The tragedy exposes the weakness of the US military
Hurricane Katrina looms large in American cultural consciousness. As one of the defining events during George W. Bush’s second term as president, the scale of the devastation that struck Louisiana — combined with the inadequacy of the relief effort — earned notoriety even outside the United States. Almost 20 years after the levees broke, another storm has swept in an unprecedented catastrophe: the economic and human cost of Hurricane Helene might be even greater than that of Katrina. So why, then, are so few people acting like that is the case?
In Appalachia, one of the poorest regions in the country, the common belief is that the mountains protect the locals from storms. Unfortunately, this is true only up to a point: when a hurricane like Helene hits — bringing once-in-a-thousand-years levels of rainfall — the mountains become a curse rather than a blessing. Helene has brought the mountains down, triggering mudslides and rockfalls that have destroyed entire towns and obliterated almost every road in a vast radius.
