Hurricane Katrina in 2005 is a good example, which is generally regarded as the worst hurricane in American history, causing 1836 deaths and 125 billion dollars in property losses. According to the exchange rate of around 8 in that year, it was equivalent to a loss of 1 trillion RMB, equivalent to one third of China's fiscal revenue in 2005.
80% of the worst-hit city in New Orleans, Louisiana was flooded, and hundreds of thousands of people were neither evacuated nor provided with large-scale post-disaster assistance in the next week or so, which made them unable to get food, fresh water and almost all other necessities, and it was precisely because of this that people's criminal psychology was bred. The American regular army began to station in the disaster area on a large scale, patrolling with live ammunition to prevent the collapse of social order, but it was precisely because of this that the American society was divided to a greater extent.
Let's take New Orleans as the starting point to understand the "natural disasters" and "man-made disasters" in the United States.
On August 23, 2005, Hurricane Katrina began to form over the Bahamas, broke into the Gulf of Mexico on August 26, and gradually strengthened into a category 5 hurricane. Large-scale rainfall and storms began to hit here.
Some cities immediately declared a state of emergency and began to organize large-scale evacuation of citizens. On August 28th, the mayor of New Orleans, Louisiana ordered the residents to evacuate, but many old people, disabled people and people without cars could not leave the city. These people are lucky, but the government should take compulsory measures, resulting in heavy casualties of those who did not evacuate, so Ray Nagin was widely criticized.
With the joint efforts of bus companies, school buses and private individuals, 80% of the 6.5438+0.3 million citizens were evacuated safely, and 26,000 people were placed in local shelters. Surprisingly, before and after the disaster, one-third of the police in New Orleans escaped, regardless of their work, and many people fled in patrol cars. When a tourist from Michigan asked the local police for help, the police stopped the tourist and said, "Go to hell! Now everyone is responsible for himself! Go to hell, it's all for him. Several government officials tried to steal a car and escape, but they were arrested.
Longitudinal profile of New Orleans. No wonder this city.
Heavy rainfall has formed persistent stagnant water in New Orleans, and poorly designed flood control dams around the city are as useless as tofu dregs projects, allowing floods to flood in. According to the investigation report of American Society of Civil Engineers two years later, two-thirds of the floods in this disaster were caused by flood control dams.
It is worth mentioning that from 200 1 to 2005, the Bush administration cut the budget of the engineering corps continuously, especially the budget requirement of the New Orleans dam project was cut by 67% (later Congress changed it to 50%). Since the beginning of 2003, the federal expenditure in Louisiana has also been greatly reduced, so these public projects can only become "face projects" without sufficient funds. At that time, the new york Times media waved flags and shouted at it, but there was no criticism. At that time, many people were worried about whether such a project could withstand a catastrophe. Unfortunately, they are right.
Two weeks after the disaster, it is still difficult for the city to accumulate water.
The consequences of this flood are fatal. In Louisiana, 966 people died in storms and floods, while in New Orleans, more than 700 bodies were found. After the flood receded, their swollen bodies were lying on the streets of the city. Hundreds of prisoners in the prison were ruthlessly abandoned by prison guards, and finally the government positioned them as "unaccounted for".
Most of the dead came from poor residents living in low-lying and waterlogged areas, and most of them were black. The survey results show that 5 1% of the dead are black, and 49% of the victims are over 75 years old. The harmful substances in the destroyed oil refineries and chemical plants were mixed with floods, and the huge pollution once again aggravated the disaster and increased economic losses. (also affects the world oil price)
Dirty so-called &; quotshelter &； quot
Natural disasters are merciless, the dead are gone, but man-made disasters can be completely avoided. Now it seems even more regrettable. Although the federal government stopped the hurricane warning on August 30, it is obvious that the local social disaster has just begun.
In the days after the disaster, I saw the federal government shouting slogans, but I didn't see the major actions and clear rescue plans of the federal government. Only the people help each other and "* * * tide over the difficulties together". They lack food and fresh water, not to mention electricity in shelters, which leads to some crimes.
On September 2, a building in the city center was destroyed by fire.
On August 3 1 day, 1500, the local police in New Orleans were forced to give up the search and rescue mission and turn their attention to the "larger scale" incident of beating, smashing, looting and burning. This choice is not unreasonable. At this time, the whole Wal-Mart has been ransacked, there are sporadic fires in the urban area, and there are "rumors" of robbery and rape.
The mayor quickly asked the federal government for help, but the Bush administration did not send troops at the first time, but delayed for a few days, which was very fatal. The governor of Louisiana also announced that troops would be stationed in the affected towns, but the role of these troops was not mainly used for disaster relief, but mainly for repression. Governor Blanco even directly warned: "These troops came back from Iraq, well-trained and experienced, and restored street order under my orders. These troops know how to shoot and kill people. If necessary, they are more willing to do so. I hope they will do so. "
They patrolled the streets of New Orleans with guns, armored vehicles and tanks, and the curfew announced by the mayor made the city even more nervous. But critics say that because nearly 30% of Louisiana's troops have been sent to the battlefield in Iraq, the troops seem to be too small to completely control the disaster.
1 September, five days after the disaster, the federal government finally "responded" by sending 7,200 active servicemen to New Orleans to help rescue survivors and maintain social order, and approved the rescue plan of/kloc-0.05 billion US dollars. But some unattended shops were looted by "hungry robbers". Of course, some people excused these robbers, because the city has been in a state of disorder for a long time, and the government's relief supplies, including food and fresh water, have disappeared. Hungry people seem to have to "do this".
After the disaster, the army bears the dual responsibility of disaster relief and suppression.
On September 4, there was even a gun battle between armed robbers and police, which directly led to four deaths, two policemen committed suicide due to work pressure and 200 policemen resigned.
But "interestingly", according to some surveys, "large-scale" robbery does not actually exist. When the disaster comes, all local events have obviously become hot spots sought after by the media, and some sporadic events have been exaggerated, as if New Orleans was full of disorder after the disaster, as if extreme events such as robbery, violence, shooting at rescuers, murder and rape also occurred frequently.
Citizens queuing to enter the shelter
These events were widely reported, and untrue data and fake news were flying all over the sky, which greatly aggravated the local tension, but made the media earn a lot of money. It is in this media atmosphere that it is possible to send troops to "suppress" rather than "rescue" on a large scale.
The existing research conclusions about the civil strife caused by Hurricane Katrina are the same: "Widespread looting is a myth, which has been exaggerated by the media, and ultimately contributed to the atmosphere of suspicion and paranoia, which greatly hindered the rescue work and further worsened the situation of survivors."
The media also cited another incident, that is, some refugees fled to West Virginia. Results In the investigation of the criminal background of 350 refugees, it was found that 45% of them had criminal records. The media will exaggerate at this time, saying that the displaced refugees in New Orleans brought the crime wave to other new communities, but later found that the crime rate in these communities did not rise.
After the investigation, only two acts of violence were found in the whole city except robbery, which were basically sexual assault. The 26,000 people in the shelter have no running water and electricity, and have lost contact with the outside world. The government predicts that hundreds of people will die. Some irresponsible media directly said that they were dead 100 people, and vowed that the main reason was heatstroke. However, according to the actual investigation, only 6 people died, including 4 elderly people who died of natural causes, 1 person who overdosed and 1 person who committed suicide.
In fact, this mortality rate is very OK, because before the disaster, the murder rate in New Orleans was ten times the average level in the United States, and the local gangs "disappeared" because of the existence of the army.
On September 2, a week after the disaster, the hungry people were finally evacuated slowly, and 43,000 people were evacuated a day later. In order to prevent the spread of the epidemic, a steady stream of helicopters and ambulances sent away the elderly and patients, and vaccinated nearly ten thousand people.
On September 9, the government finally issued a mandatory evacuation order, and some people who did not want to evacuate were forced to evacuate.
After the disaster, the international community generally sympathized with the experience of the United States and gave assistance. The first country to support the United States turned out to be Venezuela, which provided a lot of food, water and even millions of barrels of oil. French, Russian, German, British, China, Japanese and other countries also gave aid to the United States. But because they didn't get the approval of the Bush administration, President Bush said that he also publicly refused all assistance, so most of them went away, but the money was still accepted.
However, in 2007, Washington post disclosed that foreign countries provided 854 million US dollars in economic assistance. Only $40 million was spent on post-disaster reconstruction (less than 5%).
The city of New Orleans has slowly recovered from constant setbacks and quarrels, and it took several years to recover to half its original value, but the reality of economic backwardness still cannot be changed. Until 20 10, some coastal communities still had some ruins and fragments left over from that year, which were not completely cleaned up.
Some people think that the government's slow rescue of New Orleans is caused by the wrangling between the state government and the federal government, which is a physical problem in the United States and needs to be "concluded"; However, some members of Congress accused that this is because many people think that New Orleans is one of the poorest metropolises in the United States, and it is obviously "unable to make ends meet" to provide large-scale assistance.
But in any case, it is difficult to heal the division of American society after the disaster, and the contradictions between races and distrust of the police and the army are growing. 70% blacks in New Orleans are deeply dissatisfied with the state government and the federal government led by Bush, and even 6 1% people think that the government doesn't care about them at all. The media even exaggerated racial conflicts, calling African-Americans robbers, while whites directly called them "survivors" and "victims".
One of the few things to be thankful for is that those bad dams have been reinforced one after another, although these projects took years.