Devastating floods still swirl through cities and towns all along the Atlantic coast. Hurricane Irene continues to dwindle, but the heavy rains that came with her have sent creeks and rivers boiling out of their banks. The already soaked land sends every drop of new rain into the mounting waters.
There have been drownings. A 20-year-old woman in southern New Jersey on her way to her boyfriend’s house drowned in her car when it was swept off the road. A postal inspector died trying to get to his office building when he stepped unaware into a drainage ditch. A girl in Vermont was watching the flood waters rise with her boyfriend and somehow was caught by fast-flowing water.
The deaths are tragic, but few.
The major consequence of the widespread flooding will be enormous loss of property. Houses destroyed, power lines taken down by falling trees and high winds, furniture and clothing lost in flooded homes, farm land ravaged, highways and bridges ripped apart.
Because Irene lasted so long and dumped so much water on such a wide area, it may rack up the largest hurricane damage total the nation has recorded since New Orleans was devastated by Katrina.
AND JUST as the nation did in 2005, President Obama and Congress will send billions in aid to the victims of the flooding. The stricken cities will get billions to help them rebuild, get their schools repaired, ruined textbooks replaced, etc., etc., etc. The states will do what they can, as well.
To put it in a nutshell, Hurricane Irene will become the mother of a regional stimulus program that will create tens of thousands of temporary jobs in all of the affected states.
There will be more people put to work picking up after Irene than lost their jobs because of the storm damage. The unemployment rate will drop. Consumer spending will rise as families replace clothing and furniture ruined by the flood waters.
This is not an effort to find something good about Irene and all the misery she is causing, but to observe that our federal budget squeeze will not — and certainly should not — stand in the way of rushing to the aid of the victims of a disaster. Of course it will be necessary to borrow the money Washington will spend to help. Of course Congress will agree to do that.
For all of the reasons that our government should help its citizens recover from a natural disaster, it should also do what economists agree can and should be done to jump-start the economy. The stubborn recession is doing damage in every state; damage that is costing far more in lost income for many millions more Americans than did those sister hurricanes.
With Irene and Katrina as models, Washington should be just as willing to take quick, effective action to end the recession and put the country back on the path to prosperity.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
