By Denise Barrett

Six months after Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast, its staggering physical and emotional toll remains evident. Few of the 108,000-plus New Orleans families whose homes filled with water have returned. More than 35,000 families in Mississippi’s flattened coastal communities live in temporary FEMA trailers.

What’s happened since Katrina’s August landfall along the U.S. Gulf Coast is strikingly similar to the relief and recovery efforts I’ve been a part of in Liberia and Rwanda. The harrowing tales of survival, widespread displacement, families forced to live apart — coupled with government failure to respond adequately — are all things I’ve seen and heard before. But I never thought I’d experience this in my own country.

Acknowledging our vulnerability and interdependence is the key bridging gaps between people — between citizens and their government, between various levels of government — that Katrina’s floodwaters seem to have washed away. Until we accept that we are all in this together, it will be impossible both to properly prepare for the next Katrina-like disaster and to make progress on addressing the appalling social problems that Katrina exposed in the Gulf region.

Since the disaster, too much energy has been spent in blame mode, when the real priority needs to be understanding the root causes of what happened here — and what could happen elsewhere if we don’t make serious, systemic changes to our national disaster preparedness plan. As someone who has spent 12 years working on complex emergencies, the lesson of Katrina for Americans and their leaders is clear: citizens and communities need deeper engagement with all levels of government to improve planning both for disaster and for social, economic and political changes that accompany it.

Mercy Corps and our colleague agencies often promote this sort of “community mobilization” in fledgling democracies overseas. For the last three years, I managed a program in Liberia, West Africa, home to the first female president in Africa. We help farming villages elect their own leadership councils and manage their own resources — a huge step forward for a country with a long history of failed national governments.

But while we so nobly attempt to spread democracy abroad, too often we neglect to keep our own democracy strong.

We know Katrina won’t be America’s last natural disaster. In fact, the next great calamity could very well be in the Pacific Northwest. My home in Lynnwood is less than five miles from Puget Sound, 20 miles from the Seattle Fault and less than an hour’s drive from the nearest volcano.

In my experience overseas, disasters — whether triggered by man or nature — often lead to community transformation, because they galvanize people to solve the problems that the disaster reveals. So let Katrina be a call for preparedness and engagement. Disaster will strike again. But next time, we can be ready.

Denise Barrett, who lives in Lynnwood, is currently on assignment as head of Portland-based Mercy Corps’ relief and recovery efforts on the Gulf Coast.