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I grew up in Nebraska, and was in Grand Island when the city was devastated by tornadoes on June 3, 1980. So, yeah, we have SOME idea of what it's like to have your home leveled and your city rendered unrecognizeable. I was in one of the hospitals when the victims started swarming in to ER, as well.
And yes, we had problems in the aftermath. The National Guard was called out to protect us from looters and other criminals; many, MANY homes were wiped out. I still have the photos I took, because there was nothing better for people to do than just wander around, talking to each other; I started taking photos of the graffiti on the wrecked himes, because I felt it was an eloquent statement of the citizens' pioneer spirit and humor. One home said it best: Stark black spray-paint on what used to be a white interior wall...a single word, "Why?"
You see, the difference between us and the Katrina victims is that we had a good President (Jimmy Carter) who got aid out to us in a heartbeat. Most of the city had been rebuilt in 6 months' time, thanks to him.
And that's just Grand Island. Omaha was hit by tornadoes around that time, as well. Cities and towns in many states in Tornado Alley have been severely damaged. And let's not even get into other natural disasters affecting other parts of the country (and world), like earthquakes, tsunamis, etc.
Just because you apparently lived in Nebraska without ever experiencing the fury of a tornado doesn't give you the right to act as if other people's natural disaster nightmares don't matter.
As for your appalling statement, "Most rural dwellers have backup heat & you can always pile more wood on & more clothes on & more quilts on the bed, right?", this is wrong in so many ways.
First off, most people in these states live in the cities; small towns and villages are (duh!) far less populous. Fireplaces don't exactly abound in the cities, except perhaps in the newest homes. Your heat is either gas or electric, period. And if people had enough quilts on hand to survive a hard freeze, they wouldn't have closet space for anything else! More blankets are hardly the answer, as the homeless can attest. The human body is simply not created to withstand such cold temperatures.
Finally, consider that in a tornado, there is very little warning. We had only about 5 minutes' warning before our storm hit, whereas hurricanes are predicted days in advance. We had no chance to escape before the nightmare began. If people in the Gulf Coast had done what they were told, instead of hanging around and having "hurricane parties" or "riding it out", a lot more of them would be alive today.
(Of course, the elderly in nursing homes and the like are an exception, and made for a very tragic situation.) But the able-bodied people had plenty of time to evacuate as they were ordered to do.
Let me tell you, people in Tornado Alley would LOVE to have that much warning before THEIR homes got destroyed.
ALL natural disasters are horrible, whether it's a hurricane, tornado, heat wave, or a hard freeze. Whenever weather kills people, it's a tragedy.
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