A helping hand

Those of us who follow these sorts of things knew that Gulf Coast towns and cities were vulnerable to strong hurricanes, and we knew that much of New Orleans was below the level of Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River.

(We also know about the Atchafalaya River basin, a place the public might learn about a decade or so hence, when the next catastrophe occurs in Louisiana.)

We also knew that Hurricane Katrina was a Category 5 storm with the fourth-lowest millibar rating in 100 years.

But, like many, we thought the worst was over when Katrina moved on north up the Mississippi a day later, and TV news cameras revealed the expected wind damage and limited flooding.

It took about a day for the news media to begin conveying the full extent of the damage, and by that time the levees were broken and the worst natural disaster in modern American history had begun to unfold.

Death figures moved up from the hundreds to the thousands to as high as 10,000. Thousands of evacuees are being shuttled across the nation — some may end up in Montana. Bridges are shattered, houses are crushed by floating casinos, fires burn unchecked, and Coast Guard crews rescue hundreds of rooftop victims daily.

We could play the blame game. Maybe that would prevent a reoccurrence — like a rebuilt New Orleans flooding again, or the Mississippi changing course at Atchafalaya. But right now, we all need to get down and get working to help those hardest hit, and getting vital national industries up and running.