Getting it backwards

The day after Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans and destroyed other cities like Biloxi, Nightline covered the devastating flooding that was slowly but surely destroying the Big Easy. The show was fairly good, with more than just disaster porn being shown. It was the kind of in-depth coverage of a news story that one expects from Nightline.

Unfortunately, Ted Koppel chose to close the show by drawing the absolutely wrong conclusion about the implications of Hurricane Katrina, trying to tie what was unfolding in the gulf area to terrorism:

[W]hen you look at the damage inflicted by an accidental storm, you have to think about the sheer havoc that an intentional terrorist attack may produce one of these days.

We want to believe that no one will ever use a weapon of mass destruction against one of our cities. But it's almost inevitable that someone will. We don't like to hear that; we certainly don't want to contemplate the consequences. But we need to talk about it and we need to plan for it.

Koppel is saying that as bad as the devastation of Katrina is, some scary people will do worse to us. This is, unfortunately, essentially wrong. Ted Koppel sullied decent Nightline coverage by pushing the fear-based mythical horror of terrorism, something that is not proved by history to exist.

What happened to the United States on 9/11 was very bad but it was the apex of modern terrorism. As awful as it was to have the two tallest skyscrapers in Manhattan fall, the amount of destruction to the city itself was relatively small. The number of people who died did so not because of the act of terrorism, but because of the poor planning for dealing with what happened to the WTC towers. They were of unique construction with a structural failure potential that simply does not exist in traditional steel frame designs. Had the towers been immediately evacuated and the rescue workers cleared from the base area, the death toll would have most likely been cut by more than half.

What happened on 9/11 took over ten years of planning, at least two attempts and some incredible luck on the part of the terrorists to accomplish what they did. Hurricane Katrina was a natural event. Hurricanes happen multiple times per year, every year. Katrina has ended the existence of numerous cities and town, most likely resulting in the deaths of thousands and creating tens of thousands of long-term refugees.

Ted Koppel, and too many other journalists and other leading figures in society, make the mistake of viewing terrorism as the worst thing that could ever happen. Terrorism primarily makes us afraid, which is the point. But the amount of sheer destruction in a terrorist act has never been greater than what happened on 9/11. Natural disasters cause much worse damage, kill thousands of people and can leave permanent physical scars on the land. We need to be prepared for the human cost of any disaster, but the natural ones are the ones we should worry about more than anything.

kherr @ 11:30 CDT | link | general