Buffalo <> New Orleans

How pathetic it was to hear Congressman Higgins whining about FEMA like Ray Nagin. I mean, come on. The last thing we want to do is compare our little snowstorm to friggin’ Hurricane Katrina. So, we had a lot of power outages and fallen trees and some flooded basements. Hardly a comparison to, say, completely submerging half the city and having a large percentage of the residents lose everything they own.

What made Higgins’s rant even more sad/funny was that a few minutes later, a FEMA rep called into WBEN and clearly stated what they’re allowed to do when. At that point, with the particular disaster declaration made by the state, all they could do was send equipment that was requested by the state. Not until the next, more severe declaration were they actually able to send the blue jackets into the area to start doing their thing.

If you do want to make comparisons between Buffalo and New Orleans, use this one – unlike New Orleans, Buffalo was very well prepared to handle a disaster like this – even though it hit with no warning. New Orleans, which had much more advance notice of the impending storm, was caught with their pants down and no plans. Sure, the levels of devistation were nowhere near the same scale, but that bit of planning goes a long way.

The more unfortunate comparison is that we both seem to have the same level of whiny politicians.