Hurricane Harvey is dominating the news and with good reason. It’s the strongest storm to make landfall in the U.S. in some time, and it has done things we have never seen before. Rainfall in Houston has exceeded 50 inches. In the face of Biblical flooding, relief and rescue efforts have been unceasing. More than 11 million Americans have been threatened by Harvey, but the effective rescue operations run through a joint operation of multiple agencies and volunteer groups can only be applauded.
True American heroism is on display, and in the face of this universal threat and inspiring human response, the left has only one topic to discuss: how Trump has botched everything. Let’s see how far they missed the mark this time.
Trump’s Response
The left would love it if Trump had proved inattentive or slow to act in response to such a calamity, but that simply hasn’t been the case. He mobilized federal aid for Texas before the storm even made landfall. FEMA, homeland security and a number of other agencies were proactively assisting in evacuations. Since the storm made landfall, they have continued their organized efforts, melding well with local agencies to mitigate loss of life. In fact, Trump has been so on top of the situation that he even personally visited the affected area before the storm subsided. In any event as severe as Hurricane Harvey, there will be opportunities to learn lessons, but at this point it’s difficult to imagine how Trump could possibly have done any better.
George Bush
One of the greatest criticisms of the Bush presidency was how he handled Hurricane Katrina. The risk and immediate damage were sorely underestimated, and Americans paid the price. Katrina is currently the deadliest hurricane in U.S. history with a death toll nearing 2,000.
While you probably remember how horrible Katrina was, it’s important to build context. Katrina was a category 3 hurricane, deadly in its own right but not as powerful as Harvey or some of the other hurricanes I’ll mention in a bit. It’s also important to note that Katrina did all of its damage in less than a day. By contrast, Harvey parked on Texas for almost a full week. By all measures, Katrina should have been a less severe incident. It most falls on poor planning and response that the death toll was so high.
Katrina wasn’t actually the worst hurricane that Bush faced as president. Many forget that a year before, Hurricane Charley made landfall in Florida. It struck land as a category 4 and was considerably more powerful than Katrina. It also caught the population unaware, but it’s speed swept it away from the coast before it could do more damage. The Florida response was also quite superior to what was seen in Louisiana the next year, and that probably contributed to the low death toll of 15.
Obama
Obama spent eight years telling everyone that global warming was causing deadly increases in severe weather. Despite that, he only oversaw one major hurricane landfall during his tenure (the least of any 8 year span). That storm was called Sandy, and it wasn’t technically a hurricane when it struck New York. The rainfall and wind risk of Sandy were less than one-tenth of what has been demonstrated by Harvey. Despite that, New York and New Jersey were crippled by the storm. More than 50 Americans died as relief efforts were literally nonexistent. Because the cities weren’t flooded, it was originally thought that a lack of evacuation was the right choice, but rolling blackouts led to hypothermia while a lack of available transportation enabled treatable injuries to result in death. If Obama’s response had been even half as effective as Katrina relief, the death toll likely would have been less than 10.
The full effects of Harvey will take some time to measure, but after a week of unprecedented rainfall, flooding and sustained damage to the Texas coast, the death toll is currently at 18. In the last 20 years, no hurricane has come close to representing the level of danger as Harvey. While every lost life is tragic, it is only through a well-organized, heroic effort that we aren’t seeing new records of dead Americans. The left has proven they will criticize everything from Trump, even if it’s the most effective natural disaster response the world has ever seen. When that isn’t enough, they’ll attack Melania’s choice of shoes, because even they realize that relief efforts in Texas have been genuinely miraculous.
~ American Liberty Report
