Hey guys can anybody help me out with this? re: Iowa flooding

[navarth]

A friend of mine at work sent me this...I feel it's bullshit, but I need to check myself. I'm super busy right now, perhpaps somebody is familiar with this and could give me a perspective. Here it is:

“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 didn't see...

1. We don't see looting.
2. We don't see street violence.
3. We don't see people sitting on their rooftops waiting for the government to come and 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 President Bush.
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 any of these cities complaining about the lack of state or federal response.
11. We don't see or hear reports of the police going around confiscating personal firearms so only the criminal 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 is no wide spread reports of lawlessness to require excuses).

“

I hadn’t thought of this, but it’s a very interesting point.

Now, this strikes me as one of those viral emails that tells me how evil the United Nations is or whatever. But I don't know enough about it and I'm on a serious deadline. If anybody's got a quick perspective, it would be helpful. If not then please ignore me.

[madinmaryland]

1. Wow, that was quick.

http://www.snopes.com/katrina/soapbox/dakota.asp

[Mojorabbit]

2. I did read a blurb

that there was some looting but I have no idea where it was.

[Buzz Clik]

3. Well, besides being poorly disguised racism, it's also uninformed.

Here's a picture of a cop in Cedar Rapids reminding a resident that he's in charge. We saw similar pictures in New Orleans.


These men are "from the government." They're helping.


Here are some people ignoring the evacuation orders in Cedar Rapids.


You really don't need any more, right? The point of the email isn't that Cedar Rapids was somehow better prepared or more responsible -- the implication is that Iowa is mostly white.

Tell whoever sent you the email that he/she has some serious racism issues.

[Connonym]

4. Here's some stuff about it from the Iowa folder

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discus/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=152x23503

I'm from Cedar Rapids (originally), Iowans generally aren't racists and it's not the people of Iowa spreading this crap. Besides all of that experts are agreeing that this was something like a once in 2500 year flood. There's no way to compare it with the ineptitude of Katrina because experts had predicted a situation like Katrina but nobody expected Cedar Rapids to flood. They started a serious evacuation effort much more quickly in Iowa and were able to get the people out of the flood area a lot more successfully (come on, my beloved Cedar Rapids is a much smaller place than New Orleans) and while there is total devastation in parts of Cedar Rapids there was still enough of the city standing that there were plenty of places for people to find shelter without being shipped away. And yes, Virginia, there IS looting in Iowa and I seriously doubt it's the 2-4% of Iowa that isn't Caucasian doing the looting. Make no mistake, this flood is a tragedy for Iowa. It will take years to rebuild and Cedar Rapids might not ever be the same again but the fact remains that it was just an area (albeit the downtown area) of Cedar Rapids that flooded. Apples and oranges to compare this with Katrina. At least that's this Cedar Rapids native's perspective

[pitohui]

5. how many people were drowned or left on roofs to die of exposure in iowa?

yeah, i thought so

the plight of a bunch of rich and middle class farmers and support staff who had days to get their things and drive off is not the same as the plight of severely handicapped, elderly poor people who didn't own cars and had only a couple of days to acquire a car, learn to drive it, and get the hell out of new orleans in a heat index of 108 degrees

the rich and middle class people of new orleans drove out just fine, none of us looted, etc. because we weren't in a survival situation and didn't have a need to loot

on friday, the storm was headed for the florida/alabama state line, on sunday morning the first ever mandatory evacuation of new orleans was announced, by tuesday the city was underwater

the recent midwest flooding was a "slow rolling" disaster with much more time to get away and for the most part those people who needed to get away didn't skew toward elderly people without their own cars but more rural/farming populations with plenty of cars and trucks

compare apples to apples and, also, i'm not sure WHY there is a need to quote racist propaganda in full, why air hate literature?

maybe the governor of iowa didn't cry on teevee because nobody was killed in iowa, ever think of that? jeesus, people -- IN IOWA THE FLOODS KILLED CORN!

[navarth]

6. Thank you all, this is comprehensive, and confirms my suspicions.

I already sent a reply-to-all back to him and all the others he had mailed this to, and said that I seriously doubted that either he or I know Jack Shit about what happened in New Orleans or Cedar Rapids.

I now have some excellent information to follow that up with.

I just can't ignore these viral emails when I encounter them. Thank you all.

[happyslug]

7. In 1988 a oil storage tank collapsed during thousands of barrels in Oil into the Monongahela River

This was and is the largest inland oil spill in US History, over 700,000 gallons of Diesel Fuel (Off-shore and at sea tanker have spilled more, but those are NOT in internal waters).

I was in the National Guard at that time. The oil storage tank was just upstream from the water intake for the water of the South Pittsburgh Water Company. While the water for the City of Pittsburgh itself was NOT affected (Most of Pittsburgh gets its water from the Allegheny River), the Suburbs to the South of the City had their water cut off. I was called into service to haul water buffaloes to various places in the South Hills so that people would have water. It was declared a national emergency and I stayed at the Local Air Force base, where the Water Buffaloes were kept (The US Air Force Flew in addi tonal Buffaloes, we needed them). I also refueled with Air Force Diesel when I needed additional fuel. This was all due to the fact it was a NATIONAL EMERGENCY.

My point is, while the Spill was a "local" spill, the Federal Government provided all the help it could (i.e. personnel, fuel, equipment). That happens in almost ANY emergency, for only the Federal Government has the resources to bring to bare (Even as the locals are doing most of the work). Did Pennsylvania have the water Buffaloes to provide water to everyone? No, but the Federal Government could gather such buffaloes from its own reserves AND other states and get them to where they were needed. The State could NOT. The federal Government, the State Government and the local government all worked together to get the job done (It was funny, watching the local health inspector climbing the water buffaloes kept in an Air Force Hanger, testing the water in the Buffaloes to make sure the water was "safe". It not enough chlorine was in the test sample, he had hid handle bottle of Clorox to add to the water, thus a local official making sure the water was safe, in a federal hanger, testing water to be hauled out by the State National Guard, in water buffaloes provided by the Federal and state governments).

No disaster can be handle by local officials, they do NOT have the resources to address such problems. Most states do NOT have the resources, again most are to small in population to have the revenue to provide the needed aid. Only the Federal Government has the resources and is far enough away from the problem to correctly asses it and provide the needed resources. Local Government can provide the volunteers and direct where the aid is needed the most, but the aid has to come from someone NOT affected by the Disaster. Thus the Federal Government is the only agency that can provide the needed level of resources and supervision of how and who gets the resources to provide the fastest and most efficient care of victims of disasters.

For more on the Spill:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DEEDA123EF936A35752C0A96E948260
http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A28974