Lessons from Katrina or differences in socio-economic status?

Here's an interesting set of articles from cnn.com. They talk about the volunteerism happening in the SoCal fires, the amount of supplies available, and the general lack of anger/chaos caused by the evacuations, etc.

So how do we interpret this information? At one level we might think that FEMA learned valuable lessons from the Katrina/Rita disaster in New Orleans. The crisis, while definitely intense, is probably less intense than Katrina. Many critical services (water, electricity, etc.) are still functional in SoCal. Although I'm seeing estimates of over 1 million evacuees, the number is still smaller than New Orleans. That said, it also appears that people were more amenable to the evacuation orders in SoCal and perhaps better prepared since major fires swept the area only a few years ago.

More cynically we might think that FEMA (and the U.S. and State Governments in general) responded more quickly to a crisis in a state with a popular republican governor. Even more cynically might think they responded more quickly to caucasions in distress in a state with a popular republican governor.

I suspect the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. FEMA likely did take lessons learned from Katrina and apply them to SoCal. The Bush administration probably did respond more quickly to SoCal than Katrina (but I'll withhold judgement as to why/how). I do believe the situation in SoCal is less intense than the situation was in New Orleans, however, I also believe there is a good argument to be made that the people evacuated have taken better control of the situation they are in. I'll let you decide why.