Disastrous Floods, Salt Lake vs New Orleans

I work in the Flood and Fire Restoration business in the Salt Lake City area. I received a call to handle a sewer back-up in one of our local cities. It had a couple of anomalies, a dog was fell in the sewer line and plugged it up and it moved twice, stuck each time and flooded a total of 18 homes. The city did not accept any liability for the problem, but agreed to pay for the cleanup and restoration costs in the name of public safety and then will go after any liable parties that may be uncovered.

The ironic piece to this story is that this back-up occurred two days before Katrina hit New Orleans. I was able to compare both disasters side by side. The thing that struck me most was that in both cases, the residents were victims. They had done nothing to cause the problems they were facing and looked to others to solve the problem. Both felt helpless as the government agencies worked their way through the web of potential legalities before being able to take a position. Our company was called out and stood at the ready, but needed to wait until either the City or the residents agreed to pay for our services before we could begin.

It took a couple of hours, but the City did agree to pay for the costs of cleanup, allowing my crews that were standing by to begin. Once this decision was made, the residents pulled together to help one another and several offered to wait and allow others with more seriously damaged homes to be cleaned first.

Aside from the fiascos at the Superdome and the Convention Center in New Orleans, the residents from Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama have acted in much the same manner. There are emerging many stories of heroism and sacrifice. I hope we will hear more of them as time goes on.

I am sure that out of the million people displaced by the hurricane, there were only a few thousand that we are embarrassed to know. That is less than 1%. The angry accusations aimed at the federal government are coming from people who either failed at their job during Katrina or have a history of Bush Bashing. Either way, they really are not a creditable source.

More on this later.