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EDITORIAL: Heroic Effort

The Lufkin Daily News
Wednesday, September 28, 2005

People will complain about the blunders and inconveniences that are going to happen when you try to evacuate millions of people from the Texas Gulf Coast in a short time.
Anyone who says Angelina County – and, specifically, the city of Lufkin – did anything less than an phenomenal job of managing its end of the situation, however, either wasn't here or wasn't paying attention.
Lufkin had the technology and wherewithal to house as many as 10,000 evacuees. The threat of Hurricane Rita, combined with the fear instilled by the wrath of Hurricane Katrina just a few weeks earlier, forced our city to deal with several times that amount of people. We'll never know exactly how many visitors were here, because so many stayed in private homes, but it's likely Lufkin at least doubled its population of around 35,000.
Karen McCambridge, a 63-year-old evacuee from Texas City who was housed at Pitser Garrison Civic Center with other evacuees who had special needs, called the newspaper office Monday and offered to pay us to tell people how wonderful the city staff and volunteers were to her throughout the weekend. (We're happy to give her this space for free.)
“As much as everybody was scared, everybody up there made it a lot lighter, fed us well ... just everything,” McCambridge said. “Not one person ever frowned if someone asked for something. They always had a smile on their face.
“You people are absolutely incredible up there. It makes me want to move up there.”
McCambridge thanked Nellie Matthews, the civic center's director, along with doctors and nurses and fire department employees and “everybody” who worked to help others on little or no sleep. She was especially touched that the senior citizens sheltered at the civic center “were treated with respect and dignity, as if our lives were just as important as a younger person.”
We know officials and volunteers throughout Angelina County – like City Manager Paul Parker, assistant city managers Kenneth Williams and Keith Wright, Fire Chief Pete Prewitt, and Angelina County Judge Joe Berry and Sheriff Kent Henson, just to name a few – did all they could to facilitate a smooth-as-possible response to Rita. And they didn't do it just because it was their job. They did it because they genuinely cared.
“I am just so overwhelmed by what these people did, I cannot believe it,” McCambridge said. “I think that every one of these people need to be recognized. Too bad life couldn't be like this all the time.
“I will never forget this – never.”
Neither will we.
source: http://www.lufkindailynews.com/opin/content/news/opinion/stories/2005/09/28/20050928LDNeddy.html
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Wednesday September 28, 2005

Op Ed

It could have been the other way around
Some might be tempted -- with the benefit of 20-20 hindsight -- to say the almost 3 million people who fled the Texas Gulf Coast region a week ago overreacted. Hurricane Rita appeared to be on a collision course with Houston or Galveston until it veered north and hit the somewhat less populated area around the Texas-Louisiana border instead.
Rather than second-guessing themselves, however, Houston residents who traveled as far as El Paso or Lubbock to find a motel room for the weekend should be counting themselves fortunate. Rita was so powerful that hurricane-force winds were registered 100 miles inland. Remaining in what was potentially harm's way would have been a huge error in judgment had Rita's strength not diminished slightly before making landfall, and if its course had indeed taken it directly into one of the most densely populated areas of Texas as predicted. Brown County residents might be advised to count their blessings, as well.
If the most probable projection of Rita's path issued a week ago had proven accurate, the heavy rains which drenched northeast Texas and parts of Arkansas could have easily been left here. That would mean up to 15 inches of rain in a matter of 24 hours would have been dumped on this part of the state, and flooding would have been widespread. Instead, the weather turned sunny with record heat -- 106 degrees, according to the National Weather Service's reading. Given the alternative which was feared, even such sweltering conditions were welcome.
Had the hurricane come our way, the hospitality and relief measures which Brownwood area residents have so generously and promptly offered others would have been needed by them instead. Surely, other Texans would have provided a similar response. But local residents can be thankful they were in a position to help, rather than being in a position of needing the help of others.
Members of the Brownwood City Council and administrative staff made that point Tuesday, and it is one worth emphasizing. Local residents opened their hearts, their wallets and in countless situations their homes to those who fled the hurricane. Those acts of kindness will not show up when state and federal governments compute the overall relief effort, but they will be remembered a lifetime by those who needed assistance.

Brownwood Bulletin
source: http://www.brownwoodbulletin.com/articles/2005/09/28/op_ed/editorial01.txt
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Neighbors and Guardians
In crises, we can't rely solely on government
09:13 AM CDT on Friday, September 30, 2005
In the aftermath of two devastating hurricanes, there remains a tempest of recriminations – which is necessary, given the magnitude of the organizational failures we've suffered through and the need to improve emergency preparedness.
There is perhaps a more profound lesson Katrina and Rita can teach us, a lesson that transcends politics. In his forthcoming book Worst Cases , completed before Katrina annihilated an American city, Rutgers sociologist Lee Clarke says that we should all be divested of the "illusions of control that are proffered to us by our leaders and expected by the public." He says that while big government is necessary to disaster response in the modern world, a large bureaucracy – FEMA, say – is by its unwieldy nature insufficient to handle various contingencies that erupt.
Mr. Clarke prophetically warns that we need to strengthen our local civil and community institutions, because they are the ones we will most depend on to save our lives in the event of disaster. You need look no further for proof of that observation than the heroic response of south Louisiana's Cajuns to Hurricane Rita, which obliterated much of coastal Acadiana.
The sheriff of Vermilion Parish immediately called for anyone with a boat to help rescue the stranded and was overwhelmed by volunteers. In Vinton, a small Cajun town in the eye of the storm, a hardware store remained open throughout the hurricane so that townspeople could take emergency supplies with only a signature; the owner said he knew the townspeople would be good for it. In the village of Lafitte, Mayor Timmy Kerner told the Baton Rouge Advocate that the entire community had turned out to wage a (losing) battle against rising floodwaters. Explained the mayor: "We're that kind of town. Everybody knows everybody, and we always help each other."
It's not just rural and small-town areas. Mr. Clarke points out that a spontaneous flotilla organized by ordinary New Yorkers successfully evacuated a half million people from lower Manhattan on Sept. 11. And it was not the government, but engaged and pro-active passengers who prevented doomed Flight 93 from crashing into the U.S. Capitol that day.
No doubt about it, there must be reform at the top of federal, state and municipal bureaucracies to improve emergency preparedness and disaster response. Still, we'd be wise to learn from the Cajuns and work to strengthen civil society – that is, our ties to family, neighbors and community organizations – before the next catastrophe strikes.

source: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/editorials/stories/DN-hurricane_30edi.ART.State.Edition1.1ce91909.html