LONDON -- The sufferings of the people of Louisiana and Mississippi as a result of Hurricane Katrina have attracted great sympathy and concern. The initial response of the U.S. government to this catastrophe was widely seen as slow and inadequate, and it seems that lives might have been saved by a quicker response and fewer bureaucratic obstacles.
Although U.S. President George W. Bush seemed unaware of the depths of the tragedy at first, he soon woke up to the political and humanitarian implications of the situation and galvanized the relief effort. Even with the federal government's vast resources, it will take years to rectify the storm damage.
Before we join in the chorus of criticism of the U.S. response, we need to bear in mind not only the scale of the disaster but its geographic extent. The area devastated was about the size of Britain. We must also realize that mobilizing fleets of buses, aircraft and relief supplies, and getting them into the cities worst affected when roads and bridges have been rendered impassable, is a huge logistic task.