The hotel manager warned us. He said (and please read with a deep south USA drawl for proper effect): “Dontcha aw-ll wear any of yos jewellery and dontcha aw-ll carry any bags. If you is mugged givem yo ca-ash and dontcha aw-ll argue none.”

Having hired a babysitter for our three year old – which is a pretty daring thing to do in a strange country – my husband and I set out at 11pm down Bourbon Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans to hear Warren Zevon.

It was a fantastic night, strolling through the heart of Tennessee Williams country it felt just like it was meant to. The cast-iron, steamy scenes of Streetcar and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof sprang to life. And no harm befell us.

Having spent days staring unbelievingly at the devastation that has now visited that incredible city I was reminded of my sojourn there 18 years ago.

The lawlessness: was it always there, the nasty underbelly of a sub-class? Or do good people turn bad when survival is the name of the game? Or is it both?

I doubt whether I would have any qualms about looting for food and water if my choice for my family and myself was loot or die. And if there was no law and order and we were threatened and I had a gun – would I kill to protect my family? Or would my civilised upbringing kick in? Hard to tell until it happensbut I have always believed that civilisation is only skin deep.

Hurricane Katrina has raised some hugely challenging questions in her stormy wake. And her winds are still blowing – not just through the corridors of power in Washington as people struggle with some of the issues so brutally exposed by her destructive savageryand the collapse of the levees. (I had always wondered what that line in Don McLean’s classic meant – drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry).

New Orleans and the Mississippi have seen flooding before and this particular catastrophe was meant to be catered for in disaster plans, tested out only recently. Yet we were left with the pictures of piles of unused buses and coaches whilst nearby those who couldn’t afford their own transport were left stranded and struggling – and often dying.

Given that London is a flood plain for the most part and that the weather the world is experiencing appears volatile and threatening, we have a lot of work to do to make sure that our house is in order before we look down our noses at the Americans.

Shocking too has been the racial divide – so many of those left behind black, so many of those troops, police and officials white. And so many of those officials touting guns. This wasn’t the aftermath of a terrorist attack. New Orleans was not a city at war. But the scenes of armed people looked more like a scene from war-ravaged Beirut.

Whatever the mix is of fear between different groups of society, a gun-loving culture and desperation born of disaster that triggered this outpouring of weaponry, it is a shocking commentary on the state of America.

So when we turn our thoughts to our troubles here perhaps we need to recognise what lies beneath. We see eruptions born of discontent from time to time – a riot here, a bomb there. Communication, action, engagement, respect and hope and a feeling that we all matter – that is what every citizen has a right to. The words these days are good – stakeholder, partnership, engagement, social inclusion – but the reality, whilst not on the level of the disenfranchised of New Orleans, is still at danger levels.