Katrina vs 500 Year Flood … I’m Just Sayin’
Iowa’s “Katrina”?
By TigerHawk
The flooding in eastern Iowa has reached the point of catastrophe. Towns are overwhelmed, businesses destroyed, and crops are gone. A fifth of the corn and soybeans are gone. Fox News is calling it “Iowa’s Katrina.” Here is a gallery of aerial phtographs at the web site of the newspaper I used to deliver every afternoon, the Iowa City Press-Citizen.
The thing is, though, the people of eastern Iowa seem to be stepping up in the Iowa stubborn way. I have seen any number of man-on-the-street interviews, and nobody is complaining. They all seem to be working to solve their problem, which is not surprising because Iowans do not complain about tragedy. They complain about hot weather and dry weather, but not tragedy. And I have looked for reports of looting and come up empty so far.
Katrina has become a metaphor for many things beyond natural disaster, including governmental and individual incompetence (depending on your point of view). In Iowa there is a 500 year flood, but the people are not paralyzed, whining, or looting. There will be no massive relief effort from around the world, and nobody will step up to help Iowans except for other Iowans. Yet years from now, there will be no Iowans still in FEMA camps.
The difference is not in the severity of the flood, but in the people who confront the flood.
Hmmmm … Remember this?
Toto, I don’t think we’re in Iowa:
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We were just talking about this very topic this evening.
In Iowa, people were raised to work hard and overcome. To be responsible for themselves and their family. There are no free rides or free handouts. Hard work and perseverance.
Quite a contrast. Despite similar damage and devistation, I bet Cedar Rapids and Des Moines are back up and running at 100% capacity long before they are done “rebuilding” in New Orleans.
June 14th, 2008 at 9:20 pmdrill:
Although only blacks are framed in the last picture, this is not a race issue. This is a learned issue. Anyone who has relied on others(government) for their existance knows no better. When we had severe flooding in northwest Ohio last year, FEMA came to help (?). In more than one instance volunteers and property owners were cleaning up and repairing homes so the property owners could get back with their lives when a FEMA agent would tell them they must stop or be denied possible government benefits. Most times the answer was “If you’re not going to help, get the hell out of the way!” The loss of self-reliance will be the death of this country
June 14th, 2008 at 9:25 pm“The loss of self-reliance will be the death of this country.”
Indeed sir. Indeed.
June 14th, 2008 at 9:42 pmWe try to teach it to our Scouts. At least some of it sticks.
June 14th, 2008 at 10:15 pm
To Iowa, god bless you.
June 14th, 2008 at 11:49 pmRight on point. These people believe in do for yourselves. I lived in a small river town when the missouri busted through our levee in ‘95. People who lived in the bottoms got help from those who didn’t, and less than a month later all was back to normal.
Katrina was a perfect example of whats wrong with gov’t social programs. Those poeple didn’t leave when told to, then many died and the rest looted, then they all bitched that someone didn’t help them fast enough and many still live on the gov’t dime and hardly any homes in NO have been rebuilt.
I am proud to be a midwestern man.
June 15th, 2008 at 4:52 amI hear you about it NOT being a racial issue. When looking for pictures of N.O. looting I mostly came across ones such as I used … Others I was unable to grab and use for different reasons.
Anyhow, having said what you did, and others also, I know there are people of many different races in dire straights right now in Iowa and the Midwest … and I agree, THEY all will be continuing to bust their butts getting out of the way, getting out of trouble, and rebuilding.
June 15th, 2008 at 7:23 am