Don't try to tell me what hurricanes are or do. I've been through far more of them and Typhoons that you can imagine.
The difference in the 2 areas is the victim mentality. If it doesn't apply to you then why do you defend it?
It does apply to me and my mother and my father and just about every relative I have. In my life I have lived five years off of the gulf coast. I have beern through twelve hurricanes that hit within at least fifty miles of me. I have lived through just one blizzard that stranded me for six days in Boise.
I'll take the blizzard.
I agree that the mentality is different in the two places. New Orleans was French afterall. And now it's 67 %,,, well, you know. But it is easy to say that people in one place don't take the handout when it isn't offered in the first place. If big spender Bush showed up in Helena, it might not be the same result as you are bragging about. This is just a little pop psychology on my part.
North America has the most extreme weather on the globe-- hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, blizzards--I like to include to earthquakes, but they aren't weather related. It happens all over the continent. People shrug it off for the most part.
Katrina and Rita are just some that couldn't be shrugged off--the damage was on a scale that normally isn't scene in the area. Just remeber that the entire state of Louisiana is only a few times more populated than Montana and ND combined and the residents in the affected areas aren't exactly wealthy.
That and I bet the governors and mayors in Montana and ND are probably another order of magnitude more competent than those in LA.