jackofall.blogspot

Seeing all the responses and questions to the previous post, i thought i will write a seperate post with some more info regarding the calamity and some answers to the questions.

In USA everything operates in a systematic way.Its a country that is too dependent on the system.It has its advantages and disadvantages. In india we are hardly systematic, so it is easy for us to adapt and manoeuver during conditions like this.It is not the same in USA, here it is all good when everything is going right. But hell breaks loose when the system fails.

Let's just take the example of food.Food culture is different here, you are dependent on fast food shops and restaurants for most of your food requirements. Rest, you go to the store in a weekend and stock up everything from meat, milk to precut vegetables and microwaveable food in your refrigerator.In time of hurricanes the electricity goes out and all the food gets spoiled in hours.you are totally out of food and no food store is open. You cannot even light your electric stove, provided your house has still not submerged under water. you are pushed to think about the next meal. And imagine if a whole city thinks that way.It is just not food, your apartment/county wont be able to pump the water to the tank. There is no wells here or no personal pipes.All your water needs are provided by the apartment or county. so when electricity goes down, there is no water also.A city of people with No Food, No water and empty shops what will happen??.This is just food, there is traffic and so many other things that go wrong during crisis times like these.

Every country has its mis managements and negligence. Every year the same ganga and brahmaputra floods and 100's of people die. Every year there is scarcity of water in Chennai and farmers all around the country die of starvation and drought. Experts have been saying so much, but who cares.If something is going to cost a lot for the state then there is always the question of who has to take the responsibility state/center etc. Until something drastically happens, no body will take any action.Its been the same case with the leeves in New orleans also.

If u take the case of water not draining off.To put it simply if it was just rain water, even the amount of rain that came down on mumbai.Any american city which got that much rains might have done better.They might have gotten into lot of other problems but not the problem of water not draining off. Cause they simply have better drainage systems.

In india we have been deploying army for rain affected areas and even for riots for quite sometime. But it is not the case with USA.IN order to prevent military mis use they have made some laws. In USA army cannot enter cities just like that, the president cannot mobilize the army into cities without the written permission from the governor of that state. There was some delay in the governor granting the permission and the president was not able to do mobilize the army faster.

This is not to say that there was no negligence or mis management from the people responsible. There has been a lot of them. But USA here is a fallen giant. The right thing to do would be to go and help the person get on his feet, rather than stand on the sides and laugh at the fall or pinpoint his previous problems. Iam totally against iraqi invasion or Bush being the president. But i dont think this is the right time to pin point that.

And let us think and make efforts to make india measure up to USA, when USA is in its heights, not when its down.