Do we really have to blame it on someone?

After seen the aftermath of Katrina several things come to my mind. The first one is how helpless are we against the true power of nature, which less than a year ago displayed its power with the tsunami that wiped out parts of Indonesia, Thailand and other parts of the world, killing tenths of thousands.
The second thing that comes to my mind, and is less obvious, is the state of violence that arises from such situation. Even those who are normally kind people suddenly become raging individuals when desperate for food or water. It gives me a new perspective of why in poor countries where harsh conditions are the everyday life, people don't seem as nice as the people we normally see around us. It proves one more time that we might be at the top of the evolution stairway (I have my doubts about that...) but we are animals after all, with instincts that surface when nature calls.
Last but not least, our necessity to find a guilty soul to blame this on. Yes, there were warnings that the government didn't pay attention to. Guilty!. Yes, bureaucracy held rescue outside the disaster limits and help didn't reach those in need for six days. Guilty! These are awful things that should never happen, but we seem to find relief on a false sense of justice when we point our fingers at someone. Technology can predict the speed of a hurricane using computer models. It can also predict if a building will resist an earthquake. But no matter how advanced our computers, they can't predict if two thousand people running down the street in panic will turn right or left, or if the new neighbor Mr. Jones, thinks his ten year old dog is more important than his pain in the butt neighbor.