>>>>>>Here we go:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>State of Emergency:
>>>>>>http://www.wral.com/weather/story/3480798/
>>>>>>Be Prepared:
>>>>>>http://readync.com/
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Everyone is really getting ready for Ike (just in case)...
>>>>>
>>>>>Is the federal government going to give you billions of $$ to keep you from looting/murdering/raping/etc like the folks in NO did?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>In all the years I've been here, and all the hurricanes I've live through, I've only heard of looting a couple of times. In those cases, it was a couple of kids with a history of thieving anyway and the buzzards were carted off to jail...
>>>
>>>Kinda like IOWA and floods or other disasters.
>>>
>>>Strange how NO has their own set of morals and rules.
>>
>>I know what you mean, but at the same time, to be fair, none of the others suffered quite the destruction that NO did or quite the same displacement of people. There are certainly some similarities, but it's not exactly apples and apples.
>
>I went to south Florida to help in the cleanup after hurricane Andrew (http://www.sptimes.com/2002/webspecials02/andrew/)
>
>The devastation there was total (like moonscape total).
>
>The looters were almost nonexistant.

There is a difference when you have very poor people in a municipal setting compared to a rural setting. Here and in Florida, the majority of the really poor folks who suffered were mostly in rural areas. Rural folks tend to help their neighbors out without thinking about it. They live generations side by side. Folks in the city go to the rural area to help out. Also, there have been many hurricanes to prepare for in recent years all up and down the eastcoast. We have prepared, set up shelters, generators, emergency supplies, evacuation plans, etc numerous times. Getting ready for a hurricane is something most have done and are already prepared for. It is a shock nostly to newcomers now. We had terrible flooding in easter NC after one hurricane and it wiped out entire towns. Little talk about it though. Everyone came in the other areas and people put them up until the waters receded. The hurricane in Lousianna was not the issue so much as the devastation when the city virtually dissappeared after the flood. There was no preparation for THAT and nothing left in the city to help those who survived but were economically destroyed. They had no safe shelters. There was no preparation and planning for such an event. I was happy to see that much more preparation and planning went into the Gustav...

Also, our national guard is called up every time a hurricane is enroute. They didn't do that in NO, and their national guard was depleted as well... I really don't think they expected what happened nor were prepared for it. Here, it could happen, but the preparation has been going on for years. We also do not have a HUGE METRO area below flood stage...