when God's away, the Devil will play

John Howard in that speech last night:

"We should have been more humble. We have our Katrina here and now. That it has unfolded more slowly and absent the hand of God should make us humbler still."

Absent the hand of God? I thought God had His fingers in all pies. If He was absent, where was He? Busy elsewhere in the world causing freakish weather--hurricanes, tsunamis and the like--and the ensuing human misery, as part of His Grand Plan?