NOLA survived the actual hurricane suprisingly well, it was the flooding that came afterwords that did the damage.
Just as in a blizzard it is the aftermath that does the damage and causes the loss of life.
Broaden that scope friend and see the forrest thru the trees.
Tornados wipe an area clean too, I live in tornado alley.....shall I expect FEMA to come fix everything for me?
You might want to check on things when you comment about oil supply....out supply never changed one ioda. That was all HYPE.
1) The hurricane didn't actually hit NOLA. It veered east--just imagine the damage if it veered west or hit straight on.
2) So it was the aftermath? So what? The hurricane caused it. This is akin to those idiots who like to say "It wasn't the bullet that killed him, it was his heart stopping." Just a useless attempt at humor.
3) There weren't that many trees left. The point is that a hurricane is essentially a large tornado. By the way, I live just below the start of Tornado Alley. I've seen plenty of tornado damage. You haven't been through the aftermath of Rita. There were over 100 tornadoes caused by Rita. Most damage in hurricanes is caused by wind not water. These two just happened to have massive storm surges that devastated the LA coast.
4) Nearly a dozen refineries were off line for nearly a month between Mississippi to East Texas. A huge number of off shore drilling rigs still haven't started back up. Nobody said a quarter of the nation's oil supply was shut down. It was majorly at risk and was diminished more than an "iota".
Most of my family in Louisiana works in chemical plants or refineries or in one case the National Petroleum Reserve in Hackberry, LA. Explain to me why they had time to go on vacations or long hunting trips while they were supposed to be working. It surely wasn't becasue they took time off.
5) For the first few weeks after Katrina the produce around here was really cheap because the lower Mississippi had taken so much damage that large freight ships couldn't pass securely enough into the gulf for the comfort of bond and insurance companies. All those food exports got dispered around Texas and a few other states. You think that didn'f affect the national economy? By the way:
6) just because you can formulate an argument with flimsy and/or imagined facts doesn't mean that other people will let you dish it out without replying. Your fatalism and desire to denigrate your fellow citizens is astounding. The fact that it got really cold in the WY and ND is regrettable but by all means a "normal event". FEMA showed up because what happened in Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas was a national emergency.