Every year, about this time, I get a reminder of just how much better Iowa is than Louisiana.

It isn’t just that government statistics rate Louisiana in the top five overweight states of the Union, or that Louisiana’s illiteracy rate is double that of Iowa’s. I think the best example of our superiority is on the news at the end of August every year.

Remember the news footage of New Orleans police officers looting stores in uniform? Remember the alleged reports of locals shooting weapons at rescue helicopters? I must have missed the parts where Iowans did that two years ago when nearly our entire state was under water.

I do remember residents of Cedar Rapids banding together to get the library’s contents to safety, or neighbors helping neighbors evacuate. Iowans didn’t even blame George Bush and his weather machine.

Need more proof? How about the incredible amount of warning Louisiana got that the hurricane was coming? Almost a week ahead of time they had a very good idea that a city below sea level was going to get a serious amount of water thrown at them. How about New Orleans natives choosing the Superdome over the free evacuation bus system? The news and radio stations continually warned that the Superdome was an option of absolute last resort, and the bus system was preferable.

Lastly, and I personally feel the best example, is the accusation by the same people who let a giant and well-publicized storm surprise them, that the government was somehow ill-prepared and botched the rescue efforts.

Ask yourself how the international community is handling the Haiti situation, or check when Chile is going to get those miners out of those caves. No other country in the world could have mobilized National Guard units from other states, drained and cleared roadways of trees, cars and other obstacles and set up rescue shelters in the five-day efficiency clinic the U.S. Military put on.

May I also point out that, in the last 20 years, Iowans have experienced more than one large scale flood and simply fixed the problem rather than whined about how someone else didn’t do their job. My Coast Guard unit was located in Louisiana before and after the hurricane made landfall, so I experienced all this first hand.

Please join me in reminding Louisiana to be a little smarter next time, so our National Guard and tax dollars don’t have to rescue their state again.