Orleans evacuees were internally displaced persons, not refugees). European press often commented on how surprising it was that this could happen even in America. Perhaps we kind of expect things like this from other places, where regional challenges and failings define our images of the place. But America is expected to handle things like this with ease.

For me, this idea represents a fallacy, one illustrated by terms such as 'developing' and 'developed' countries. The US is expected to be at the end of the development process, but the hurricane revealed that many of the things the World Bank criticizes about developing countries, like cronyism and knowledge gaps exist even in America. The hurricane revealed that Michael Brown, the chief of FEMA, had been hired using the old boy network as his application process. In turn, Michael Brown has said, "My biggest mistake was not recognizing by Saturday that Louisiana was dysfunctional." These are both fair points, but what is surprising to me is that people are surprised by these so-called revelations. This was not the first example of cronyism. Did no one else notice that Paul Wolfowitz was appointed president of the World Bank? And Louisiana is famously corrupt. In 1991 the gubernatorial election was between Edwin Edwards, who had been charged with racketeering twice but acquitted both times, and David Duke, the former leader of the 'new' Klu Klux Klan. Bumper stickers all over Louisiana stated simply, 'I'm voting for the crook' ('the crook' won, and was later sent to prison for 10 years on a fresh racketeering charge, one that prosecutors were finally able to prove). I didn't need a hurricane to reveal these contradictions. The issues that some people have been screaming about for decades are now being scooped up by politicians and hurled at the Bush administration like over ripe tomatoes.

There are very real differences in the way that rich and poor countries are prepared to deal with natural disasters which are illustrated by the tsunami and Katrina. Without trying to gloss over the international structures that dictate those differences, the idea that America would have advanced beyond the point of vulnerability to nature is ludicrous. Note to world: America has domestic corruption, we have incompetence, we have failures in communication and we have knowledge gaps. The 'developed vs. developing' world paradigm has its place, but we should consider that no country has fulfilled some Utopic vision. All countries should be placed on the same spectrum. All countries are developing.

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