Why are people always comparing Katrina to other disasters?

Question

People have been asking questions about the fires in California and possible government help and I see people answering concerning what happened and is happening with Katrina. Why are people wanting to compare the two when they are totally different disasters and require different responses?

I guess my biggest question is why people are upset and mad over help for California? I see answers that go 'the gov. shouldn't, they didn't do this and that for Katrina'. Shouldn't we all have learned from Katrina?

Answer 1

I have a few ideas. The first one is just plain, old-fashioned ignorance. By that I mean, they believe everything they hear spoken by some political talking head on the evening news, rather than investigating the facts for themselves and forming their own conclusions.

The other idea is that some believe all catastrophes are the same. No, they are not. They're as different as, well, fire and water...

Answer 2

It's kind of inevitable for people to compare disasters. The human mind is drawn to negative experiences, as this helps people avoid future negative experiences of the same type.
The government response to Katrina was simply awful, on all levels. The firefighters and police at the scene on 9/11 ran into burning buildings to help people. The police in New Orleans ran away. The disaster planning in New Orleans was worse than inadequate, it was criminal. There were no plans to evacuate the hospitals and nursing homes. There were no supplies of fresh water, food, medications and health care personnel at the Superdome. The biomedical research labs at Tulane University contained bacterial specimens that could have unleashed a plague upon the survivors; the State Police collaborated just in time to destroy these things before they could cause a really enormous disaster. As it was, decades of valubable cancer research at Tulane were wiped out..To make it all worse, this disaster was foreseen. Every level of government failed, from the city Council to the Mayor to the State Police to the Governor's office to the National Guard to the federal agencies involved.
People in southern California had their own ways to evacuate. For one thing, they were all rich enough to have their own cars, something that was not true of Katrina victims.

Answer 3

I think it's b/c people need to see some sort of comparison b/t the two disasters. Yeah they're not the same, but the potential damage and the damage/chaos/pain/death the fires have and may cause can be compared to the same of Katrina, I think that this way also shows people how serious it can be and has been for the residents of this problem.

Answer 4

Overall, the problems are the same: An environmental disaster has hurt, killed, or displaced, a large number of people, and the powers-that-be seem incapable of handling the situation, or even of preventing it in the first place (not that they could, given the awesome powers of Mother Nature; even if the fires were set by a carelessly thrown lit cigarette, it was a very dry season that caused the timber to be so dry; of course, one could make a circular argument from that, but, let's not go there!). ;)

Likewise, whether a terrorist blows up an entire building with thousands of people in it, or a car bomb with nobody in it, there will be inevitable comparisons to "9/11".

It is easier for people to compare an event to another, even if they don't match 100%.

Here's hoping that all your disasters are trivial ones!

Answer 5

There are a lot of differences, some man made, some beyond the control of man. But when you show pictures of the people of New Orleans mostly black, begging for food, and you show the accommodation of those in Ca. that show tent and tent with cell phones and Internet access free, yoga classes free, star buck coffee free, and so on an so on. The fact that all these services are provide free because they are donated, and the people of New Orleans were stranded and no one could get to them, it's still unsettling and it has been said that, " A pictures is worth a thousand words" . But being New Orleans is still not being restored, it might be more true than not

Answer 6

Because Katrina was such a massive disaster - an entire American city was virtually destroyed because of poor planning, bureaucracy and just a lack of consideration for the mostly poor, black residents of New Orleans. It became the benchmark against which all disasters will be compared for the next few years at least.

Plus FEMA is involved in both the New Orleans and Californian disasters.

Answer 7

The Katrina disaster is a prime example of how people were failed and help was not initiated quickly enough nor were people supported both during the event and after. It's something to be avoided and it's important to bring it up whenever another disaster happens so the government and emergency services know how not to do things.

Answer 8

Thank you for having the brains to realize that these two disasters cannot be compared. Frankly, Katrina was a couple of magnitudes greater disaster than the California fires...not too mention that Katrina probably affected more than a thousand times the land area.

Answer 9

Well in a sense they're both natural disasters and people look at it that way. That's why there's the big comparison specially in the way that President Bush is reacting now with the wildfires and how he reacted with Katrina.

Answer 10

Because Katrina was a very recent event - and is still in the memory in many people's minds. The Californian issues are being referred to Katrina because it was the last big natural disaster to happen recently, and was also well covered by the media so the details are very accurate.