Where Were Katrina Victims, Before The Dreaded Storm?

I am often called cold,callous and uncaring, for the position I'm about to take. When hurricane Katrina first happened, I was saddened like everyone else. I prayed on behalf, of the victims and the country itself. Which is the most any of us had to offer at first. That was the first problem to me. The fact that people thought there was something man could have done, to prevent this. Both frustrated and disturbed me deeply. This was an indication, of the confusion yet to come. If I ask the question in all honesty and sincerity. I can't ask that question of everybody, not even from people from both states. I haven't heard a lot from the citizens on the Gulf Coast. I guess they're too busy rebuilding. The casinos are up and going, and they were utterly destroyed. The Governor of Mississippi, has come forward praising the efforts of the government.

Throughout this whole ordeal, it was as though there were two storms that took place. One in the city of New Orleans, and another everywhere else. It was the first storm ever in America, of it's magnitude. It's not like we had a blueprint to follow. Sadly it was trial and error under the microscope. It just made me take a closer look, at this whole thing. After the elected officials started to point fingers, and blame each other. I didn't put much faith in anything, any of them said. I think we as a country would've handled this crisis much better. Had some people not tried, to make it a political issue. And focused on what we could have done. If we had only faced the truth from the beginning. We would have approached this whole thing differently.

Facing the truth, is what brings me to my point. I know the first thing people are going to say is, "it's easy to say that, when it's somebody else". That statement is true, but that also allows me to be honest and objective. Everyone affected by the storm, won't be given what they deserve. Unfortunately it rains on the just, as well as the unjust. In the event of something like this, everyone looks to the government for help. The deserving and undeserved both. In my area they have begun to prosecute people, caught committing FEMA fraud. Evidently people from New Orleans, are abusing the system. I'm sure people from Mississippi are committing crimes as well. But I haven't heard or seen, a lot of talk about them. As a matter of fact, hardly none at all. I mention New Orleans because that's the basis of most of the complaints. I can imagine it's worse elsewhere than it is here. We didn't absorb a lot of the evacuees, thanks to the foresight of our Mayor. Had he listened to the people, we would be loaded with new settlers too. Those cities in Texas like Houston and San Antonio. Wished they hadn't opened their public facilities either. They all have experienced a sharp increase in crime. I'm not surprised, the criminals mixed in with everybody else. Since they opened the doors of their city, to the evacuees. The problems came along with them.

The same thing that was being done before, is going to continue now. Some people couldn't wait, to get back to their homes. So they could clean-up and start over. If they had jobs and mortgages, they didn't have a choice. Which didn't apply to the majority, of the displaced evacuees. Many of them were unemployed renters. If the flood didn't kill me, or wipe the whole state out. I still couldn't just drop everything, and move across the country. A lot of people, are treating this like a vacation. If you were a ward of the state in Louisiana, nothings going to change when you go somewhere else. Unless you make a change to yourself. All of a sudden they need education, and start-up expenses. What were they doing up until now? I'm all for one furthering ones education, but there's a price. Remember that's for the recipient's benefit, not for mine. We must have the attitude that accomplishment, requires sacrifice. Just because you happened to live in a area, where a storm took place. That doesn't translate, to a financial windfall for you. At what point do you get back to what you were doing? If you were doing anything worth mentioning. I never saw so many new small businesses. That were supposedly just getting started. Considering the fact that no one was working. Who was going to support them? If you did nothing but what you're doing now, how long does the country pay the bill?