Perspective

In the moments immediately following the disaster that struck Southern California on January 17, 1994, my first thoughts centered on my personal safety. That’s okay. Self-preservation is the bottom rung on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

I knew instantly we’d had an earthquake because I’d been through them before. None had included the sound of glass breaking, eerie flashes of light, nor instant loss of power and phones.

So, when all the noise and the shaking stopped,and I stood in the doorframe waiting for the next big jolt, my thoughts turned to guessing where, logistically, I fit in. Was I directly over the epicenter? If so, good. I had experienced the worst of it, and I was fine.

But, what if the epicenter were ten miles away? Thirty miles away? Hundreds of miles away? If so, a lot of people were in deep, deep trouble.

Without electricity and phones, there was no way to know.

I longed to get in my car and drive to my parents, but what if the freeways had collapsed? There was no way to know.

In a relatively short time, the phones were restored in my neighborhood. My niece called from Maryland and held the phone up to the TV so I could hear what CNN was reporting. Only then was I able to gain some perspective. As awful as the news was, I knew we hadn’t suffered “The Big One.” But I also knew that what had happened didn’t just happen to my house, my block, or even my neighborhood. An entire metropolitan area had been effected.

My point is, as I watch the coverage of the horrific disaster on the Gulf Coast, and witness the overwhelming anger, disappointment and abandonment the victims feel, I have to remind myself they have no perspective. Without electrical power, phones—without modern communication—they have no concept of how vast the destruction is, nor how complex the relief effort must be. The people trapped in the convention center believe they’re at the epicenter; the thousands in the Superdome believe they are; and likewise the citizens of Gulfport and the people trapped in attics. All believe they've been forgotten. The only thing they know for sure is that they haven’t eaten, they have no water, and no one is coming to help.

I have less compassion for those who know what the score is but are focused on blame. As in, the police aren’t doing enough...the Mayor’s not doing enough...the President’s not doing enough...the government’s not doing enough.

Maybe we’ve become a culture who too readily expects to be taken care of. Maybe we’ve bred a generation of citizens accustomed to being bailed out. Maybe we’ve come to believe that government officials, like doctors, are gods who can fix anything.

They’re people, after all. People doing their best in a calamity of unprecedented proportions.