Peg Kerr's Journal

Amen! It is important that all of us learn from this, not just the politicians, not just the well-off and not just the poor. All of us in the coastal states that get hurricanes need to look at what happened with Katrina, analyze the planning, the event, the rescue effort, the successes and failures and LEARN from it. There is, and always will be, plenty of blame to go around. The important thing here is for us, as a nation, to find a way to deal with hurricanes so that this doesn't happen again. Evacuation is only part of the answer. I say that because I know that the infrastructure in Florida, and, from what I have seen in my travels, all of the other states so involved, is not built to handle such a mass evacuation. Bumper to bumper at twenty miles per hour won't do it and that is what I saw with Andrew and each hurricane since then. We have to find a way to build and equip shelters that will withstand a catagory 5 storm and remain viable for at least a month thereafter. They need to be numerous, more neighborhood than regional and continuously stocked with water, basic medicines, including insulin, MRA meals, chemical or recycling toilets, beds, bug spray and water purification tablets, at the very least. They also each need to be equiped with a generator which uses both propane and fossil fuel and with a communication device which doesn't depend upon electricity or wire cabling to operate.

Above all we, as a people and as a country, need to decide how much we value life, both human and animal. We need to decide to pay a little bit now, each of us, to keep people from dying this way next time. Believe me. There will be a next time.