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NEWS & LETTERS, September-October 2005Who pays for deaths Shreveport, La.--Refugees from New Orleans have made it to Shreveport in northern Louisiana. These were people who were able to get out. Hurricane Katrina affected just a small part of south Louisiana, but we don’t even know the final death toll of poor people, mostly Blacks, who did not have cars or the means to evacuate New Orleans. So many officials acted surprised by the flooding in New Orleans. They knew a hurricane heading west of New Orleans would probably have to cross 100 miles of marshland, which weakens it. But they have known for years that a hurricane like Katrina crossing from Mississippi is a threat to Lake Pontchartrain. FEMA issued orders keeping emergency volunteers from around the country from getting to New Orleans. Without FEMA’s rules, since two-thirds of south Louisiana has boats, people would have rescued thousands of people from rooftops. Days ago I told friends that George W. Bush would be saying what every president says when a tragedy involves Blacks: that they would make sure it never happens again. That’s pretty much what he did say, like Clinton did after genocide in Rwanda or Nixon after the Biafra massacre. Government grants aren’t necessarily on time. My uncle, a uranium miner, died with cancer all over his body before he could get a second settlement of $150,000 for his time in the radioactive mines. Only his heirs, if anybody, will get it now. My mother has applied for a grant on behalf of my father, but does not know the outcome--he was called a vanadium miner during World II, when it was used for steel production, but uranium was mixed in with the vanadium. Uranium from that mine went into the first atomic bombs of the war. --Retired GM worker |
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