Australia’s “hurricane” and New Orleans

Australia had a big "hurricane" (We call them "cyclones") and flooding not long after the New Orleans event. The town affected (Innisfail, my birthplace) was quite small so not comparable to NO in size. What was VERY different was the self-help response from the people living there. Contrast the report below with the endless whining still emanating from the New Orleans leadership. Innisfail was actually largely back to normal after a week

“The head of cyclone Larry recovery efforts General Peter Cosgrove today said while “remarkable” progress had been made there remained a few cases of people yet to recover from the disaster. Speaking 12 months after the massive storm hit northern Queensland destroying homes and crops, General Cosgrove said much had been achieved. “It’s had remarkable progress since all of those terrible scenes people saw a year ago,” Gen Cosgrove told ABC Radio. “Thousands of homes have been repaired, many hundreds of people have been supported in staying in employment, kids are back to school and life returns almost to normal.”

A few dozen people are still awaiting repairs or rebuilding of their homes. “You’ve still got a handful of cases that are chronic, really sad and bad, which will take still some time to resolve,” Gen Cosgrove said. The former defence chief said those people were either waiting for labour costs to decrease or to receive charitable donations.

He conceded there had been a few shortcomings in the relief effort. “That’s the nature of human activity. “But I think people rallied magnificently well, governments really sort of put a bomb under themselves and got moving very quickly. It’s sort of a benchmark for the future (for) what Australians in need might hope for from governments when they … find themselves in the same predicament.”

Source

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