The Aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita

The Aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita

799-0. That is the number of dead as a result of the two hurricanes as reported in CNN this weekend (apparently the 25 dead in the bus fire didn't count somehow).

Katrina was a bit stronger than Rita and New Orleans was infinitely more vulnerable than Houston, and Galveston, although almost as vulnerable as New Orleans, had only 57,000 people to evacuate.

And Texas had the lesson of Rita to learn from. And former International Arabian Horse Chief of Stewards Mike Brown had resigned post-Katrina and pre-Rita and the Bush administration reacted better.

No two things are the same but even with those differences there's one that in my view explains more about that 799-0 difference.

"Texas is ready," said it's governor, and it was. Louisiana wasn't.

Louisiana's governor said there were thousands of dead. New Orleans' mayor claimed 10,000 and embarrassingly cried in a profane radio interview. Criminals shot at rescue helicopters and ambulances and raped women in New Orleans shelters. That didn't happen in Texas.

Even with it's greater vulnerability, New Orleans with 300,000-400,000 people, had about 1/10th of the population that Houston had to evacuate and aside from the mother-of-all-traffic jams it did it.

Ray Nagin and Kathleen Blanco showed an astonishing lack of competence. Bill White and Rick Perry acted as competent political leaders should.

Bush has taken political heat for his government's handling of Katrina. We'll see if Nagin and Blanco do but I have not heard a hue and cry.

799-0 sounds like it could be the electoral outcome in a typical Republican-Democratic presidential election but it's not. It's the number of people who died in a catastrophe that was anticipated in one state, governed by Democrats, and the number of people who died in a catastrophe that was anticipated in another state, governed by Republicans.

Instead of paying a political price, my guess is that Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco will be speakers at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

-Benjamin Harris