Assessing the aftermath of Katrina’s devastation

When did the United States become a country in which our poor drown in their attics? The embarrassment of our government’s incompetence is being broadcast to the world. The message? Our poor don’t matter to the president. The message to terrorists? We’re unprepared to handle any form of disaster.

ED BOVE

Whittier

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When I read about the plight of the victims in the wake of Katrina, I do not play the blame game. I move beyond that and think, “Where is my checkbook?” and “How can I help?” This is a natural disaster of monumental and complex proportions, and we all have to pull together to help create a solution.

SUSAN MCSHIRLEY

Los Angeles

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On top of losing everything, and passing through a thoroughly hellish experience, the remaining residents of New Orleans have to be scolded by politicians and news outlets for “looting.” It’s not looting when your child’s life is on the line. Real criminality is telling these poor souls to behave themselves while they watch bodies float past.

RICARDO M. COSTA

Pasadena

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President Bush on Friday condemned the government response to the disaster as unacceptable. This shameful posturing by which leaders attempt to appear outside the government one minute and the driving force behind it the next is unbelievable. Has anyone in the Bush administration bothered to tell our president that he is the government?

PAT PATTILLO

Redondo Beach

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With destruction all around him and a water-soaked teddy bear at his feet, Carolyn Cole’s Sept. 1 front-page photograph of Dillan Chancey, 7, says it all. I have tears in my eyes every time I look at this picture, and I plan to keep it to remind me how short and how tentative our lives of creature comfort really are.

JODY AVERY-SMITH

Newbury Park

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If Katrina had devastated Galveston, Texas, or Miami and left more than 500,000 “white folks” with nothing, would the Bush administration have been so slow and unorganized in its response?

MARK LENARTOWICK

Laguna Beach