Tennessee's Katrina

It is stunning, the differences between Hurricane Katrina's effect on New Orleans and the May 4th devastating tornadoes, rains and floods in Tennessee - Nashville in particular, but really more widely spread than that. After Katrina hit, we were stunned to watch a 3rd world stage show unfold before our eyes. We were stunned that, with several days' warning, an estimated 1,700 people died from the immediate effects of the hurricane and just over 4,000 died from the immediate and subsequent effects. (See here for an excellent blog on the death tolls.) Even worse, we were shocked at the looting, the murders, the rapes and the general mayhem that ensued following the passing of the storm and the retreat of the waters.

I went to New Orleans after Katrina. I saw the water lines at the 8-10 foot levels on homes in downtown, the destroyed storefronts, the damaged Super Dome, the boats hundreds of yards inland, and the grave devastation further out into St. Bernard's Parish. There is nothing that happened in New Orleans that has not happened to an even greater extent in Nashville, estimating from the vast amounts of video footage and pictures available on the internet and from friends and family who live there. So why is it that we don't have the level of looting, death and overall lawlessness in Nashville, even though they had little to NO warning of the impending storms?

I'm not going to proffer an answer. I am merely wondering. I have been to both cities and love them both. They are beautiful, artistic and historic cities. The people of both cities are wonderfully hospitable and largely religious - they are both at opposite ends of the Bible belt. Sure, there are "problem people" in both cities. So, why the difference? I don't pretend to know. I do know that President Obama made a huge issue of Bush's absence from, or slow response to, Katrina. Kanye West called him a racist, apparently for not dropping suitcases of cash on the city as soon as the winds died down. But we know Kanye now, especially after his dis of Taylor Swift at that little music awards show. He is the racist. But why, if Bush's fly-over on day 2 post-Katrina, and the federal response 72 hours later (as per all federal plans at the time) were both belated, is Obama's failure to visit Nashville AT ALL to date, and the very belated response from ANY of his administration to show up on scene - WHY is this not problematic for Kanye and the media?

Is Haiti, Poland, Greece, Iceland, a failed terror attempt in New York and the 1-day Stock Market dip really so much of a distraction from what is going on right here in America? Is the media really that incapable of carrying coverage of a 1,000 year flood? Are the people of Nashville and the rest of Tennessee just part of what Clinton used to call "fly-over country" for Obama? I wonder what the voter constituency is in Nashville.

Let's make sure we pray for the good people of Nashville. Continue to lift up a prayer for the good people of New Orleans. Pray also for this mis-prioritized country, whose President and media have missed the boat on supporting its citizens by failing to cover one of the most terrible weather events in our country since the 2005 hurricanes in New Orleans - and it was perhaps as significant an event, as well.