The helping hand – July 1, 2008

0 Responses to The helping hand – July 1, 2008

1. Mike Honcho says:

   July 3, 2008 at 8:13 am

   While I think it is ridiculous to compare the Omaha storms to Katrina…it’s not so ridiculous to compare what happened in Iowa with Katrina. In both cases, people were warned to evacuate with a reasonable amount of time to do so. I didn’t hear about mass looting in Iowa (could be cuz there’s nothing there to steal) like I did with New Orleans. People pitched in together to help each other, instead of helping themselves.

   In both cases, people need and deserve federal help, but something tells me that the recovery time will have more to do with attitude than resources…those with a ‘can-do’ attitude will, and those with a ‘can’t-do’ attitude won’t.

   BTW, I helped a co-worker clean up trees in Ceresco after the relatively small tornado wreaked significant damage throughout town…I assure you there was more to it than just ‘picking up sticks’. It was truly a beautiful thing to witness…friends and neighbors, even complete strangers helping each other.

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2. neal says:

   July 3, 2008 at 8:24 am

   Mike,

   Please explain why you feel the situations in Iowa and Hurricane Katrina are comparable, particularly as relates to how those situations then relate to the attitudes of the victims. I would like to know what you’re thinking.

   PS: thanks for stopping by this site too.

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3. Mike Honcho says:

   July 3, 2008 at 1:47 pm

   I think they are comparable in that, in both cases, the infrastructure that was supposed to keep them safe let them down. Now, I’ll admit I haven’t heard a whole lot of reactions regarding the situation in Iowa…which I blame partially on myself, and partially on the fact that the media hasn’t given the Iowa flooding that much coverage. I think it is also due to the fact that midwestern folks don’t buy into the idea that they’ve been victimized. Having been through this before, and knowing that they live in a floodplain, they realize that this type of thing is bound to happen, and whining for help won’t accomplish anything. The people and leaders of New Orleans, a town mostly below sea level, surrounded by river & lake & ocean, and residing in a hurricane prone part of the country, seemingly crossed their fingers and hoped for the best, and when the worst happened (twice), they acted surprised! As if such a flood was beyond the realm of possibility.

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4. neal says:

   July 3, 2008 at 2:32 pm

   So are you also arguing that there was an equivalence in the severity of the situations and the ability of the victims to deal with those situations?

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5. Mike Honcho says:

   July 7, 2008 at 8:13 am

   Not necessarily…Katrina displaced a lot more people because it hit a population center, whereas the Iowa flooding still displaced quite a few people, but wreaked more havoc on agriculture. Plus Katrina brought wind and floods, whereas Iowa only had floods.

   My argument is that, in both cases, many people lost their homes. The difference is in the fact that, in New Orleans, people were angry that the government didn’t do enough to protect them, when they should have been thinking about how they could have protected themselves.

   Now again, due to the lack of media coverage on Iowa, I don’t have all the details…but I haven’t heard nearly as much of that type of attitude coming out of Iowa. Having lived in Iowa for my formative years, my guess is that the Iowegians knew that there was work to be done, and got to it.

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6. neal says:

   July 7, 2008 at 9:36 am

   Okay, in case it’s not obvious enough, I can’t believe you’re making this ridiculous claim. You think that people in the deepest of poverty, many with no cars, have the same means of escaping the floods as the people of Iowa? The level and manifestation of poverty in New Orleans — where the worst victims were — isn’t even comparable to Iowa. And the government built the levees. Why is it not reasonable for people to depend on them? You act as if the only reasonable thing to do is to go around expecting everything built by the government to fail. Clearly the Bush Administration didn’t understand the magnitude of the devastation in Katrina until nearly a week later — yet you expect everyone there to have a firm grasp on how bad everything was going to be in advance?

   Don’t get me wrong — Iowa got hit hard. But your eagerness to blame the losses of Katrina (including the thousands of people who died) on whining and bad attitudes, when you’ve admittedly remained ignorant about how bad the Iowa floods actually were, speaks far more about you and your predispositions than it does about the victims of the hurricane. The damage in Iowa is estimated to be around $700 million. The damage in New Orleans is about $80 billion. That’s less than 1 percent of what happened from Katrina. Would you argue the buildings, roads and property in Iowa have more of a “can-do” attitude as well?

   It’s entirely possible to commend the people of Iowa for how they handled their floods without disparaging people who lost absolutely everything. I just don’t understand the willingness to belittle what so many people lost and suffered through in order to pat some other people on the back. What an ugly compliment.

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7. Mike Honcho says:

   July 7, 2008 at 11:13 am

   Wow…I certainly didn’t mean to belittle the people of New Orleans, I can’t imagine how I’d react if similar devastation occurred here.

   I realize that New Orleans is very poverty stricken, and many people simply did not have the means to escape, but I think even you would admit that many stayed behind by choice. The Bush Administration took a lot of heat over Katrina, and much of it was deserved, but how was the slow, lumbering federal government going to organize an evacuation? Such duties should have been covered by the city and state governments, and they failed miserably. However, I don’t see how people could not have seen Katrina coming. Days prior to landfall, Katrina was forecast to hit in the New Orleans area, and was a very strong storm that got even stronger from the warm Gulf seawater. The largest failure was on behalf of the local governments to evacuate the citizens, yet they shouldered almost none of the blame.

   I didn’t mean to blame the losses of Katrina on poor attitudes…certainly the deaths can be more directly attributed the hapless evacuation effort than whining. I apologize if that was the message I conveyed, it certainly wasn’t what was intended.

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8. Andrew Potratz says:

   July 7, 2008 at 1:08 pm

   Mike Honcho’s offensively dumb.

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9. Mike Honcho says:

   July 7, 2008 at 2:27 pm

   Coming from you, I’ll take that as a compliment.

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