1) The scale of 9/11 was nothing compared to this….there it was basically 2 big buildings and the surroundings…here it’s 80% of the city under 20 feet of water.

2) Gulliani was a better mayor than the one at New Orleans who has now vanished.

3) There are Caucasians among the refugees as well as looters (have seen it on TV). However the majority that are affected is black not because blacks are being discriminated against but because the main sufferers are poor people who had no means to leave the city…..and in any US city poor people are mostly black.

@Yourfan: 1) To be fair, Katrina started out as Cat 1 and then suddenly, without warning, picked up momentum over the Gulf of Mexico and became Cat 5. There was basically 12 hours advance notice people got….and it is impossible to clear our a city of New Orleans size in 12 hours.

2) In many places after the Tsunami, there was looting and pillaging of dead bodies…I refer you to
this piece by my good friend Suhail

However there was not a total breakdown of law and order like in Orleans where cops are running scared, street gangs are raping and looting in broad daylight and goons are shooting at red cross helicopters and boats trying to rescue people. This is what Mr Smith needs to be told:

“Such things dont happen in third world countries as a rule.”

But the flood in Mumbai was because of the poorly maintained underground sewerage systems (like Calcutta) that one can ill-afford to ignore. It would be very interesting to know New Orleans resistance in its pre-Katrina sewerage systems against Mumbai-like heavy rains.

Why most of the affected are black Americans is a telling point and calls for some good explanation. Amardeep Singh’s post and a subsequent discussion broached some points on the issue. One may like to take a look at that.

I don’t understand why reporters like Sheppard Smiths draw ananlogy to the third world countries.
1. With all the latest weather warnings, all modern equipments and facilities why didn’t the people evacuate? How foolish they can get? The tsunami victims did not get any warning – remember?
2. Nobody in the third world harmed their own neighbours – like the gun trotting/looting demons.
What amazes me the most is that these news reporters are supposed to have better perspective of the world. So they should use their brain to check whether all the parameters are the same in the comparisons between the richest nation and the third world countries.

@Ritzy.. yes but who is there to tell the Western world about that.

@Sakshi…So it is—a glimpse into the end of the world.

loyalty to blog reconfirmed. these are the priceless bits that keep bringing me back!

@Michael: Yes definitely we should be saying that….the hubris the Western media suffer from is mind numbing.

They would be astonished to see that third world countries react much better to natural calamities on a similar scale….and that on normal days, the odds of finding an alligator or a gang of men with Ak47s in a third world city are….remote.