The lessons we all learned from Katrina don't need repeating. What did Gustav teach us? Judging solely by the Nola.commenters, it taught us that we are a bunch of self-absorbed whiners.
After Katrina, Mayor Nagin was criticized for not employing a comprehensive evacuation plan early enough. Evidently he was supposed to find the time and money to do such things while running a financially bankrupt city with failing public institutions. This time, everyone took it seriously. There were free evacuation buses to undisclosed locations(say hi to Cheney for us!) and people actually took them. FEMA even said they would reimburse some evacuation costs we believe. Nagin got wide-eyed and did everything to stroke Gustav's ego short of going horseback through the city with a loud bell and a tri-cornered hat.
Gustav ended up calming down, veering away slightly from the city, and not knocking down the shitty levee system again. So far, so good. But then came the aftershocks of online whiners unable to understand the grey area between no damage and complete flooding. With most of the power gone, and essential services unstaffed, Evacuees weren't allowed back until two days after Gustav passed. Thinking Gustav was a hurricane of iPhones and Harry Potters, some even parked along the road at National Guard checkpoints in advance of the then unknown readmission date. Once back, everyone left their darkened homes and scurried to the nearest WiFi hotspot to complain about lack of said Ben Franklin-juice. Their veins opened, a blood-oath was announced that they would never evacuate again, just to show that Nagin for fucking it all up again.
Please get a grip. When you live below sea-level on the gulf coast, you should have enough patience and money to evacuate on average once a year. Hearing how much it sucks is about as tolerable as a New Yorker complaining about trash piles on the sidewalk and filthy subway platforms; the scorn as logical as a Houstonian bitching about smog and sprawl.
We guess they aren't the only ones that come off as wishing for a Katrina sequel; leftist soapbox-stander Micheal Moore completely alienated us with his opening line on Olbermann 360:
Yep, with lots of time to think about what to say, the best zinger he could come up with was that Gustav was proof of God's existence since a terrible storm could make the Republicans look bad during their convention. We remember Moore mostly for presenting one-sided, biased, and overall convincing arguments for just causes, and for his awkward habit of injecting himself into the plight of victims he supported. But this is unforgivable. A day or two later he posted a rambling non-apology for the statement on his website. Fuck you, Mike. While you keep talking to God and going further down the rabbit hole of insanity, please be sure to say hi to Britney for us.
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