Good mid-morning America! Sen. John McCain announced yesterday (sorry, MediaHerd had work obligations) that he would’ve handled Hurricane Katrina differently than President Bush as reported by the Associated Press:

Drawing a sharp contrast to President Bush, McCain said he would have landed his plane “at the nearest Air Force Base and come over personally.”

It’s a sad day in America when the media herd reports that handling media relations during a major catastrophe differently represents a “sharp contrast” from the current President. What exactly does that mean?! MediaHerd supposes for starters it means that a “President McCain” would take a major hurricane seriously and not need prodding by his Counselor in the form of DVD excerpts of the disaster FOUR DAYS after a storm hits:

The reality, say several aides who did not wish to be quoted because it might displease the president, did not really sink in until Thursday night. Some White House staffers were watching the evening news and thought the president needed to see the horrific reports coming out of New Orleans. Counselor Bartlett made up a DVD of the newscasts so Bush could see them in their entirety as he flew down to the Gulf Coast the next morning on Air Force One.

But hey, President Bush is “old news.” Besides, MediaHerd can hardly think of a natural disaster that was as poorly covered by the media herd as Hurricane Katrina. The media herd coverage was almost as bad as the response by federal, state and local authorities.

Sen. McCain took an opportunist beating from Sen. Clinton for saying “[what] we need is to have a conversation about what to do – rebuild it, tear it down, you know, whatever it is” in reference to the lower ninth ward in New Orleans. Sen. Clinton:

“The difference between Senator McCain and myself is that I have a long record of fighting to rebuild the Gulf,” Clinton said. “Senator McCain said he might want to tear down the ninth ward instead of rebuilding it, but I went to the ninth ward after Katrina and met with people there and saw the destruction and I saw the resilience in their eyes and they deserve our help to rebuild.”

Well. MediaHerd wonders, as an aside, why a decision hasn’t been made by now given that we’re coming up on the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. However, MediaHerd visited the lower ninth ward in February, 2006 and based on our observations it was already torn down by Hurricane Katrina so the question should be whether to rebuild it or not. Salvaging this devastated area has become a favorite storyline of the media herd.

Notice we never hear anything about Grand Forks, North Dakota anymore which was devastated by a flood and fire 11 years ago. Why doesn’t the media herd congregate in North Dakota and have a huge national discussion about what to do about Grand Forks? Aren’t there any potential Pulitzer Prize winning articles to be written about the “resiliency” of the citizens of Grand Forks? Maybe there are lessons to be learned from Grand Forks?

Maybe if the media herd just left New Orleans alone instead of constantly trolling the streets looking for a sad story it would be forced to confront the reality that a community must rely on itself in order to rebuild. Presence of the media herd merely give the impression that somebody cares. Although Grand Forks was largely ignored by the media herd after the 1997 flood (maybe members of the media herd would rather eat at Emeril’s than The Red Pepper?), it rebuilt and recovered such that five years later some residents joked that the flood was a blessing in disguise:

But visit downtown today and you’ll come back with very different images:

New and renovated buildings, a smoothly functioning infrastructure, smiling businesspeople.

“Downtown is back all the way. Grand Forks is back all the way,” said Mayor Richard Brown.

Some observers even joke that the mid-April 1997 flood and fire were a blessing in disguise, clearing away much that was old and tired downtown to make way for the new and fresh.

About 40 flood- and fire-damaged downtown buildings were removed; parks and parking lots occupy most of that land now. Officials say half of the buildings were small, aging and ill-maintained and had little economic or historic value.

“The flood and fire created so much pain and loss for so many people. It was a terrible thing for the city,” Brown said. “At the same time, some good has come out of it.”

Money — and lots of it — helped Grand Forks rebuild. City and state funds were used, as well as insurance proceeds and bank loans, but the bulk of the work was done with $171 million in federal Community Development Block Grants.

Wow! That’s a lot of money. FEMA puts total federal assistance in the neighborhood of $338 million. Since it’s our tax money, it’s good to see that the citizens and leadership of Grand Forks put it to good use. In fact, 10 years after the 1997 flood Grand Forks is doing better than ever and has even increased its population past pre-flood levels. MediaHerd is going to look up and see how much money New Orleans got from the federal government……..

Oh……..my………..God…………

President Bush gave a speech in New Orleans on April 22, 2008 where he stated as follows:

Thus far, the federal has committed $120 billion — little more than that — of taxpayers’ money to help all along the coast.

MediaHerd is stunned. It understands that Hurricane Katrina caused more damage to a larger region than the 1997 flood in Grand Forks, but it wants to research damage estimates in relation to the federal aid received…………….

According to the Hurricane Katrina Service Assessment Report produced by the Department of Commerce and available to our readers as a PDF, Hurricane Katrina caused approximately $81 billion in damage.

Wait a minute……let’s recap…. $81 billion in damage and $120 billion in relief. That doesn’t compute! Oh, MediaHerd also forgot to mention that about $41 billion of that $81 billion was covered by insurance companies.

So, let’s recap again. $40 billion in uninsured losses and $120 billion in taxpayer relief! Wow. Just keep these numbers in mind when you catch wind of the media herd lamenting that we aren’t doing enough. MediaHerd wonders if there is a conspiracy to permanently keep the lower ninth ward in disrepair so it can be used in perpetuity by the media herd to show “how little” is being done and as a sad backdrop for politicians who claim “more” needs to be done.

According to pre-Katrina statistics, there were about 5,000 households in the lower ninth ward. If we took just $1 billion of the aid and divided among the households they’d each get $200,000.00 to use for rebuilding their house and there would still be $119 billion left over – give or take.

Bottom Line: Hurricane Katrina was a disaster on so many levels. The media herd loves replaying the disaster. In an effort to show how much “they care” and appease the media herd, our elected leaders have pledged approximately $80 billion MORE in taxpayer funded relief than the amount of uninsured losses caused by Hurricane Katrina. And who suffers the most? The residents of the lower ninth ward of course!

MediaHerd would like to see more stories about where all of this money is going.