Cajun Country No Stranger to Storms and Controversy

With the Atlantic Hurricane season moving into its peak stage, and the 11th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina ravaging the Gulf Coast, the recent flooding in Louisiana couldn’t have come at a worse time. Recently, a storm system stalled over the Central Gulf and brought torrential rains to Louisiana. The storm was referred to as a 1,000 year event.

Some of these same portions of Louisiana experienced similar flooding in March of this year. With the tremendous heat and humidity that has been in place over much of the country, there was a lot of moisture to work with when a modest frontal system provided the spark that resulted in over two days of thunderstorms that produced up to two feet of rainfall in some locations according to Time Magazine.

Rivers such as the Amite, Comite, Tickfaw, and the Tangipahoa were overwhelmed. The levee systems were ill-equipped to handle such a flooding event, and were overrun. Nearly half of Louisiana’s parishes are expected to be declared disaster areas, which leads us to the response from the federal government, and the controversy surrounding it.

Disaster response from the federal government is a sensitive issue for residents of Louisiana. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, President George W. Bush didn’t visit the New Orleans area and the Mississippi Gulf Coast until nearly a week after the storm made landfall. FEMA’s response at the time was less than adequate while Condolezza RIce was seeing a Broadway show while people in the Gulf were suffering. Bush’s memorable line, “You’re doing a heckuva job Brownie,” to then FEMA director, Mike Brown, was viewed by many as an insult.

The federal government has had better moments in Louisiana. During Hurricane Betsy in 1965, President Johnson responded quickly. Five hours after talking Louisiana Senator, Russell Long, Johnson arrived in Louisiana to survey the damage left behind by the storm. Stunned by the damage wrought by Hurricane Betsy, Johnson made every effort to get every resource available to the residents there, and eliminate any red tape according to an article by the Miller Center. Johnson even went to the extreme of getting on a bullhorn and speaking directly to flood victims himself.

All of this leads us to this past week when President Obama was seen on a golf course in Martha’s Vineyard while Republican Presidential candidate, Donald Trump was down in Louisiana speaking to people affected by the disaster. Louisiana’s Governor, John Bel Edwards had originally discouraged Trump from coming, but after Trump’s visit, he indicated that it was helpful in getting the country’s attention on the issue. According to an article from CNN, the White House asked about coming down, but the governor’s office “asked them to wait until the immediate response phase was over.”

President Obama is expected to visit Louisiana in the coming week. Obama has had his fair share of natural and man-made disasters to deal with. Not only the mass shootings that have been occurring with regularity, but also police shootings in Dallas and Baton Rouge, which was also impacted by this recent flooding. Thankfully for President Obama, there hasn’t been a major hurricane that has made landfall in the United States since Hurricane Wilma came ashore in Florida in October 2005. There have been moments where Obama has, with the help of FEMA director, Craig Fugate, gone into action in response to storms.

A couple of examples come quickly to mind since I live in New Jersey. Back in 2011 and 2012, the Garden State was impacted by two significant storms: Hurricane Irene and Hurricane Sandy. Both of these storms had weakened enough by the time that they came through New Jersey, that they were no longer hurricanes. Irene had weakened to a strong tropical storm while Sandy had lost its tropical characteristics. Nevertheless, both storms had a tremendous impact on the Garden State. Irene with flooding and Sandy with surge and wind.

There was a lot of rain in many parts of New Jersey during the month of August leading up to Irene so it didn’t take much for the toll of devastating flooding. My neighborhood itself experienced the worst flooding ever in the 45 years that I have lived there. Some houses had six feet of water in their basements. Our cellar was hit hard too, but not as bad as others. Nevertheless, my family was able to regroup and get back to business in relatively short order thanks to some help from FEMA. There was the moment of bromance between Obama and New Jersey Governor, Chris Christie in the wake of Sandy, but there are still many in South Jersey, especially Monmouth and Ocean Counties struggling to rebuild after Sandy.

There has been a good deal of controversy when it comes to the federal government’s response to storms and hurricanes over the years, especially in recent decades. During Hurricane Hugo in 1989, FEMA was blamed for being slow to act. Many in South Carolina grew even more upset with the help that the San Francisco and Oakland metropolitan areas got in the wake of the memorable earthquake that occurred during the World Series. Then, there was the fiasco in the wake of Hurricane Andrew in South Florida, which helped contribute to President Bush losing to Bill Clinton in the 1992 presidential election.

With the climate changing and storms becoming more numerous and worse, and people looking to live in places such as coastal areas that are more susceptible to weather, the federal government response to events such as the flooding in Louisiana are going to become more commonplace and scrutinized by certain elements of the media. People are looking for someone who cares for them in times of disaster, and the next person to become president in the next few months will need to provide a human face and a human touch to a government that already looks distant and out of touch. LBJ’s handling of Hurricane Betsy in 1965 was a perfect example of that needed human touch.