Hurricane Hysteria

If I lived in a house that flooded every time it rained, I don't think I would live there for long. Now, I might try building a moat (awesome!!) or something, but if that didn't work, I'd pack up and get out. Why, oh why, do people live in cities that are constantly and consistently barraged by hurricanes? I DON'T GET IT.

Hurricane Gustav is barreling through the Gulf, seemingly headed straight for New Orleans. The governor (Nagin) has pre-declared a state of emergency (in order to set up a go-ahead for federal assistance, and Governor Rick Perry of Texas has the national guard on standby. Nagin has already made it clear that an evacuation order is likely, especially if the storm reaches Category 3 status. People are starting to freak out, which brings me to the reason for my blog:

"I'm panicking," said Evelyn Fuselier of Chalmette, whose home was submerged in 14 feet of floodwater when Katrina hit. Fuselier said she's been back home only a year and nervously watched as Gustav swirled toward the Gulf of Mexico. "I keep thinking, 'Did the Corps fix the levees?,' 'Is my house going to flood again?' ... 'Am I going to have to go through all this again?'"

Yes. You will. And New Orleans along with several other coastal towns will continue to flood. So why do you live there? Why do you go through that? Seems like unnecessary masochistic behavior (is there a necessary kind?—hmm).

My uncle blogged about this a few months ago when the Midwest was flooding, I don't know where he picked it up, but I think it's tremendously insightful.

"Just a personal observation...as I watched the news coverage of the massive flooding in the Midwest with over 100 blocks of the city of Cedar Rapids, Iowa under water, levees breaking, and the attention now turned downstream for when this massive amount of water hits the Mississippi, what amazed me is not what we saw, but, what we don't see...

1. We don't see any looting.
2. We don't see any street violence.
3. We don't see people sitting on their roof tops waiting for the government to come save them.
4. We don't see people waiting on the government to do anything.
5. We don't see Hollywood organizing benefits to raise money for people to rebuild.
6. We don't see people blaming the President for all that's happened.
7. We don't see people ignoring evacuation orders.
8. We don't see people blaming a government conspiracy to blow up the levees as the reason some have not held.
9. We don't see the US Senators or the Governor of Iowa crying on TV.
10. We don't see the Mayors of these cities complaining about the lack of state or federal response.
11. We don't see or hear reports of the police confiscating personal firearms so only the criminals will be armed.
12. We don't see gangs of people going around and randomly shooting at the rescue workers.
13. You don't see some leaders in this country blaming the bad behavior of the Iowa flood victims on "society" (of course there are no wide spread reports of lawlessness to require excuses).
14. We don't see any foriegn countries offering assistance."

Indeed.