rogueyam Posted June 15, 2008 Report Share Posted June 15, 2008 Saturday, June 14, 2008 Iowa's "Katrina"? By TigerHawk at 6/14/2008 09:52:00 PM 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. (That is the complete blogpost but the link to the photo gallery can be found here.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Torneyboy Posted June 15, 2008 Report Share Posted June 15, 2008 Amazing photos ...we saw on our news whole homes just falling into the torrent of water and float away .... Great quote: "The difference is not in the severity of the flood, but in the people who confront the flood." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flashermac Posted June 15, 2008 Report Share Posted June 15, 2008 The difference is in the way of thinking. The people in the Midwest tend to take care of themselves. But who raised the present NO generation to think otherwise? It wasn't that way in the past, when floods were fairly common. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rogueyam Posted June 15, 2008 Author Report Share Posted June 15, 2008 But who raised the present NO generation to think otherwise? Well, you know my answer to that question. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Torneyboy Posted June 15, 2008 Report Share Posted June 15, 2008 Well the *way* the people were looked after with Katrina ..no wonder they look after themselves during this disaster... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rogueyam Posted June 15, 2008 Author Report Share Posted June 15, 2008 Well the *way* the people were looked after with Katrina ..no wonder they look after themselves during this disaster... So your theory, in stark contrast to the author's, is that the current response of the Iowans to this flooding is not in keeping with their long-standing character and traditions but rather is a newly-formed approach seen only since Katrina? Is that really what you think? Or are you just trying to come up with something, anything, to avoid the question of how Iowans differ from New Orleanians and why? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Torneyboy Posted June 15, 2008 Report Share Posted June 15, 2008 Just saying ..look after themselves as help may take a very long time to arrive from the authorities .. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
USVirgin Posted June 15, 2008 Report Share Posted June 15, 2008 I have never been to New Orleans in my life but my first exposure to Katrina was from watching CNN at a bar on my lunchbreaks (I wasn't drinking alcohol:). The young, white, bartender was a native of Louisiana and a graduate of LSU. He shook his head with an 'I told you so' attitude about it, and told of us the unique traits of laziness and sense of entitlement that set the denizens of NO apart from the rest of the country. I'm not letting the Feds off the hook for Katrina, but I do believe there was something to what the young man had to say, and he wasn't speaking about race, AFAIK. Edit: Now that I think of it, he pretty much predicted the New Orleans response, before the hurricane even hit! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rogueyam Posted June 15, 2008 Author Report Share Posted June 15, 2008 Edit: Now that I think of it, he pretty much predicted the New Orleans response, before the hurricane even hit! The day before Katrina hit N.O. I was watching the cable news and they showed a huge line of people waiting to be admitted into the Superdome to ride out the storm there. Among the sad-sack New Orleanians there were a handful of tourists with their luggage who had come over from one of the downtown hotels. The news people briefly interviewed this British couple who were stoically and quite cheerfully entrusting themselves to the N.O. authorities and residents. I said out loud that I wouldn't go into that dome even if the only alternative was heading inland on foot. Days later I heard reports of tourists being removed by the police from the dome because they were being targeted for abuse by the locals on account of the tourists' race. Everybody in N.O. knew that as soon as the power went out the looting was going to start. Once the levees broke everyone in N.O. knew that it was going to be the law of the jungle for days or longer. The depravity of that city is well known to any with eyes to see who ever bothered to look. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
USVirgin Posted June 15, 2008 Report Share Posted June 15, 2008 That's pretty much what the bartender said, "Get the hell out of there!" As much as I hate to agree with you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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