In the aftermath of Hurricane Rita, AU students and professors have both praised and criticized both how the media covered the storm and how the government responded to aid the victims.
Zach Silverman, a junior in the School of International Service, is originally from Houston. His family went to San Antonio for a few days to escape the storm, he said, but Houston was not affected by the brunt of the storm.
The media did a good job covering the storm, Silverman said, but there were some discrepancies in reporting. Reporters did not correctly name some cities, and many journalists were not able to get to the areas hit by the center of the storm until 24 hours after the storm, he said.
Once the storm shifted away from Houston and moved closer to Beaumont, Texas, and Lake Charles, La., the media gave the impression that it was "not that big a deal," Silverman said.
Jill Olmsted, associate professor of communication, said much of the coverage was excellent, but other parts were sensational. Those who covered Katrina and Rita gave viewers "a bird's eye view" of what was happening in the Gulf, she said.
"People could essentially participate in stories because they were watching them live," Olmsted said.
Jessi Bautista, a junior in the School of Communication and a Houston native, said she did not like the news coverage because she thought it focused more on national economic issues such as oil prices instead of how people were affected by the storm.
"I feel like in the wake of Katrina, [the news] would have had more personal focus," she said.
It was interesting how much the media covered rising gas prices, Silverman said, rather than showing the best routes for people to get out of coastal areas.
"They weren't focusing on how people could get out," he said.
An evacuation that should have taken two to three hours turned into a days-long ordeal because traffic lanes going toward the coast were not opened for evacuees, causing gridlock, Silverman said.
"I think that had the storm hit Houston, there would have been more of a problem," he said.
Bautista said Houston would have been well-prepared had the storm hit there directly due to the evacuations and preparations made by the government.
John Watson, associate professor of journalism, said the broadcast media exposed the deeper issues of Hurricane Katrina by showing not only the racial divide, but the government's inability to respond effectively to a domestic disaster.
"The lessons of Katrina informed the coverage of Rita," he said.
There are still problems with the speed of the government's response to disasters even after Katrina, Olmsted said. On last night's news, she said she saw 12 generators sitting on a tarmac that have not yet been sent to people who need them.
However, Hurricane Rita could not have been as bad as Katrina in terms of the relief effort, Olmsted said.
"It couldn't have been worse because we had the resources already assembled," she said.
Silverman said he thinks the government tried to compensate for Katrina in the way it responded to Rita's victims, but not necessarily because of racial or economic differences between Texas and Louisiana. The economic focus was important because oil refineries closer to New Orleans had already been affected by Katrina, and even more could have been affected in Texas, he said.
"I think the government definitely had something to show after Katrina," Silverman said.
