Historically, humans get serious about avoiding disasters only after one has just struck them. __62__ that logic, 2006 should have been a breakthrough year for rational behavior. With the memory of 9/11 still __63__ in their minds, Americans watched hurricane Katrina, the most expensive disaster in U.S. history, on __64__ TV. Anyone who didn’t know it before should have learned that bad things can happen. And they are made __65__ worse by our willful blindness to risk as much as our __66__ to work together before everything goes to hell.
Granted, some amount of delusion (错觉) is probably part of the __67__ condition. In A.D. 63, Pompeii was seriously damaged by an earthquake, and the locals immediately went to work __68__, in the same spot—until they were buried altogether by a volcano eruption 16 years later. But a __69__ of the past year in disaster history suggests that modern Americans are particularly bad at __70__ themselves from guaranteed threats. We know more than we __71__ did about the dangers we face. But it turns __72__ that in times of crisis, our greatest enemy is __73__ the storm, the quake or the __74__ itself. More often, it is ourselves.
So what has happened in the year that __75__ the disaster on the Gulf Coast? In New Orleans, the Army Corps of Engineers has worked day and night to rebuild the flood walls. They have got the walls to __76__ they were before Katrina, more or less. That’s not __77__, we can now say with confidence. But it may be all __78__ can be expected from one year of hustle (忙碌).
Meanwhile, New Orleans officials have crafted a plan to use buses and trains to __79__ the sick and the disabled. The city estimates that 15,000 people will need a __80__ out. However, state officials have not yet determined where these people will be taken. The __81__ with neighboring communities are ongoing and difficult.