Rural hurrcane victims ask for 'big city' help
CAMERON, Louisiana (CNN) -- Four days after Hurricane Rita roared ashore along the Texas-Louisiana state line, officials are pleading for essentials such as shelter, electricity, water and gas.
Amid near-record high temperatures, floodwaters as high as 15 feet in some areas receded across the largely agricultural region, revealing livestock carcasses littering the countryside. Live cattle roamed free throughout the region, looking for food or water.
"We need help," said John LeBlanc, assistant emergency preparedness director for Cameron Parish. President Bush's Marine One helicopter flew overhead Tuesday as LeBlanc outlined his desperate situation. "We need the same sort of help a big city like New Orleans is getting." (Rest of the story)
Surprisingly, our state does not seem to be putting forward the effort we did for that gdb Katrina. Are we now numb?
1 comment:
No, we're just at the mercy of corporate journalism, which chooses its "news" on the basis of what will bring the most eyeballs. The destruction of New Orleans is easier to sell as Big News than is the flooding of a bunch of small towns no one has ever heard of in eastern Texas. It's not just Rita; there were plenty of other areas totally devestated by Katrina---even more so than New Orleans---but you don't hear about them and they aren't getting nearly an equivalent amount of aid (equal doesn't apply).
But this is why, when I donate, I give to long-standing relief agencies that respond to multiple needs and I don't specify a purpose for the donation. That way the agencies can redirect the money as it is needed. All that money that people donated to the Red Cross for the Katrina fund? The Red Cross is obligated to spend it only on Katrina victims. That same money, had it been donated into a general relief fund, could have been shared with the victims of Rita.
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