Sunday,March,12,2006

Comparing a snow storm in South Dakato to Hurricane Katrina

It’s a stupid comparison, but some idiot in South Dakota tried…

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Update 2007.01.02: See the Snopes entry regarding a variant of the below referenced email.
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Recently someone posted this message to an email list I participate in:

This text is from a county emergency manager out in the Western part of South Dakota State after the recent snow storm.

WEATHER BULLETIN

Up here in the Northern Plains we just recovered from a Historic event --- may I even say a “Weather Event” of “Biblical Proportions” --- with a historic blizzard of up to 44” inches of snow and winds to 90 MPH that broke trees in half, knocked down utility poles, stranded hundreds of motorists in lethal snow banks, closed ALL roads, isolated scores of communities and cut power to 10s of thousands.

FYI:

George Bush did not come....
FEMA did nothing....
No one howled for the government…
No one blamed the government
No one even uttered an expletive on TV…
Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton did not visit
Our Mayor’s did not blame Bush or anyone else
Our Governor did not blame Bush or anyone else either
CNN, ABC, CBS, FOX, or NBC did not visit - or report on this category 5 snow storm
Nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards.....
No one asked for a FEMA Trailer House....
No one looted....
Nobody - I mean Nobody demanded the government do something
Nobody expected the government to do anything either
No Larry King, No Bill O’Reilly, No Oprah, No Chris Mathews and No Geraldo Rivera
No Sean Penn, No Barbara Striesand, No Hollywood types to be found

Nope, we just melted the snow for water

Sent out caravans of SUV’s to pluck people out of snow engulfed cars

The truck drivers pulled people out of snow banks and didn’t ask for a penny
Local restaurants made food and the police and fire departments delivered it to the snow bound families
Families took in the stranded people - total strangers
We Fired up wood stoves
Broke out coal oil lanterns or coleman lanterns
We put on an extra layers of clothes because up here it is “Work or Die”
We did not wait for some affirmative action government to get us out of a mess created by being immobilized by a welfare program that trades votes for ‘sittin at home’ checks.

Even though a Category “5” blizzard of this scale has never fallen this early...we know it can happen and how to deal with it ourselves.

“In my many travels, I have noticed that once one gets north of about 48 degrees North Latitude, 90% most of the world’s social problems evaporate.”

Here’s my response:

Nice uplifting story, but mostly BS. Here’s some facts for your consideration:

According to the State of South Dakota web site, The Governor of South Dakota asked for help, and FEMA was involved in the recovery effort.

and 25 counties were declared FEDERAL disaster areas.

The South Dakota storm WAS covered by the national media. A google search returns a ton of stories.

While there are valid criticisms of what happened in New Orleans, to compare a snow storm, no matter how big or bad, to the devastation of the hurricane and long term flooding (caused by failure of FEDERALLY managed levees) and destruction of an entire city is totally unfair and inappropriate. It’s like comparing a sprained wrist to a compound fracture of the leg. Katrina is shaping up to be the most costly natural disaster in US history.

The duration, scale, and environs of these two disasters are very different. South Dakota is a very rural state, while New Orleans is a densely populated urban environment. The population of the entire state of South Dakota is roughly 750,000. New Orleans metropolitan area population is about 1.3 million.

Finally, in general, more federal tax money flows into South Dakota than out.

In 2003 South Dakota ranked number 11 in federal spending per tax dollar collected, and number 10 in federal spending per capita.  Well, that must be because they paid so much in taxes, right? No.  South Dakota Ranks 33rd per capita among the states for shouldering the federal tax burden.

source: http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/ffhandbook-20060309.pdf

I’m sure South Dakotan’s have much to be proud of and it is a beautiful state, but it is NOT the picture of self-sufficiency painted above…

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