They get their start when one of the many influenza strains that constantly circulate in wild and domestic birds evolves into a form that infects us as well.
An influenza pandemic, by definition, occurs only when the influenza virus mutates into something dangerously unfamiliar to our immune systems and yet is able to jump from person to person through a sneeze, cough or touch.įlu pandemics emerge unpredictably every generation or so, with the last three striking in 1918, 19. The most fundamental thing to understand about serious pandemic influenza is that, except at a molecular level, the disease bears little resemblance to the flu that we all get at some time. The routine seasonal upsurges of flu and of hurricanes engender a familiarity that easily leads to complacency and inadequate preparations for the "big one" that experts admonish is sure to come. The threat of a flu pandemic is more ominous, and its parallels to Katrina more apt, than it might first seem. The lethargic, poorly coordinated and undersized response raises concerns about how nations would cope with a much larger and more lethal kind of natural disaster that scientists warn will occur, possibly soon: a pandemic of influenza. Yet when Katrina struck, the execution of that plan was abysmal. Federal, state and local authorities had a plan for how governments would respond if a hurricane were to hit New Orleans with 120-mile-per-hour winds, raise a storm surge that overwhelmed levees and water pumps, and strand thousands inside the flooded city. Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security who led the federal response, called Hurricane Katrina and the flood it spawned an "ultracatastrophe" that "exceeded the foresight of the planners."īut in truth the failure was not a lack of foresight. When the levees collapsed in New Orleans, the faith of Americans in their government's ability to protect them against natural disasters crumbled as well.
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