Katrina aid: Louisiana unfairly blaming others
An editorial in The Times-Picayune of New Orleans took the second anniversary of Katrina striking the U.S. to adopt a wounded tone. The Aug. 29 editorial detailed the amount of damage in Louisiana versus the amount in Mississippi, saying “if the aid were given out proportionately, this state would have gotten twice as much.”
It blames Mississippi for this discrepancy by saying: “Some people point to the clout of Mississippi’s congressional delegation for the reason….” while also admitting that its state’s “reputation for political chicanery” may have hurt. And it concludes: “The people of Louisiana are not less deserving of disaster aid because their representatives are newer to Congress or because some of the people we trusted to lead us turned out to be scoundrels.”
“All Louisiana wants is to be treated fairly,” the editorial opines.
Let’s get this matter straight. To begin, New Orleans dominated the media coverage and outside recovery response from day one. This was despite the fact that ground zero was in Mississippi. New Orleans may have made better “photo ops” because the misery was confined, but beyond New Orleans, the storm annihilated a 90-by-20-mile swath in Mississippi, and left three-quarters of the entire state a disaster zone.
Clarion Ledger Editorial
9/3/7
Magnolia Tribune
