Houston evokes painful memories of Katrina
As people waded in chest-high floodwaters, Houston turned its main convention centre into a shelter Sunday, evoking memories of Hurricane Katrina, when breached levees in New Orleans stranded tens of thousands of people in squalid conditions at that city’s football stadium and convention centre.
Elected officials have vowed to heed the lessons from Katrina in 2005, when about 30,000 evacuees spent days packed inside the sweltering Superdome with limited power and water and a roof that was shredded in the howling wind.
The fiasco exposed the failure of both the city and federal government to prepare adequately for the storm.
Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa told President Donald Trump on Twitter to “keep on top of hurricane Harvey” and not repeat the mistakes that President George W. Bush made with Katrina. Bush was heavily criticized for a slow federal government response to the storm, which left more than 1,800 people dead and caused $151 billion dollars in damage.