Come see New Orleans

Jim Chen visited New Orleans this past weekend for a Tulane symposium:

Hurricane Katrina, the largest natural catastrophe in American history, wrecked 90,000 square miles. The land mass approximates that of Great Britain. Destruction on that scale can scarcely be imagined.

And that is precisely the problem. ...

Go see New Orleans. It has staggered to its feet, and the city's unique spirit truly is returning, bit by bit. But take the time too to see the ruined parts of the Gulf South. Reducing the many individual tragedies of Hurricane Katrina to statistics, and thereby numbing our ability to empathize with the storm's victims, would represent a new tragedy in its own right.

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