Hurricane Isaac has come and (finally) gone, after spending far too long brooding over us and throwing us into disarray. In its wake it has left a number of subjects worthy of complaint. Power outages frustrated our efforts either to keep up with school or avoid the crushing humidity, and parts of Carrollton flooded that had no right or reason to do so.

By and large, however, we managed to elude damage, and so are more fortunate than other parts of the city and indeed the state. Although many people in New Orleans and the Loyola community chose to evacuate, the city was largely unharmed; indeed, the term “hurrication” flowed frequently through Facebook and across campus. Loyola’s response, though not as quick as it perhaps should have been, served to keep those on campus safe. At most, we suffered minor inconvenience.

This is not true for the rest of the state. Isaac was dangerous-we have seen enough toppled trees and downed power lines to attest to this. And though New Orleans has been able to brush off the worst of it within a week, Isaac has had more far-reaching consequences. Plaquemines Parish suffered grievously from flooding; as of Tuesday this week, it was still as bad as four feet in some places. And the pulling back of the oil rigs in preparation for Isaac’s impact, which provide much of the United States’ domestic oil, created economic ripples, if only in the form of increased gas prices.

New Orleans was directly in the path of Isaac, and the legacy of Katrina made another brush with a hurricane a worrying prospect that drew both the focus of the news and the Loyola community. That we escaped so unharmed is very much a blessing, and should be treated as such. The fact that almost the whole city has had power restored in the wake of such a powerful storm is a credit to the

infrastructure on which we all rely.

Whether our security was a matter of luck or preparation is up for discussion. What is not up for discussion is that we were lucky, especially compared to other parts of Louisiana. It is very easy to narrow your focus to the little bubble of our lives, be that Campus or uptown or even New Orleans as a whole. Likewise, it is very easy to narrow our focus to just our interests, even if those interests are very expansive. It is important to remember the wider world, and that big

events have big consequences.

Though we escaped the worst of the storm,

that does not mitigate how powerful it was. Whatever inconveniences we have suffered do not measure up to the dangers we could have suffered and that other places, such as Plaquemines Parish, actively underwent. Isaac was a big event, and we must look beyond our little lives to its big consequences.

This editorial is the majority opinion of the editorial board named above.