Making comparisons between the late August 2005 devastation of New Orleans from hurricane Katrina and the mostly averted devastation as the Red River rose to record flood levels late March 2009 in and near Fargo, North Dakota and Moorhead , Minnesota may be considered unfair.  However the contrasts between the two might give some perspective.  The New Orleans event became a disaster whereas  the potential disaster of the Red River flooding was mostly averted.

Perhaps the most common thread between these two cities is their proximity to massive amounts of water and the use of levees to hold that water at bay.  New Orleans is built below sea level.  I’ve both seriously and jokingly stated it’s beyond me what wisdom there is to building a city below sea level and so close to the ocean.  One of those things that makes me ask: Huh?  Fargo and Moorhead are built on the flood plain of a river that typically floods from snow melt and spring rains.  It’s an annual event but some years are potential disaster.  Again I’ve jokingly and seriously stated it’s beyond me what wisdom there is to building a city where flood waters are likely to cause devastation at least once in a while.  Another one of those things that makes me ask: Huh?

A news article published March 30 by WDAY.com provides perspective as to what happened to avert a disaster here.  The bad news is a second crest is predicted for mid April so the tensions and struggles may not be past us quite yet.  After reading the article it may be concluded if disaster threatens again in mid April, we’ll rise to the occasion again (some more, still) and again.  Expecting others to intervene and giving up isn’t really in our nature.

An infoplease article written by Borgna Brunner provides an overview of the New Orleans disaster.  A Google search of the term Hurricane Katrina yields about 10,800,000 results.  Just the page load time made it impossible for me to check out all that not to mention how impossible it would be to sort out fact from fiction from that many results.  I did find the infoplease article consistent with what I read and saw through the broadcast media at the time of the Katrina disaster.

The Fargo/Moorhead area may have taken huge lessons from New Orleans.  Emergency shelters here have been under utilized even though many people left their homes.  Also unlike New Orleans those using the shelters have not been terrorized by roaming gangs and to the best of my knowledge there has been no random gunfire.  Those with pets didn’t leave them to fend for themselves, shelters just for critters of all kinds were organized on very short notice, manned by volunteers and depended on contributions of food and other supplies to provide for those pets.  Janice and I donated cat food to the shelter set up at the fair grounds not far from us.  The gratitude for even our small donation was amazing.

Those that needed to leave but were unable to do so without help received help.  That is not saying the help came from government or military or even emergency organizations (for example the Red Cross).  Everyday people are equally if not more the heroes here.  With enough everyday people working together incredible things get done.

I know, it would be easy to think I believe the people of New Orleans could have banded together in the short time they knew Katrina was an unusual threat and they possibly could have reinforced and sand bagged the levees well enough to have at least reduced the devastation.  I would certainly love to be that insightful but no, I’m just an old curmudgeon.  Shucks, that’s something I couldn’t have known for here.  There is a better chance we had the luck of the draw this time and who knows what the levees will do next time.

There is one common theme I’m seeing though.  The US Army Corps of Engineers designed and at least oversaw the construction of the levees as well as being charged with maintaining the integrity of them.  And it seems there is massive criticism of how these structures are maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers.  If you do some digging I’ll bet you would discover the Army Corps of Engineers struggles with two problems: 1 – Their manpower is stretched way too thin to accomplish all they are charged with doing.  2 – They’re under funded.

This News Article posted April 04, 2009 amongst much else declares “Now is the time to get federal funding and support for permanent protection against Red River flooding in Fargo, Moorhead and the whole valley, North Dakota and Minnesota political leaders declared Friday.”

In my world view government whether ours or any other government anywhere does pretty much nothing well except limit and/or reduce our freedoms.  The Army being a branch of government will do only so well at protecting us from floods whether from hurricanes, the ocean or spring run off.  So if we want better quality and the project completed in a timely manner we need to fire the corps of engineers and provide the protective infrastructure on a local level.

Do I believe that can or will ever happen?

Sure!

And I also believe the moon is made of cheese!