Finally, the statistics caught up with New Orleans
Images from New Orleans remind me of very poor countries in Africa. Apart from the hurricane itself, probably the most shocking part of what happened in New Orleans is the number of poor people left behind with no help in the city, and the attitude of federal and state officials towards the victims of hurricane Katrina. You will feel even worse when you get to know that "7 out of 10 people in New Orleans are Aftican-American, most of whom are shockingly poor."
The Beyond photoblog, ran by an Iranian who studies in New Orleans, has a post with a number of photos about the distaster. In part of the post you read:
"New Orleans, the mysterious and beautiful city of old oaks, charming swamps and warm people I have called home for nearly four years now is utterly destroyed. This was a long-feard nightmare that finally stepped into reality and swallowed many parts of the city with its poor people down his dark throat."
I don't want to be pessimistic, but I'm afraid one day the survivers would sit and read the same sentences about Tehran: "Tehran's destructive earthquake was a long-feard nightmare that finally stepped into reality and swallowed many parts of the city with more than two million people down its dark throat". After all, an earthquake is not predictable and no one would be able to arrange any form of emergency evacuation. Isn't it time to bring up the issues of switching the capital and moving more towards a less centralised country? especially now that the oil price is rocket high and the government has spare cash to plan and prevent such distasters.
After what happened in New Orleans, I've been thinking about the exact same thing: anticipated destruction in Tehran.
(at September 5, 2005 08:34 PM)
Very good point. I have been thinking and talking about the this for a long time. It is not just the government, even people forget about it. They forget that they lived on the streets and in the parks for a couple of days after the earthquake last year but now everyone has forgotten it. As you mentioned, it WILL happen, it is just a matter of time.
What do you guys think about creating a blog-ring for raising the awareness of people and suggesting them to leave Tehran for another city? I am pretty bad at graphics but a talented person could come up with a logo so that we can put it on our blogs.
Obviously government could facilitate this process but I don't think people need to wait for the government, somebody has to start the process. After all there is no point for the government to move the infrastructure to other cities while everybody lives in Tehran.
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