The "great unravelling": how Southern and Gulf Region editorialists examined the Great Storms of 2005.

Picture if you will, a pebble dropped into a placid pond. Observe the amplitude of the ripples as they spread across the surface, getting smaller as the distance from the epicenter grows.

That is news and editorial opinion as they spread across society.

Now drop a boulder in the pond.

And welcome yourself to Katrina's world.

To say that Katrina was just another pebble in the pond is to understate what has happened to America. Katrina was a sea change, so big that it already has impacted national politics and given President George W. Bush the lowest approval ratings in his tenure. It has refocused the nation's attention on the racial disparities in America (although there are signs that that issue could already be wearing thin). It has raised questions as to how cities should be built--and whether parts of damaged cities should be rebuilt at all. It has impacted energy prices, affected consumer markets, changed school attendance levels in several states, and (along with evil twin Rita) had a significant impact on the ability of the state of Louisiana to meet its payroll.

And the editorial pages across the affected states (as well as the editorial comments and cartoons from major newspapers across the world) show it.

There are several observations that can be made after reading the editorial comment in newspapers across Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia.

1. Outrage over the failure of leadership at both the local and national levels was pretty much across the board. Normally, one would expect the emotional response to decrease as the distance increases. A newspaper in Dallas or Houston or Atlanta, for example, would not be expected to have the emotional involvement, interest or level of anger over Katrina as a newspaper in New Orleans or Biloxi. But they did.

An Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial on October 13, for example, was headlined "Unable to spell relief." FEMA keeps fumbling attempts to help evacuees, which drives up taxpayers' costs." The newspaper argued that federal relief efforts had been "hindered by an all-too-familiar lack of coordination, and in some cases, a lack of common sense."

The Austin American-Statesman said only two people emerged from Katrina with enhanced reputations--General Russell Honore, the cigar-chomping general called in when FEMA failed, and Texas governor Rick Perry, who opened the state to refugees from Louisiana. Editor Rich Oppel, in another column, called the federal response to Katrina a "bipartisan blotch."

The Corpus Christi Caller-Times said the government's lack of response to Katrina was: "Horrific. Tardy. Appalling."

2. Interest in the event has been maintained for two months. Typically, one would expect the interest to grow smaller in cities not directly affected as the amount of time increased.

The Austin American Statesman's editorial on October 21, for example, said "And now we have Hurricane Wilma, threatening South Florida even as the gross incompetence of the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina is being further exposed." The Atlanta Journal Constitution worried on October 25 that oil companies were using Katrina as a way of putting pressure on Congress to open drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Birmingham News worried on October 24 that the National Flood Insurance Program would drown in the red ink caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

3. While newspapers in unaffected cities argue over national affairs, newspapers in the areas hardest hit by Katrina--New Orleans and Biloxi--spend a great deal of editorial space on the day-to-day problems confronting the region. The Times-Picayune, for example, noted that cleanup of New Orleans debris is proving to be a far more difficult job than anyone expected and would not be completed within the sixty days President Bush set for full federal funding.

"President Bush should reconsider the deadline. Southeast Louisiana is struggling to recover from a nearly fatal blow; we shouldn't have to face the prospect of drowning in a sea of rotting debris," it stated. The Times-Picayune also recently criticized residents of St. John the Baptist Parish who were opposing the expansion of an existing trailer park by thirty spots to handle displaced citizens who will be living in FEMA-provided trailers.

4. For a region that was so supportive of President George W Bush, editorial comments in the five states of Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia were fairly pointed about the failure of his administration in dealing with Katrina. In fact, the editorial comments of newspapers in the region did not seem to differ much in tone or criticism when compared with newspapers on the much more Democratic Party-oriented East or West Coast.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, for example, slammed the Bush administration for suspending the Davis-Bacon Act (which prevents contractors from hiring cheaper itinerant labor) for reconstruction while giving big construction companies expensive no-bid contracts. Rod Dreher, a Dallas Morning News editorial writer and columnist, came from a different angle but reached the same critical conclusion about Bush. He decried what the president has done to conservatism and listed a litany of sins by the president ranging from the Katrina "debacle" to the Iraq "quagmine" and the "LBJ-level spending."

5. Katrina brought the twin issues of race and poverty back to the editorial pages of the region. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution hoped that "Katrina can be the catalyst to replace pits of poverty with ownership opportunities." However, the Houston Chronicle worried that FEMA would create "communities of entrenched poverty" with its trailer home complexes, saying FEMA's "emergency housing plan is proving that rushing into a catastrophe without a long-term vision can be as foolish as wringing one's hands uselessly on the sidelines."

Meanwhile, the Austin American-Statesman was opining that "Katrina opened our eyes to a world of daily personal tragedy and a cycle of poverty fueled by stagnant wages, inadequate educational opportunity, and a lack of affordable health care."

6. Katrina gave New Orleans a chance to clean up its act. The Times in Shreveport, for example, carried a column by a Louisiana political analyst that praised New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin's suggestion that the city's under-achieving school system be converted to charter schools. The Augusta Chronicle in Georgia said New Orleans "has an opportunity not only to pump out the physical muck and sewage caused by the breach in the flood walls, but the cultural muck and sewage as well--and to rebuild that culture from the ground up too. But this time, the culture and politics should be fresh, clean, and honest."

7. Katrina gave journalists a chance to clean up their act too. The Journal-Constitution, for example, argued that too many journalists lost their skepticism in Katrina's wake and began believing the fanciful stories about babies raped and beheaded, widespread rapes, and murders that came out of the Superdome and the Convention Center in New Orleans. Those stories were later shown by a New Orleans Times-Picayune investigation to be highly overblown.

The editorial pages, in short, indicate that Katrina might well have been the perfect storm to refocus the nation's attention on the way government operates. It has called attention to the fact that the country, despite spending billions, still remains unprepared for a disaster the likes of 9/11. It has shown the limitation of small government and the need for a government of last resort that can step in and handle the needs of an overwhelmed state. It, along with Rita, has shown that evacuation plans are poorly thought-out and incapable of evacuating a major U.S. city within an acceptable period of time. It has renewed interest in the way government handled crises in the past--from Herbert Hoover's one-man handling of the Great Flood of 1927 to the Works Project Administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

And Katrina has shown also how this nation, when confronted with disaster, begins looking for scapegoats instead of solutions. It has shown in the words of Jim Wooten, associate editorial page editor at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "something alarming about the nation we've built: It doesn't take much for the unraveling to start."

Jay Perkins is an associate professor of journalism at Louisiana State University. E-mail [e-mail]