Replies to '09/12-13 Hurricane Katrina: Rescuing the Rescuers and Rebuilding'

I live in Houston and have been working with the storm survivors at the Astrodome since they arrived in the city last week.  Yes, most of the people who were evacuated to our city are lower income, but very few of them are welfare recipients.  They are teachers, longshoremen, restaurant workers, laborers, domestic workers - most of them working taxpayers like you and me.  Many of them have already found jobs in our city, and job fairs going on in the city have been swamped.  Most of their children have been enrolled in school here, with many of the teachers who evacuated here working with our districts to help teach the additional students.  Many of the people who were forced to stay had no transportation to leave the city, or funds to pay for hotel accommodations for their families for a long period of time.   Many had elderly or sick relatives who were unable to be moved safely in an evacuation.  I grew up on the Gulf Coast, and after summer after summer of hurricane threats, many people take their chances on the storm changing directions, rather than going through the time and expense of an evacuation.  This storm did move off the projected path, and the folks who stayed in New Orleans would have been okay had the levees held.  The people in Mississippi are the ones who seem to be forgotten - and they're the ones who got the full impact of this storm when it changed directions before heading ashore.  I know the people who have been hurt by this horrible disaster appreciate the time and money you've given to help them, but until we've been in their shoes, we really can't point fingers at who we think hasn't taken responsiblity for their own safety and security.

This is exactly what I've been saying, but people seem to take it as prejudice or something.  There are people who are poor through no fault of there own and then there are people who are just plain lazy and want someone else to take care of them.  So many of these people don't know how to fend for themselves and they blame the government for not taking care of them BETTER!  I don't see it as the government's fault.  

  

I keep wondering why there wasn't a plan for this kind of disaster.  They knew the potential, they knew many of the people didn't have the car or money to leave the area in a hurry.  They should have had a plan, just like we do Fire Drills.  

Thank you for finally saying it, bozz. I feel great empathy for the people who have lost everything, too. But there's a big difference between a home OWNER or business owner (someone who was gainfully employed and contributing on a daily basis to the prosperity of this great country and now has nothing to go back to) and a person who was living on welfare and either renting a house or apartment or living in state-subsidized housing. Those people may have lost possessions, but they haven't lost the homes they worked so hard to afford or their careers and they can start all over anywhere in the country and be in the same position they were in before. I think we all need a little perspective here. I just find it interesting that most hard-working Americans are frustrated by the welfare system, frustrated that there are others among us who don't work and expect to live off the rest of us who do. And yet, it's these same people who now need our assistance again and those same hard-working Americans throwing money at them hand and fist. Perspective people!