Friday morning we watched “When the Levees Broke.” It is a documentary on the events surrounding Hurricane Katrina. Directed by Spike Lee, it is a four hour film. We only watched select portions.
Psalm nine says,
“The nations have sunk into the pit they made;
their foot is taken in the net they hid.”
Briefly touched on in the film was the previous knowledge of the weakness of the levees. It was public knowledge twenty years ago that the levees couldn’t handle a storm of such magnitude. So instead of working, they covered their mistake with silence and pretended like nothing bad could happen. How sad! Almost all the city is built under sea level, like building a city in a pit surrounded by water. The waters came, and the city sunk in the pit. Attempting to hide the weak levees, they snared their own feet. The worst part is that almost every single person was killed because of this was not responsible. Also the Psalm says,
“The needy shall not forever be forgotten.”
They have deliverance from the calamities of this world in Christ.
On a personal level, street names such as Esplanade and places such as Metairie hit very close to me. I lived in Metairie for a month after Katrina. It was there that a World War II veteran told me how he has seen worse devastation from Katrina than the war. But in truth, “All things work together for the good of those that love the Lord.” For my personal experience there reconstructed my life, and while I could hardly give any relief to those suffering, the Lord could, and he had strange purposes which he worked through what we perceive as a terrible atrocity.