There's no there there anymore.

• Author: Rundles, Jeff
• Position: Rundles Wrap-up

AS YOU READ THIS, IT IS ALREADY OCTOBER AND THE passage of time has, perhaps, softened the blow of the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. As I write this, I am still in the emotional throes of trying to fathom what happened. Don't weep for me, of course; like most of the country, I was never personally in danger nor were any of my family and friends threatened.

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Still, the sheer comprehension of perhaps 10,000 dead, many of them probably the direct result of a shamelessly inadequate disaster response, is overwhelming. I have been going over and over and over in my mind what it means to call for the total evacuation of a city. And what I don't really understand is how you can call for a total evacuation and then provide no public transportation. I suppose what this means is that, quite literally and figuratively, being poor offers one no way out. I know I feel--and many people of my acquaintance and socio-economic level feel the same way--a bit of shame. For, while disaster is an equal opportunity destroyer, relief, rescue and reclamation quite obviously play a game of class.

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As I always do when a significant story breaks, I revert to my natural state: news junkie. I read everything, listen to the radio, and watch every all news channel on television, pretty much simultaneously. What was interesting about the Katrina story was how encompassing it was. There were Katrina stories even in the sports pages where catastrophe is usually dealt with as a schedule impeder. I noticed a story about a Denver Broncos assistant coach. Jimmy Spencer, whose normal four-person household had grown to 13 with the addition of family and friends from evacuated New Orleans. Spencer was quoted as saying. "New Orleans doesn't exist anymore. This is their home now."

In the broad scheme of things that might not be exactly true. I'm sure some semblance of New Orleans, and the rest of the Gulf Coast, will rise from the rubble and the stench. But the coach was right in some respects: Some things that were don't exist anymore and can never be rebuilt.

Certainly no one in the next disaster--impending, occurring, or in the aftermath, natural or otherwise--will wait for the authorities to come and save them. Whatever trust existed in the ability or willingness of...