Tuesday's Twist-Hurricane Katrina

Most of the country watched this weekend as Hurricane Irene http://youtu.be/RIRodRRFu4s brought devastation to the east coast.  Did you know that it hit almost six years to the day of Hurricane Katrina?  Hurricane Irene made landfall on August 27, 2011.  Hurricane Katrina pounded the southern states on August 28, 2005.  It made valiant efforts to destroy Louisiana and Mississippi, taking approximately 1800 lives as a medal.  My husband traveled to Mississippi with our church group to help in clean up.  He said that what was once houses looked like toothpicks strewn across the land as far as one could see. 

Hurricane Katrina is the media's new Galveston Hurricane of 1900. http://youtu.be/oAU6KvmTbHM Before Hurricane Katrina, every hurricane was compared to Galveston's 1900.  Now every hurricane will be compared to Hurricane Katrina, and rightly so.  http://youtu.be/Duz-2v1Omvc  The hurricane affected more than the states it swept across.  Every school in southeast Texas was trying to determine how they could accommodate the evacuees.  Some were scrambling to hire new teachers, while some were trying to find buildings to house new classrooms.  The small district where I was an administrator was contacting local churches to borrow classrooms.  The Astrodome in Houston, Texas was filled with people who needed the necessities of life.  Churches across Texas were opening their doors to house and feed the people whose lives had been uprooted by no fault of their own.

Long after the hurricane died a slow death, we watched as the clean up started and listened to the controversy, blame game, and excuses.  Then there followed charges filed for abuse to the elderly.  The icing on the cake has to be the Congressional hearing where the Governor of La. told them, "We only lost 1100 people.  I think that is pretty good."  I'm still wondering which one of those 1100 people was a loved one of hers. 

As life changing as Hurricane Katrina was, some good came out of it's wake.  What good?  Prior to Hurricane Katrina, people in the southern states had become complacent about hurricane warnings.  We complained about the media hype and ignored warnings. After Hurricane Katrina, every warning is taken seriously.  People are more prepared for the season.  As I watched the news reports as preparation for Hurricane Irene was made, I noticed how seriously the warnings were heeded.  I wondered, Would they have been taken that seriously before Hurricane Katrina?