Harvey and Katrina: The Cowboy and the Eloi

Only a dozen years separate the two most damaging Gulf Coast hurricanes of this century.  If you have watched these unfold you will have noticed some stark similarities and equally stark differences.  Let’s look at the data:

1.        New Orleans and its surrounding parishes is a metropolitan area of 450,000 people.

2.      Houston and its surrounding counties is a metropolitan area of 4.6 million, over 9 times bigger than New Orleans.

3.      Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005 as a Category 3 hurricane and 6.5 trillion gallons of water.

4.      Harvey hit Houston in 2017 as a Category 4 hurricane and 15 trillion gallons of water.

5.      Katrina had the greater storm surge, but Harvey had the most rain fall.  

6.      Katrina left 1800 people dead in its immediate impact.  As of this moment Harvey has cost us less than 50 lives.  Too many, but why a 36 x greater loss of life in New Orleans, a city of much smaller size? 

This difference is something that needs to be examined.  We cannot let a disparity of these many lives be politely dismissed because we fear the truth may be uncomfortable.  We need to dissect the difference so we can replicate the success in saving lives.   

First, both of these cities are minority majority cities.  Houston has one of the country’s most diverse labor forces.  It is 41% Latino, 19% Black, 7% Asian and 32% white (very much like New Orleans 31% white labor force).  In New Orleans, Blacks make up 59% of the work force.  The unemployment rate in Houston is 4%, slightly below the national average of 4.3%, but in New Orleans it is well above the national average at 5.4%.  Adult Black males in New Orleans have an unemployment rate of 44%. 

These number becomes even more serious when you look at the infamous Lower Ninth ward of New Orleans which saw so much of the loss of life during Katrina.  The number of people living in poverty in the United States is 12%, in Louisiana 20%, in New Orleans 28% and in the Lower Ninth Ward it is 36%.  The number of people who do not have a high school diploma in the United States is 20%, in Louisiana and New Orleans it is 25% but in the Lower Ninth Ward it is 40%.  Pick a negative statistic and it will follow the same pattern. 

Because of its size, Houston has more people in poverty, yet they did not die by the hundreds.  There must be something else at work.  Could it be that even the poor in Texas see themselves as free standing individuals, responsible for their own success or failure.  They may need help, they may have been given a bad hand to play, but what they do with their lives is still very much their own.  Such people react to adversity with pro-active behavior.  Even when seeking help, they see that help as part of a larger plan, where they are making decisions.  They see themselves as rising or falling depending on the quality of those decisions, not helpless pawns in karma’s game.

Compare that thinking to others who are living generation after generation in poverty, with no cause/effect continuum apparent in their lives.  Such people can not see themselves as their own change agents.  They become the Eloi. 

Texas is a state marked by enterprise and its population by self-sufficiency and hard work.  This has helped us in a very difficult time.  We need to build on that, not just for ourselves, but for our nation. 

Watch Texas keep the faith.