Environmental Degradation

Natural disasters have continued to grow over the last few decades. Although, many governments try to blame these disasters on unfortunate events, this is not 100% truthful. Although, many events are natural the aftermaths would not have been so grave if current environmental conditions did not exist. The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina would not have been as devastating if the wetlands are not as depleted as they are to shield the water from the city.

The conspiracy of Hurricane Katrina I had yet to learn about until the presentation. The first argument of the sins of New Orleans or for the United States as a whole does not convince me of the aftermaths of Hurricane Katrina. Second, it is extremely possible that the levees in New Orleans could have been tampered with before the storm. Interestingly, there has been much speculation however there has been nothing that has been said to be solid. Furthermore, we must ask ourselves why the levees were to be tampered with in the first place. Whether it is due to a sin, a terrorist group, or they were in fact poorly constructed on the first place. The lower ninth ward which largely consisted of lower class Black citizens, is now seen as prime real estate to make New Orleans the Las Vegas of the south, some speculate.

The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina now comes down to how the city and residential areas will be rebuilt and how they can avoid another disaster. They are currently looking into strengthening the levee system however this may be difficult to process since there is still speculation to how they failed in the first place. Also, it will be appealing to see whether many families will receive some of the compensation they deserve from insurance companies, they will rebuild their homes and whether or not New Orleans will in fact become the Las Vegas of the south. Only time will tell whether or not there will be another Hurricane Katrina that can have even deadlier consequences, or we will see whether or not New Orleans has learnt their lesson. I can only hope that “hurricane amnesia” does not develop in the next few years.