Hurricane Katrina vs. Devastating Iowa 500 Year Flood

[12th Doctor]

Anybody know if many people died in Iowa?

It obviously didn't number in the 10,000's like in New Orleans right?  I mean, that was the figure people were using for weeks after Katrina, remember?

[12th Doctor]

I think the difference is the human element.  People in Iowa can evacuate.

And nobody could drive the hundreds of busses in New Orleans?

Of course not. They were wholly surrounded by flooded areas.

Not prior to the flooding they weren't.  The buses could have been used to evacuate people before the flooding.  There's a novel idea.  You act as though Nagin was victimized... like Hell.  Nagin sat on his ass, did nothing, and blamed the federal government for his failures.  Why didn't he take charge of the situation?  Mayors are supposed to do that kind of thing.  This is what happens when people sit aroudn and expect the federal government to do everything for them.

[12th Doctor]

I think the difference is the human element.  People in Iowa can evacuate.

And nobody could drive the hundreds of busses in New Orleans?

Of course not. They were wholly surrounded by flooded areas.

Not prior to the flooding they weren't.  The buses could have been used to evacuate people before the flooding.  There's a novel idea.  You act as though Nagin was victimized... like Hell.  Nagin sat on his ass, did nothing, and blamed the federal government for his failures.  Why didn't he take charge of the situation?  Mayors are supposed to do that kind of thing.  This is what happens when people sit aroudn and expect the federal government to do everything for them.

The notion that a mayor's office might be equipped to handle Katrina is right up there with the notion that the Earth was created 5000 years ago.

That doesn't of course mean Nagin did well. It's just that, unlike with Blanco or the feds, it's not as if random Joe Bloke off the street would have done a better job.
He tried to take charge of the situation after it became apparent that the feds weren't (for days. Not for ever) ready to do their duties. He didn't look too good at this, as was inevitable.

It should be pointed out that the evacuation operation can't have been quite as bad as everybody claims. There could have been 10,000 deaths otherwise.

It was the choice of the mayor whether or not to call for a mandatory evacuation, which Nagin refused to so until less than half the time it would take to evacuate the city had arrived.  Other mayors have dealt with natural disasters in the past far more effectively that Nagin did.

[12th Doctor]

And, BTW, what saved those 10,000's of people wasn't Nagin's evacuation, it was about the closest thing to an act of God as we are likely to see... the storm was supposed to hit the city dead on, for reasons no one can explain, it shift east just before landfall, if it hadn't, then many, many, many more people would have died.