God nudges; He forgives; He nudges again; He forgives; He nudges harder; He chastises mildly and forgives; He reminds; He reminds; He reminds; He chastises a bit more; we ignore; He forgives; eventually...He judges if we are His children or if His children are oppressed; or, so it seems to my small mind peering into a mirror darkly at an incomparably greater Mind.
I don't know much about the tornado, but surely God is allowing catastrophe in His omnipotence. To be unjust, however, would make Him the author of sin. It's just my opinion--necessarily a tiny opinion in the burning light of His omniscience--that:
(1) Some tragic events are unfortunate happenstances as the example from the Gospel when Jesus asked His disciples if they thought that the collapse of the tower killing nearly a score of workers was because this construction's crew were sinners above all the rest. Christ's answer was no!
(2) Some tragic events are the result of evildoers as a murder or rape would be. A belief in God being not only merciful but also just demands His perfect recompense for the victim toward the perpetrator. "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord."
(3) Some tragic events are the result of direct intervention of God Himself on evildoing as in the deaths of Ananias, Sapphira, Herod Antipas, etc. in the New Testament and any number of destructions in the Old Testament.
Personally, I believe the devastation along the Gulf Coast was a combination of all three, but mostly #2. And, suffering does cleanse if it is in chastisement; but, suffering vindicates if it is punitive. With life's span being wispily short in comparison with eternity, afterlife is almost the full balance of our being's existence. Thus, a shortened life may be a blessing to the one departed (a la Twain's Mysterious Stranger) while a great suffering is left behind for the bereaved.
Yet, how can we know the delectable pleasure of warming ourselves before a winter's fire if we have never known cold? How can we truly appreciate reunion if we have never known loss? How can we experience a multitude of added and ever-continuing joys which would have been withheld from us if we had not experienced a multitude of intense but (beside eternity) brief pains? Hence viewed, suffering is a very large gift for relief from pain is exquisite, and unending earthly thrill sates and dulls and maddens.
A very long life, then, may also be a blessing if it gains much wisdom in traversing many dark valleys as well as gaining much experience of complex pleasures such as the warm fire and reunion that could otherwise have not been truly appreciated or even known at all, and simpler pleasures afore-known in this life are even more of the bounty of His grace. I really do believe that God knows what He is doing. A brief life, a long life, a hard life, a "blessed" life--in short, it's all good!
Really? You believe that Katrina's devastation was mostly caused by evildoers? Do tell.