Those Who Overstate the Lessons of the Past Are Condemned to Draw Erroneous Conclusions

Abstract

In many of the editorial commentaries on the disaster in New Orleans, references have been made to the only other comparable natural disaster to strike a major American city, the great earthquake that struck San Francisco in 1906. There are in fact many striking parallels between the two disasters. But, like most analogous events, these two disasters have as many significant differences as similarities, differences that have been largely ignored.