The most amazing part of the story was that the Red Cross set up all these shelters for people whose homes were flooded, but were surprised when hardly anyone even showed up to stay in them. Apparently the idea of people being self-sufficient and/or helping out their neighbors in need is completely lost on a lot of folks from outside "Middle America."
I volunteer with the Red Cross and set up a shelter here last Saturday. We had very few people stay there, in spite of there being hundreds of homes flooded in our town. Mostly they would check in, then a family that wasn’t affected would come in and “adopt” them.
At another shelter, it was mostly people who got stuck on the freeway who stayed there.
At a third, there were a whole bunch of people.... but their county was virtually an island, and we had trouble getting them supplies. It finally took the National Guard to get them food and water.
In one community that was underwater, they didn’t wait for the government entities to save them. Anybody who had a boat was out helping. I heard a report that the police and fire departments did over 600 water rescues in 24 hours. The locals knew not to wait.
So, you are right. We are a self sufficient group, doing what needs to be done, handling “life”, helping our neighbors. Of course, that doesn’t make for good “news”.