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From the Editor: In disasters, we still work together

As the presidential election nears, we’re almost certain to hear a long and loud discussion of socialism.
Democrats have proposed, and Republicans have generally opposed, a series of initiatives including a wealth tax to reduce our growing income inequality; higher top marginal tax rates for the same purpose; and a Green New Deal.
We’ll settle the question in 17 months. Meanwhile, we’ve embraced the idea of socialism in at least one area: recovery from catastrophes. We've socialized natural disasters.
We saw an example last week when Gov. John Bel Edwards came to the Bayou Chene flood control barge.
Edwards was happy to announce that President Donald J. Trump had agreed to let the feds pick up the tab for 75 percent of the cost of installing the barge, which blocks backwater flooding to the north in places like Stephensville, where the people have suffered for months.
The cost of placing the barge is expected to be about $7 million. The Army Corps of Engineers is paying $3.2 million required to shore up the barge with loose stone.
That leaves $3.8 million, of which the feds say they’ll pay about $2.9 million.
That’s how we deal with disasters: A local emergency is declared, then a state emergency, and then, if the situation is dire enough, the federal government declares an emergency and starts writing checks.
First, the state has recognized Bayou Chene flooding as a regional problem, rather than one affecting only St. Mary or St. Martin parish. The federal involvement is recognition that major disasters overwhelm state and local governments.
So we share the risk, as we do with auto and home insurance. People in Nevada and Vermont are helping us pay for the barge, just as we help people in Oklahoma recover from tornadoes and people in California recover from fires.
Insurance is a good thing. But the payouts seem to be getting bigger and bigger.
The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Risk Management and Decision Processes Center took a look last year at the 2017 disaster payouts. It found a record $130 billion in disaster aid of various kinds, due largely to three hurricane strikes and massive wildfires in California.
The payouts go way beyond the familiar Federal Emergency Management Agency aid. There are Small Business Administration grants and loans, aid to local governments to fix roads, aid to farmers, aid to schools, and on and on.
Congress seldom ponies up enough for the federal Disaster Relief Fund to cover a year’s worth of calamities. So it is often called on for supplemental appropriations, like the $19.1 billion deal that finally passed this week in Washington.
The Wharton people also found that about twice as much is spent on recovering from disasters than on preventing or mitigating them.
It’s not the best system. But it’s the one we have, and it saved Louisiana nearly $3 million on the Bayou Chene barge alone.
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We shouldn’t let the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion pass without a mention of St. Mary’s most famous connection to the Normandy invasion. There’s a Bayou Chene connection there, too.
Eugene Roe was raised in the Bayou Chene area. As a 20-year-old in 1942, he made his way to Lafayette to enlist in the Army.
Roe ended up in the 101st Airborne Division, which jumped behind German lines in France on June 6, 1944. Roe served as a medic. He was with the company throughout its service in Europe, which included the failed Operation Market Garden, the Battle of the Bulge and occupation of Germany.
Roe became one of the Easy Company soldiers immortalized in the Stephen Ambrose book and HBO series “Band of Brothers.”
Roe came home to work in the construction business and died in 1998.
Bill Decker is managing editor of The Daily Review.

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