Several days ago I reported on the non-human casualties of the horrific Midwest flood.  Yet, as we all know, this disaster has affected thousands of humans, too.

The statistics are staggering:  36,000 people have fled their homes in Iowa alone, 160,000 acres of Illinois cropland have been destroyed, and at least two dozen people have died.  MainStreet has a wonderful list of ways you can help those most affected.

Meanwhile, National Guardsmen and women are playing the waiting game to see if their pumps and sandbags will hold back the Mississippi.  Some victims, such as Juli Parks of Gulfport, Illinois, blame the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for misleading residents into believing that their levees would withstand a historic flood. 

Well, the historic flood has come, and Gulfport is now submerged in 10 feet of water and over 20 levees have failed in the region.  If the words “FEMA” and ”failure” sound familiar, it’s probably because the agency also received much of the blame for the levee failures during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.  Maybe these folks should just go into another line of work?

In the meantime, we need to do all we can to help those affected by this latest debacle.