Went to Can A for lunch yesterday. Saw that the ban mian stall now sells fishball noodle! GREAT! Decided to try it. New selection mah.

After I placed my order, I realised that I only have a 50 dollar bill in my wallet, so bobian, had to let the auntie give me change. I usually don't give 50 dollar bills to those hawkers... cos a bit paiseh.. buy a bit of things give so much money to change. But this was one of the few exceptions. The auntie saw my 50 dollar bill.. looked a bit buay song. Then she turned around and took out a stack of readily folded bills, and gave me one stack. Normally under such situations, you will most probably take out the stack and check if the amount is correct right? I was going to do the same lar. Until that stall uncle told me, "Careful don't spill your soup!" OK.. my hands were full. So I thought, "Ahhh what the heck.. don't think they will be so evil as to cheat a 穷书生 of her money." and left without checking.

I never thought about it again till later, when I went to Westmall to buy some stuff.. and when I took out that stack of notes, TMD!!!!! There hidden deep inside the stack, was a Bruneian 10 dollar bill! She shortchanged me!!!! For those still not in the know, the Brunei dollar's no longer pegged to the Singaporean dollar.. and the exchange difference has since became quite great. 10 dollars leh!!!!! And not like I can use that money in Singapore lar!!!! And she purposely folded all the dollar bills nicely and hid the Bruneian bill deep inside that stack.. wah.. 高招!! Shucks. Nvm gonna give the money to those army kias going to Brunei to help me buy stuff from there. Urghhh pissed. Normally need to spend an hour puking blood and tearing out hair to teach some irritating kids before I can earn that amount of money!!!

Oh but why am I bitching about all these unimportant stuff... when people are dying and suffering from one of the most devastating natural disasters in the States? Hurricane Katrina. On Monday I was just watching the news about the people in New Orleans evacuating and getting themselves prepared for one of the strongest hurricanes to hit the States. I was thinking, "Just one of those tropical hurricanes that hit the States every year. Nothing to be worried about lar." Walau.. it's the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA leh... they are how well equipped to deal with such things lar!! They can fight a war here, fight a war there, possess all the best weapons and armies in the world... this is just peanuts lar. And I never thought about Katrina any more.

Until yesterday night, when Demon TJL asked me on msn, "Eh.. what happened in US?"
I was like, "Huh? Hurricane Katrina lor. But that was quite long ago already what."
TJL, "Like very devastating leh."

Is it? I was kinda busy yesterday.. so didn't think about it again.

Until this morning. Straits Times headlines <ANARCHY grips New Orleans>.

"People being raped, being beaten"

"Reports of cops turning in badges"

"Troops will shoot to kill to enforce order"

"Corpses rot along flooded sidewalks"

The sentence that struck me most in the headlines was this-
"Go to hell... it's every man for himself." - A cop responding to tourist Debbie Durso when she asked for help.

HEY GET THIS RIGHT. Is this the USA that we are talking about?! World superpower USA?

How can this happen to them? They knew about the Hurricane beforehand.. they had time to prepare! How could they let this happen?! This is the first time ever that the States had ordered mandatory evacuation of a major city, and this is also probably the first time they had issued the shoot to kill order to the military. The thing is, after the hurricane has swept passed, up till the 4th day, people were still put up in emergency refuges, waiting to be evacuated! SOMETHING must be terribly wrong with their disaster relief system.

Inside the emergency refuges, the most prominent being the Superdome in New Orleans, people were getting beaten up, raped, and there were even reports of murder. There had been at least one suicide as living conditions grew unbearable. No water, no food, no sanitation, overflowing toilets and garbage bins... people being driven to the edge tend to do extreme things.
"What angers me the most is disasters tend to bring out the best in everybody, and that's what we expected to see", Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco said at a press conference. "Instead, it brought out the worst."

Due to the increasing lawlessness in the city, the police force originally deployed there to rescue refugees still stuck on their rooftops had to stop the rescue operations and concentrate on peacekeeping instead.
Councilwoman Jackie Clarkson said. "We're using exhausted, scarce police to control looting when they should be used for search and rescue while we still have people on rooftops."

So what happens to those still stranded in their homes due to the high water levels?!
MSNBC quoted resident Chris Robinson, in a phone call from his home east of downtown, "I'm not doing too good right now. The water's rising pretty fast. I got a hammer and an ax and a crowbar, but I'm holding off on breaking through the roof until the last minute. Tell someone to come get me please. I want to live."

Now we start to question the Bush administration. How can they allow this to happen?! They were supposed to be well-prepared!! How can this be?! And guess what?!
3,000 members of the Louisiana National Guard's 256th Brigade are currently on a tour of duty in Iraq.... when they are so desperately needed to restore peace and order in their native state. For at least up to 3 days after Katrina struck, the government failed to recall them back to help manage the disaster.

Little wonder then, that rescue efforts have come under immense criticism from both inside and outside the USA.
New Orleans' top emergency management official called the effort a "national disgrace".
Ray Nagin, mayor of New Orleans, in an interview broadcast on CNN on 2 september, expressed his frustration at what he judged to be insufficient reinforcements provided by the President and federal authorities. He ended the interview in tears.

The killer must be this statement, made by Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela. "That government had no evacuation plan, it is incredible, the first power in the world that is so involved in Iraq...and left its own population adrift."

All information gathered from these sources, compilation and some comments given by KS.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effect_of_Hurricane_Katrina_on_New_Orleans
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina