Katrina's America: Failure, Racism, And Profiteering (Cover Story‪)‬

IT'S PAINFULLY DIFFICULT FOR ME to wrap my mind around images of Americans lying dead by the score, their corpses being eaten by rats and dogs. As a brave new America trudges forward into the twenty-first century armed with a new set of national priorities, there's something acutely unnatural about this disaster. Because it didn't have to happen. As we all saw, the New Orleans calamity was ultimately the result of benign neglect by federal and state governments. Up to rive days passed and stranded, hungry, dehydrated New Orleans residents were still clinging to their rooftops exposed to the elements--and dying by the score. Those who made their way to the official evacuation points at the Superdome and the New Orleans Convention Center only found themselves waiting for days without sanitary facilities, sometimes without food, water, or medical care--still waiting for evacuation--or help of any kind. Some people needed dialysis. Some needed insulin. Some were just old and frail or newly born. Some of them died.