My girlfriend Stephanie and I were talking last night about the fact that no one is saying the American people failed. The government failed. But average citizens and small business owners did not.
I'm doing a little story for Madison Magazine's October edition on local businesses who've contributed to relief efforts. I just got off the phone with the general manager at Wisconsin Aviation. I found a remarkable story, which I'll relate below the fold.
Wisconsin Aviation is the air charter company Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre and his family use to get back and forth between Green Bay and Mississippi. On Tuesday, the day after Katrina roared through the area (destroying Brett's mom's home) Deanna Favre, back home just outside Kiln, called Wisconsin Aviation and said she had more than 50 family members in their home, and they (and all their neighbors) needed stuff. Basic stuff. Batteries. Flashlights. Diapers. Paper plates. Soap.
The GM of Wisconsin Aviation sent his office staff to Pick N Save to buy as much stuff as they could fit into an airplane, and an hour and fifteen minutes later it was all airborne.
Brett Favre used his celebrity (as the greatest quarterback EVER in the history of the WORLD) and his Brett Favre Forward Foundation to make a call for everyone to give as much as they could. Wisconsin Aviation told people they'd start collecting donations at the airport, and whatever they had by about noon on Sunday they'd load up on a plane and fly to Mississippi. (It should be noted that with gas prices the way they are, a donated charter flight from Madison to Mississippi is no small thing.) By Sunday morning, a 12,000 square foot warehouse was full eight feet high, as were three conference rooms. That's more than one hundred thousand cubic feet of goods collected in a matter of about four days.
By Sunday midday, not only did they have all that stuff to ship, they had people willing to ship it. Wisconsin Aviation took two planes back and forth three times, and the GM I spoke to knew of at least five other people who owned planes big enough to carry a lot of stuff who also made the trip. (Talk about restoring my faith in the rich!)
By the time the Wisconsin Aviation guy had made his deliveries, taken Deanna Favre and her kids up to Green Bay, and made it back to Madison, the hangar was full again.
A local construction company donated a bunch of heavy equipment. Several local transportation companies started shipping the stuff in semi trailers. For free.
Wisconsin Aviation tried to take down the names and addresses of everyone who made a donation, but a lot of them didn't want to be recognized or anything, and therefore declined to give their names. Even so, they now have 50 legal-sized pages of names.
Why do I relate this story? It's probably pretty typical of people in cities throught the United States. And frankly it's just one of several stories in this little city ... I haven't even mentioned the massive effort to spruce up 20 apartments, bus a bunch of families up here from Houston, find them jobs and get their kids enrolled in school.
I relate this story because it gives me the feeling that the nation, and the Gulf Coast, and New Orleans, will survive despite George Bush. Fifty years from now, we might have said George Bush bravely and calmly led us through the greatest natural disaster in our history. Instead, we will say that George Bush showed a blatant disregard for his countrymen, failed in his duties as president, and left the poor and desperate to fend for themselves. But the rest of the nation did not turn its back. We did what Americans do. We did what George Bush would not. We rallied to the aid of our fellow citizens.
I relate this story because it shows me the character of Americans, the character of Bush, and the stark contrast between the two.