By fire or rain, it’s still trial
I guess you could call it a tale of two stadiums.
The fires raging in Southern California present just enough parallels to the hurricane that hit the Gulf Coast two years ago to invite comparisons. Our little brains automatically go into compare-and-contrast mode given the slightest opportunity. It can be a good learning tool when it works.
Here we have two natural disasters, two regions, two cities, people taking shelter in two stadiums. You can’t resist symmetry like that.
I certainly thought about people crowded into the Superdome in New Orleans when I read about people taking refuge at San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium.
Remember: At the Superdome, bathrooms weren’t working, supplies were dwindling.
What I read about Qualcomm is that there are plenty of beds and blankets, piles of donated clothing and so much food some gifts have been turned away. San Diego’s mayor said there were almost as many volunteers as evacuees around the stadium. Evacuees could speak with counselors and even get a massage.
My first thought was, man, the rich really know how to suffer.
I saw several photographs of neighborhoods turned to ashes by the fires. Sometimes there were swimming pools in the backyards, which bespoke life circumstances different from most of the folks who were trapped in New Orleans.
I had to remind myself that people are suffering. A massage can’t make up for a lost home.
Californians expressed pride in their response to the fires. They might have been better prepared, and probably do have better government, but they also face smaller challenges.
Hurricane Katrina paralyzed all of New Orleans, but the wildfires did not destroy urban infrastructure. The Superdome sat in the middle of a disaster area. About 80 percent of New Orleans was flooded, making it difficult if not impossible to get around.
Qualcomm sits away from the fires, and people were able to drive to safety on relatively short notice.
The wildfires affected large areas, but most of the region kept functioning, so it was easier to get help to people. The fires have claimed one life so far. Along the Gulf Coast, about 1,600 people died.
One thing both disasters do have in common is that people were living in places where there were bound to be problems.
In New Orleans, it was poor people living on poorly protected land largely because that’s where they could afford a home.
The California evacuees mostly fled suburban neighborhoods pressed against the edges of fire-prone dry hills.
If there is a lesson in the comparison, it is in that similarity.
There were people who knew New Orleans’ levees were not strong enough to withstand a storm the size of Katrina.
People know that building homes next to tinder is dangerous business, yet suburbs continue to push into dangerous areas.
Every region has its own challenges, but nowhere does it pay to ignore nature.
Jerry Large’s column appears Monday and Thursday. Reach him at 206-464-3346 or jlarge@seattletimes.com.