Looting After A Disaster - Is It Ever "OK"?

(New Orleans After Hurricane Katrina)

 

We all saw the headlines after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit Haiti in January 2010: the deaths, the destruction and then, the looting. Images from CNN and other news networks trickled in to show desperate Haitians looking for food, water, and other things in the rubble. Then, mobs began to break into buildings which provoked US Forces to protect private property like banks and other establishments. So, how bad is looting? Is it ever "OK" to loot?

During the 1992 Los Angeles riots in South Central looting occurred on a mass scale. Dozens of stores were broken into and people carried away TVs, stereos, and anything worth taking. The chaos created by angry protests and the fires gave an opportunity to people to take advantage of the situation and engage in looting. No earthquake had taken place or any other natural disaster -- it was all civil unrest that had gotten out of hand. 

When I was in New Orleans, just four days after Hurricane Katrina had swept the region, I drove near by Canal Street just outside of the French Quarter. Store after store had been broken into by looters: Tiffany's and other expensive stores had their windows broken and everything inside the store stolen. There was office furniture all over the streets and sidewalks from ransacked buildings and shops. A few brand-new Corvettes were abandoned in lanes and alleys, apparently the cars had run out of gasoline; they had been taken from a dealership after the storm.

Immediately after Katrina hit, the police was overwhelmed by the chaos created by the flooding, the evacuation procedures, etc. At night New Orleans became a war zone where fire was exchanged between mobs and a weakened police force. The National Guard had to be brought in to help police and try to establish order. A curfew was put in place to keep the streets clear; any unauthorized person wondering around past curfew was immediately arrested.

Looting In History

Looting has been part of history for centuries, perhaps since the beginning of time. Vandals looted Rome in 455; crusaders looted Constantinople in 1204, and the list goes on. Shortly after the US intervened in Iraq, looters there stole ancient sculptures and art from the museums. It was chaos on the streets while US Forces were busy taking down Saddam Hussein's government. Still today, almost 6 years later, many of those precious pieces of art have not been recovered and perhaps never will be.

The opportunity to take goods during times of chaos and unrest is one many people can't resist -- some do it for survival when the search is for food and water, but others do it for their own gain. Perhaps we should look at looting from a cultural standpoint. Take for example the 1995 earthquake in Kobe, Japan, where there were no reports of looting. Mind you, the Kobe earthquake or the "Great Hanshin" earthquake, as it is also known, was a destructive 6.8 magnitude quake that brought the Japanese economy to a halt. The destruction was severe and over 6,400 people lost their lives. Firefighters and police were overwhelmed by the number of fires that erupted and by rescue efforts. The Japanese military arrived 3 days later to assist first responders, but looting didn't occur. 

So why didn't the survivors of the Kobe earthquake not indulge in the act of looting when there was ample opportunity to do it? Maybe because taking things that are not yours isn't really part of the Japanese culture. Japan is perhaps the only country in the world today where if you lose a wallet full of money on the train, it will be returned to you with exactly every penny you had in it before you lost it. Since I've been living in Tokyo, I keep hearing story after story of people who lose expensive cell phones, wallets, etc., and get those objects back within days. Such honesty is often unheard of in the US. 

Trusting The Government

About 300,000 Japanese were homeless following the Kobe quake and they waited patiently in lines for food and water distributions. Also, convenience stores opened on the same day the quake hit, so people were not completely cut off from supplies. The government response to the Kobe quake was very slow and there was lots of criticism from the international community and from the Japanese people about it, but things would have been much worse if survivors had engaged in theft and further destruction of property. 

The faith that the Japanese people placed in their government to help them after the quake is also what may have kept them from looting. Critics have often complained of how protective the Japanese government can be of its people -- often accusing it of being "controlling." But this "protective" projection of the government paid off after the Kobe earthquake; the Japanese didn't at all doubt that help would eventually come, and it did. 

This assurance that the government will guarantee that you will have what you need after a major natural disaster doesn't exists in many countries. Looting will most likely occur in places where the people are at odds with their government or where the government is corrupted. During the event of a natural disaster or civil unrest, the act of looting closely resembles an act of rebellion from the people against the powers or system in place -- a power which has suddenly succumbed to Mother Nature or has been overwhelmed by other forces.I'm not a sociologist, but this is my own journalistic theory. 

Thus, during the Los Angeles Riots in 1992, the mostly African American population showed their anger at the verdict of the Rodney King case and rebelled against what they perceived as an oppressive and unjust system by engaging in destruction of private property and looting. In Haiti, we all know about the government corruption that has plagued that country for decades, so the desperation for survival after a major quake forced people to fend for themselves by looting for anything that they could consume, use, trade, or sell.

The looting during Hurricane Katrina is a combination of what happened in the LA Riots and what we saw later in Haiti. Take poor people who have suffered racism and discrimination for decades, plus a government they don't fully believe in and add a major hurricane, what do you get?

Many parts of the world will continue to be affected by natural disasters, terrorist attacks, and civil unrest. So, the questions raised in this article are: how can well-intentioned governments help assure communities that they will respond quickly and efficiently to disasters in order to avoid looting? What work needs to be done first to gain the confidence and trust of these communities?

Unfortunately, in the past decade with Hurricane Katrina in the US and the quake in Haiti, government agencies have failed to project an image of efficiency when responding to major disasters. Communities are still not really sure if their emergency agencies will come through for them after the slow response and lack of advance planning and preparation that these agencies showed in New Orleans and Haiti. Our survival instincts in emergencies can be overpowering and worse if we feel like no one is there to help us. There is much work to be done to convince people that they can trust in their government during chaotic times, not only would this work help to facilitate saving lives, but also in minimizing property losses. 

 

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Comments

[Los angeles maids]

I really am impressed with the Japanese because they really do not take anything that is not on their possession. Looting must be bad, but maybe it really can't be avoided. It could be maybe right if no one take it back and you are really in need.

[Natural Disasters]

Here in Jamaica people loot for almost anything, I can understand in a crisis after all a life is worth more than just a few dollars loss in a business.

[theresarraga]

crisis is everywhere,.. Let's pray for blessing

[FIREMAN SALARY RANGE]

when we say crisis we tend also to fall emotionally, the victory starts in the mind. Lets all hope and pray and do what we can extend to out economy.