[Tacdriver]

Katrina vs Rita
(and Texas vs Louisiana)

1. Texas: Productive, industrious state run by Republicans.
Louisiana: Government dependent, welfare state run by Democrats.

2. Texas: Residents take responsibility to protect and evacuate themselves.
Louisiana: Residents wait for government to protect and evacuate them.

3. Texas: Local and state officials take responsibility for protecting their citizens and property.
Louisiana: Local and state officials blame federal government for not protecting their citizens and property.

4. Texas: Command and control remains in place to preserve order.
Louisiana: Command and control collapses allowing lawlessness.

5. Texas: Law enforcement officers remain on duty to protect city.
Louisiana: Law enforcement officers desert their posts to protect themselves.

6. Texas: Local police watch for looting.
Louisiana: Local police participate in looting.

7. Texas: Law and order remains in control, 8 looters tried it, 8 looters arrested.
Louisiana: Anarchy and lawlessness breaks out, looters take over city, no arrests, criminals with guns have to be

shot by federal troops.

8. Texas: Considerable damage caused by hurricane.
Louisiana: Considerable damage caused by looters (but certainly not as much as the hurricane.)

9. Texas: Flood barriers hold preventing cities from flooding. (Port Arthur suffered significant flood damage from

storm surge.)
Louisiana: Flood barriers fail due to lack of maintenance allowing city to flood.

10. Texas: Orderly evacuation away from threatened areas, few remain. (Early evacuation, yes, but "Texodus"

wasn't always a model of orderliness. Horror stories abound.)
Louisiana: 25,000 fail to evacuate, are relocated to another flooded area.

11. Texas: Citizens evacuate with personal 3-day supply of food and water. (But some forgot to fill up with gas or

couldn't find it before they fled.)
Louisiana: Citizens fail to evacuate with 3-day supply of food and water, do without it for the next 4 days.

12. Texas: FEMA brings in tons of food and water for evacuees. State officials provide accessible distribution

points.
Louisiana: FEMA brings in tons of food and water for evacuees. State officials prevent citizens from reaching

distribution points and vice versa.

13. Louisiana: Media focuses on poor blacks in need of assistance, blames Bush.
Texas: Media can't find poor blacks in need of assistance, looking for something else to blame on Bush. (To be

honest, the national media left Rita early on because the storm simply didn't wreak a lot of human damage. Not

enough "bleed" to "lead." As one NBC Nightly News reporter told me two days after the storm: "Now it's just a

power outage story.")

14. Texas: Coastal cities suffer some infrastructure damage, Mayors tell residents to stay away until ready for

repopulation, no interference from federal officials.
Louisiana: New Orleans is destroyed, Mayor asks residents to return home as another hurricane approaches, has

to be overruled by federal officials.

15. Louisiana: Over 400 killed by storm, flooding and crime. (Louisiana's Katrina-related death toll stood at 1,053

on Oct. 26.)
Texas: 24 killed in bus accident on highway during evacuation, no storm related deaths. (Not quite true, although

Katrina's death toll is vastly higher. Five people died of carbon monoxide poisoning when they fired up their

gas-powered generator in an apartment, and a handful of others died from traumas suffered during the evacuation

and in the post-Rita cleanup.)

16. Texas: Jailed prisoners are relocated to other detention facilities outside the storm area. (Not true. Most

prisons didn't evacuate, but merely moved prisoners to safer quarters, or in one case, not at all from their

ground-floor cells.)
Louisiana: Jailed prisoners are set free to prey on city shops, residents, and homes.

17. Texas: Local and state officials work with FEMA and Red Cross in recovery operations. (Well, our local County

Judge certainly had some terse words for FEMA in the week after the storm, threatening to send police to seize

needed FEMA equipment that wasn't being deployed.)
Louisiana: Local and state officials obstruct FEMA and Red Cross from aiding in recovery operations.

18. Texas: Local and state officials demonstrate leadership in managing disaster areas. (One Texas city manager

was fired when he failed to return quickly from his own evacuation.)
Louisiana: Local and state officials fail to demonstrate leadership, require federal government to manage disaster

areas.

19. Texas: Fuel deliveries can't keep up with demand, some run out of gas on highway; need help from fuel tankers

before storm arrives.
Louisiana: Motorists wait till storm hits and electrical power fails. Cars run out of gas at gas stations that can't

pump gas. Gas in underground tanks mixes with flood waters.

20. Texas: Mayors move citizens out of danger.
Louisiana: Mayor moves himself and family to Dallas. (Didn't Mayor Nagin ride out the storm at New Orleans City

Hall?)

21. Texas: Mayors continue public service announcements and updates on television with Governor's backing and

support.
Louisiana: Mayor cusses, governor cries, senator threatens president with violence on television, none of them

have a clue what went wrong or who's responsible.

22. Louisiana: Democratic Senator says FEMA was slow in responding to 911 calls from Louisiana citizens.
Texas: Republican Senator says "when you call 911, the phone doesn't ring in Washington, it rings here at the local

responders." What if state and local elected officials were forced to depend on themselves and their own resources

instead of calling for help from the federal government? Texas cities would be back up and running in a few days.

Louisiana cities would still be under water next month.

Republicans call for action, Democrats call for help. What party will you be voting for in the next election?



Do some of you think this is a distortion or......is it the truth?

[ivwshane]

I'll be voting for whoever is more qualified or more competent, be it republican or democrat or any other party.


Sure there is some truth to it and I'm surpised the author didn't include:

Tesas: High population of rich white people
Louisiana: High population of poor black people

Who's to blame, white people or black people?


Let's just put it this way, lets say I made this thread but it was turned around and it was the democrats that were in power in texas and the republicans were in charge of louisiana, what do you think your comment would be?

[bbsmitz]

The nation learned an acute lesson from Katrina, and as a result reacted in a better manner to Rita. Ships have enough lifeboats now because the Titanic didn't.

The comparison may have some merit, but all it's really showing is that the Republicans in Texas aren't stupid enough to ignore all the lessons of history.

[MSP]

I don't think the differences in wealth and organization between those two states is just happenstance. Generally people who make poor decisions end up poor. Louisiana has just managed to do so on a state wide scale.

Just remember that the next time that rusty Chevy Cavalier cuts you off in traffic. There's a reason that guy is driving that car. His decisions in finance are no better than those he makes while driving.

[ivwshane]

True, but can you make the correlation that poor people are poor because of democrats?

[rocadelpunk]

i would also like to state that the reason the flood barriers broke was not due to lack of maintenence, but because the engineers who built it were specified to only make the thing support x amount when in reality there should've been more money put in to make it support y ammount.

I don't see how you can ignore Louisiana's economics...you think these people had the means to evacuate by themselves?

Moreover, making a comparison that it's Republicans v.s. Democrats is just completely ignorant and rather irritating. I will agree that the people in charge down there were inept and not fit for the job, yet I'd like to see where this isn't true anywhere in the united states rep. or dem.

I don't understand this person's point that democrats are supposedly dependent on fema? Are you f'in kidding me?

Tac, why don't you take this biased bullshit nonsense and just keep it to yourself.

[Wedge_]

Do we really have to use natural disasters for political gain?

[MSP]

Originally Posted by ivwshane

True, but can you make the correlation that poor people are poor because of democrats?

Nah, I don't think the Democrats are to blame. It's just stupidity and a broken culture down there. The poor just tend to vote Democrat, that's all.

[bbsmitz]

Originally Posted by Wedge_

Do we really have to use natural disasters for political gain?

Of course.

[ninefivezero]

Talk about a list of vague, unqualified statements...

[Tacdriver]

That list I posted is biased? C'mon stop thinking emotionally. Doesn't anyone think logically anymore? What FACT in the above list isn't true? I've yet to see a post to disqualify anything. All I see so far are people who don't like what they see.

All I did was state proven facts. Roca, this is or was an open forum last I knew. Opinions are allowed I thought? This does APPEAR (depends on what side of the spectrum you're on) to be biased because it shows the differences in how 2 states handled a catastrophe. One Republican and one Democrat. All of a sudden people should keep their opinions to themselves Roca? Does this mean all of us should keep our views to ourselves or is it just my point of view that you want to not see? Way to keep an open mind! Everyone else feel free to voice your opinions as long as they don't differ with Roca's!!

Again, Happy New Year and stay safe you drunk bastards.

[ivwshane]

It's easy to take facts out of context and compare them.

Unfortunately I don't know anything about hurricane rita to counter anything that was posted.

However, to take two disasters and break down how they were handled to a level of republican vs democrat doesn't make much sense and is about as pointless as black vs white. I mean you might as well throw the argument that katrina was a worse disaster because louisiana has less good christians than texas.

My question to you is, if the situation/facts were reversed and it's the republicans that were at fault, would you believe the data and say that the conclusion is a plausible and logical one?

[Tacdriver]

My question to you is, if the situation/facts were reversed and it's the republicans that were at fault, would you believe the data and say that the conclusion is a plausible and logical one?

Yes. Democrats......Republicans ......it doesn't matter to me even though I'm of Conservative values. If the roles were reversed I'd still be pissed. I'm still pissed that FEMA was run by a political appointee because of Bush. I'm upset and dissagree with alot of things that are going on politically but, Bush is still my man.

[MSP]

It should be noted that after the 2004 election someone here posted a chart that proposed to show a direct link between low IQ and Bush support by state. That turned out to be a complete fabrication, and I didn't hear any of you guys crying foul.

Remember this?

At least Tac's chart is factually correct, if not exactly unbiased.

[Tacdriver]

Hmmmm? Amazing

[ninefivezero]

All you have to do is read the first one or two 'facts' to see it is crap. "2. Texas: Residents take responsibility to protect and evacuate themselves. Louisiana: Residents wait for government to protect and evacuate them." If that is not a total generalization I don't know what is. Oh, EVERYONE in Texas is so good and responsible and EVERYONE in Louisiana is a weak slacker waiting for the government to do things for them? And the Democrats are to blame? AH, it all makes sense now! Please...

Here are two interesting articles, about as unbias as possible, Katrina: What Happened When and Is Bush to Blame for New Orleans Flooding?

Can we just agree on one thing, that the south in general sucks?

[Hubcap]

that chart makes me laugh.

I didnt read through that entire list but i dont see how you can compare the two. Katrina was much larger, not to mention new orleans is below sea level, so after the levee broke they where pretty much screwed. Rita did follow katrina as well, so Texas could have had more time to prepare for the hurricane.

I dont agree with who are you going to vote for next democrat or republican statement.

[MSP]

Originally Posted by ninefivezero

Can we just agree on one thing, that the south in general sucks?

Yeah, I think that is common ground.

I think the point that Tac was trying to make was basically true - by and large the citizenry and government in Louisiana following Katrina was pretty embarrassing. It just so happens that the magnitude of the disaster in Louisiana was greater, and that the state is run by Democrats. But it was a debacle and a national embarrassment. You can't deny that there tends to be an attitude of entitlement down there...

[Jackalope]

except for btexas...texas is so undeniably kickass, that chuck norris would cry everytime he heard the word uttered....except chuck norris can't cry

[ivwshane]

It was definitely a pretty sorry state of affairs but I just won't agree that it was cause by one particular party.

I personally put the blame on the mayor of New Orleans as well as FEMA director brown. Bush's nomination of him really pisses me off too.