When our 'normal' world is shaken, we have to have as our bedrock something more firm than daily routines or social networks.

Mal Fletcher

I write this while on a plane en route from Washington to London. For much of the past week I waited with the residents of Virginia Beach, on America's east coast, for the arrival of Hurricane Ophelia, perhaps the little sister to Katrina.Thankfully, this particular hurricane moved out to sea before it had a chance to cause severe damage.

The atmosphere over those days of waiting could perhaps not be called tense as such. This is, after all, the hurricane season and the predicted force of this hurricane was not as great as others that have moved through over the years.

Yet people were watching TV forecasts closely. Perhaps more closely than usual in light of the horrendous events surrounding Hurricane Katrina which devastated so many lives in New Orleans and other southern centres.

Now there is talk of even further damage to these areas from a new and potentially more devastating hurricane.

More than one million people in Texas and Louisiana are being evacuated in anticipation of Hurricane Rita which has been designated a level 5 hurricane - the highest category available to weather forecasters.

It seems almost gratuitous now to write again the statistics surrounding Katrina's impact. So much has already been said and a final reckoning of the human and economic toll will not be available for some time.

Thankfully, the death toll figures now seem inclined to be much lower than some early projections suggested.

It is difficult to write about events of this magnitude without sounding trite, but perhaps we can learn some valuable lessons from Katrina.

It may be that, at the scientific level, meteorologists will discover something valuable; something which will help human populations to better prepare for such events in future.

At the political level, there is certainly much to be learned from the aftermath of Katrina: in terms of the logistical arrangements needed to face such events.

Politicians from both political parties, at both national and local levels, were caught 'on the hop' by Katrina's impact. It is a mistake they are evidently and predictably anxious not to repeat in the face of current and future threats.

Any lessons learned at either of these levels might be of great benefit in future to people living in hurricane affected areas -- and not just in the USA.

For those of us who, thankfully, live well away from the threat of hurricanes there might also be lessons to be learned.

We might, for example, reflect on the frailty of the human condition and the vulnerability of the social order in which we put so much faith every day.