water, water, everywhere

With the flooding in the northeast, particularly in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, a few hundred thousand people have fled their homes and hundreds of millions of dollars of property damage has already occurred, with more expected. As we embark on the summer storm season, it will be interesting to watch how the government responds to this emergency, which echoes so strongly the flooding and displacement caused by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans last summer.

Same scenarios, right? Large suburban areas pretty much wiped out by high water, thousands and thousands of people suddenly homeless, jobless, and simply scrabbling to survive from day to day?

Of course, the people in New Orleans were mostly poor and black. The people in the northeast are largely middle-class or affluent, and white.

Think there'll be any noticeable difference in how the situations are handled?