Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, 73, finally admitted, on Monday, that he indeed misspoke when he made a comparison of Hurricane Sandy’s 2012 devastation in the Northeast to the Hurricane Katrina’s 2005 devastation in the South, according to the Huffington Post.
On Friday, the Nevada Democratic Senator in Washington, D.C. strongly suggested during speech to the Senate that damage from Hurricane Sandy last fall was worse than the Hurricane Katrina storm nearly eight years ago. He made the heavily criticized comment while he was attempting to criticize the Republicans in the House of Representatives for momentarily pausing before ultimately providing financial relief to areas afflicted by Hurricane Sandy in the Northeast in October.
In reads misguided comments, he said that the government responded within days to Katrina’s devastation, but many needing assistance due to October’s Sandy Superstorm were still waiting. It was with this comparison that he claimed that New Orleans’ devastation from Katrina was “nothing in comparison to what’s happened to the people in New England (due to Hurricane Sandra)”.
Of those responding negatively to Reid’s comparison, Louisiana’s Republican Senator David Vitter said:
Sadly, Harry Reid has again revealed himself to be an idiot; this time, gravely insulting Gulf Coast residents.
Vitter was quick to produce facts from the National Hurricane Center that Katrina resulted in 1,833 fatalities and in excess of $108 billion in damage while Sandy, in comparison, only killed 131 persons with damage at $65 billion.
Harry Reid’s statement released on Monday read:
In my recent comments criticizing House Republicans for threatening to betray Congress’ tradition of providing aid to disaster victims in a timely fashion regardless of region, I simply misspoke. I am proud to have been an advocate for disaster victims in the face of Republican foot-dragging, from Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Sandy, from fires in the west to tornadoes in the Midwest. I have worked hard with Senator Landrieu to ensure that the people of the Gulf Coast have the resources they need to fully recover, and I will continue to advocate on their behalf until the region is fully recovered.
While Reid was obviously promoting himself as he admitted misspeaking his errors in this situation, he reacted totally differently by being mum regarding his inaccuracies before the presidential election when he claimed that Mitt Romney hadn’t paid any taxes for ten years – which was quickly proven to be completely false.
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