In the Aftermath of Hurricane Rita it is very obvious that Lessons were learned from Hurricane Katrina. The man in the street who heeded the mandatory evacuation order learned from Hurricane Katrina. Government officials from all levels of government learned from Hurricane Katrina. The question now is a year from now, 5 years from now 25 years from now will these people react the same way.

If anything good came from Hurricane Katrina it showed us all how not to react in the face of a large Natural Disaster. That was illustrated very well during Hurricane Rita where everyone came together to do the right thing, Countless lives were saved by the massive well planned ( if poorly executed) evacuations.

Government officials on the local and state level communicated with each and the people better even going as far as setting up a special 311 emergency phone number just for Hurricane Rita. President Bush and the Federal government including Fema seemed better prepared to deal with Hurricane Rita.

Human Nature being what it is how easy will it be to fall back into that it can't happen to me syndrome? It is very easy to do the right thing a few short weeks after one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history. The real test will occur after some time has passed and these same people have reacted to a few false alarms. Fortunately these false alarms seem to occur more often then not (Category 5 Hurricanes that make landfall as Category 2's. Hurricanes that change paths and barely hit your town)

I challenge Media not to let the people forget. Don't let those 1,000 and still counting Hurricane Katrina fatalities be in Vain. Every time a Hurricane threatens our great country remind the people about Hurricane Katrina. Remind the elected officials what happened to President Bush, Governor Blanco, Mayor Nagin and the rest of the bureaucrats in the theatre of public opinion that surrounded the terrible government response to Hurricane Katrina.