Katrina would have killed me

Politics

There are a lot of people out there who are saying that those who stayed behind in New Orleans in spite of the warnings to leave before Katrina hit are "stupid" and deserved their fate.

I have two words for those saying this:

Shut up.

The reason I am saying this is that had I been in New Orleans when Katrina hit the likelihood is, I would be dead right now.

There are a few things some people probably know about me from my time online:

First, I don't drive. I don't own a car. I don't even have a driver's license. So, had the order come to evacuate, I would have had to rely on public transportation. Just like the vast majority of people in the Superdome and the Convention Center. Now those blaming the victims may think that makes me stupid, but there's no way I would try to prove that hypothesis by trying to walk out of the path of a hurricane the width of the state of Washington.

Take a plane out? I'd have had to use public transportation to get to the airport. Hire a cab? It's public transportation. Bus? Train? There's a reason these are called public transportation. It's because the public uses them. I'd have been fighting everyone else in New Orleans for a seat on one of these conveyances. The odds are not good.

Second, I have diabetes. It's type II diabetes, regulated through a combination of insulin, oral medication and diet. Those who have diabetes know it's a balancing act. You let any of that combination of factors get out of balance, and you run the risk of hyperglycemia on the one hand and diabetic shock on the other. It's not a pretty picture. Plus, with no electricity and no refrigeration in the steambath that is New Orleans on the best of summer's days, there's no telling how long the insulin would stay effective.

Third, I can't swim. Enough said about that.

Fourth, I don't own a gun. I have a vague idea how to use them, and I have other weapons, but they're not range weapons. They wouldn't do well against someone at a distance firing a rifle at me.

Fifth, the medication I have been taking lately has made me gain weight and made it hard for me to move in the best of circumstances. There is at least one report of a resident of a medical facility who was euthanized because they could not evacuate him due to his weight.

So the odds are good that I would not have survived five days past the hurricane in rising flood water, with no food, no potable water, and uncertainty as to the effects of my medicine.

So anyone who dares to say that anyone who stayed behind brought this upon themselves -- especially if they did so on the orders of government officials who told people to evacuate to higher ground at the Superdome or the Convention Center -- is looking for an earful.