Rising Tide
I’ve spent much of the day with a window on my screen open to a news source, checking the progress of Katrina and the misery that she’s inflicting on the people of Louisiana and Mississippi. The rain may fall on the just and the unjust alike, the rich and the poor, but the rich have a lot more ability to get out of the way:
"Julie Paul, 57, sat on a porch yesterday with other residents of a poor neighborhood in central New Orleans who said they had no way to leave town. ‘None of us have any place to go,’ the AP quoted her as saying. ‘We’re counting on the Superdome. That’s our lifesaver.’"
And a leaky lifesaver it was.
The flooding reminded me of one of the best history books I’ve read, Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America, by John M. Barry. Barry weaves together several stories: the (flawed) engineering masterpiece of the levees that controlled the Mississippi, the terror of the flood, the race and class tensions that affected the response, and the federal and private relief efforts that followed. The title is multi-layered, referring both to the rampaging Mississippi, and (ironically) to the proverbial tide that lifts all boats. It’s literally a page-turner. I’d definitely recommend it.
(As it happens, just last week, my dad loaned me Barry’s recent book on the 1918 flu epidemic. It should be an interesting read.)
Union for Reform Judaism Disaster Relief
August 30th, 2005 at 8:08 pm
I was in Houston on business on Monday night, and watched the shared misery as families arrived from New Orleans. The hotel halls and lobby were filled with small children; I actually encountered an ancient grandma in her housecoat and slippers waiting for the elevator. All these people jammed the hotel restaurant watching CNN to see if they could get a glimpse of their house. I heard people jokingly ask if they could wash dishes in the kitchen in exchange for a room. They were kind of kidding, kind of not.
August 30th, 2005 at 9:34 pm
I can’t believe that with all our wealth as a country and our foreknowledge of this likely disaster that we didn’t offer better evacuation support to the needy. It’s shameful.
September 6th, 2005 at 12:17 pm
By the way, I just read that Rising Tide is climbing the Amazon bestseller lists:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/05/books/06tide.html