Hurricane Song by Paul Volponi

         The book "Hurricane Song" by Paul Volponi tells about Hurricane Katrina that occurred in New Orleans in 2005. The story illustrates a lot of the social and racial ignorance that effected many during the storm.
         During Hurricane Katrina, privileged people were definitely the safest. The wealthier, mostly white people with connections to people outside New Orleans had an easier time getting transportation out of danger zones than poorer, mostly hispanic or African American people who didn't have an easy route to safety. It was an unfair time for many who were stranded by the disaster. The worst part of it was that none of the people with the authority to control the damage had had the foresight to see that the less fortunate people of New Orleans wouldn't have ways to avoid it.  This caused many problems, for example, while some people were able to escape the city and stay in safer areas, others were killed by the storm, had their shops stolen from, starved, developed sicknesses, or were killed by gang members.
          The government's solution to save the endangered citizens from harm was to keep them in the Louisiana Superdome. They were unprepared for the thousands of people that would need shelter, and soon they were overcrowded, the bathrooms overflowed, people stole from one another, the temperatures were dangerously high, gangs arose, and people were raped and murdered, all in the pitch black dark of the storm.
         The mindlessness and ignorance on the government's part led to the deaths of hundreds of innocent people. I think that lack of foresight and consideration of a wider spectrum of people can lead to destruction of many lives, much like how many teenagers don't think about how kids who aren't as cool as others feel about things.