Columnist Susan Snyder: Even here, tragedy is inescapable

Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2005 | 8:02 a.m.

Sitting over coffee with a couple of the usual suspects Sunday morning, the conversation took a turn I had expected, though not quite so soon.

"You know, it's terrible to say, but I'm a little sick of hearing about Katrina," one of them said.

Exactly two weeks earlier, the hurricane that would forever change the landscape of the Deep South was still bearing down on the nation's coastline.

As of today, it has been only two weeks since dawn broke on the scene of our $100 billion mess, with images that will haunt our country's psyche for decades. This storm, like the Sept. 11 terrorists' attacks, will give us plenty to be sick of.

And we don't even know what all that means, yet.

For example, Louisiana's poorest people are among some of the most poverty-stricken in the nation. And their resettlement in other cities -- including Las Vegas -- will change the fabric of the communities in which they choose to make their new lives.

This is in addition to those residents who were clinging precariously to the middle-class and have lost everything. It's a new class of poor for whom communities will need to make room and provisions.

We started feeling the pinch of this new society last week, as local families who had been waiting months for federally subsidized housing learned they might have to wait longer as those units are given to Hurricane Katrina victims.

With the median price for a home in the Las Vegas Valley hovering at $309,000, it could take a while for some of these recently displaced people to get on their feet.

Clark County public health officials told a Las Vegas Sun reporter last week that the valley also could be facing widespread infection from communicable diseases brought by victims with whom they are sharing close quarters.

And that is in addition to the care we will need to provide for those with chronic illnesses such as diabetes, cancer and heart disease. Remember, many of these people might no longer have health insurance because they no longer have jobs.

The list gets longer, when you consider finding jobs for the adults, classroom space and supplies for their children and transportation for everyone.

My friend is a good, giving person. I would venture he was among the first to send a donation and would be the kind of person to give more than once.

But he's right. We're all sick of the images, the problems, the inconvenience, the incredible sadness.

And we're likely to get sicker, the more we hear and learn about how New Orleans really was before the storm and what the long-term human effects of government policies really mean from Congress on down.

Whether brought to thousands by a hurricane or to one family by a quiet series of unfortunate events, nobody wants to be poor, unemployed and homeless.

Like other communities across the country, the Las Vegas Valley is poised at a place where the decisions we make to help Katrina's poor could help improve the lot of the poor people who lived here before Katrina landed.

But those discussions and solutions will come from the work of the lucky ones.

The ones who can get away from it all simply by switching off the TV.