Success Story

Many comparisons have been made about the flooding occurring along the Mississippi River and Hurricane Katrina. Comparisons are now being made between how FEMA is responding to the flooding occurring now and its response during Hurricane Katrina. In a post at Instapundit, this caught my eye:

It's possible that Katrina was simply a harder-to-manage challenge because it was such a massive storm and because it hit an area (especially New Orleans and Louisiana) with weak social structures and poor government.

I wrote an email to Instapundit.

I think a lot of people still have no idea of the amount of destruction Hurricane Katrina did. FEMA made it to the Mississippi Coast a lot faster than I would have expected. The situation in New Orleans was different. To me, it wouldn't have made sense to try bring in truckloads of water and food to a city that was being evacuated, especially from the RealClear Poltics article you linked to which showed the National Guard had the necessary items on hand.

The damage from flooding and the number of homes destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in the New Orleans area and along the Mississippi can be likened to the destruction of two cities with populations of 100,000. These are cities which had a population of around 100,000 in 2005:

Arvada CO 103,966

Waterbury CT 107,902

Clearwater FL 108,687

Savannah GA 128,453

Springfield IL 115,668

Evansville IN 115,918

Olathe KS 111,334

Cambridge MA 100,135

Lansing MI 115,518

Manchester NH 109,691

Elizabeth NJ 125,809

Clarksville TN 112,878

How much effort would it take to rebuild any of the cities listed? Could it be done in 1 year, 2 years, 3 years? This is what we in Mississippi and the New Orleans area are facing. Hundreds of thousands of are doing so much like those in Iowa and other Mid-West states: With determination, hard work and by helping one another.*

Shira

Other comparisons have been made between the Mississippi River flooding and Hurricane Katrina. One of those is the seeming slowness of the rebuilding efforts. Some have suggested the slowness is due to a lack of character and many are just waiting for handouts. Some do have that mindset but it is a very, very small percentage. And it is that small percentage which gets the news coverage. The rest are busy working, rebuilding, and helping one another. It will take at a minimum of 10 years before some semblance of normalcy will be regained and all those homes rebuilt.

For every seen on the news complaining about demanding more help or saying it is too hot to look for work, there are tens of thousands of others who are quietly working and rebuilding.

Hurricane Katrina was a disaster of almost epic proportions. And the character of the people has shown we are equal to the daunting task of rebuilding and another American success story.