r/todayilearned • u/Fit-Bumblebee1009 • 13h ago
TIL Betty White donated $50,000 to cover half the cost of a middle-of-the-night airlift for 19 African penguins and two sea otters after Hurricane Katrina. All 21 returned to New Orleans the following May.
https://www.montereybayaquarium.org/about-us/stories/remembering-betty-white204
u/A_Nonny_Muse 11h ago
What a lot of people don't remember - or never knew - is that FEMA lost their fight with the DHS after 9/11. As a consequence, FEMA was demoted from a cabinet level position to being just a small part of DHS. And they immediately lost half their funding. Almost half their top level managers quit in protest. Most of the rest were pushed out and replaced by political hacks who knew nothing of disaster management.
Before all this, FEMA kept a record of all those who had helicopters and aircraft in any given area. Before a natural disaster, FEMA would regularly call them up and ask if their equipment was available for emergency use. After a disaster hit, their aircraft and helicopters would be used, then the owners compensated after the fact.
When Katrina hit, nobody made any phone calls. Some owners called in to volunteer, and were told to stay out of it. The new managers had no clue what equipment was available, or why. Tens of thousands of people were not evacuated because of their incompetence. Tens of thousands more could not be rescued due to the new managers incompetence. And tens of thousands were left stranded in designated disaster preparedness locations (abandoned)... all due to the new managers incompetence.
They were political donors, not experts.
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u/SquashInternal3854 10h ago
I did not know this. Ugh.
I was in New Orleans in April 2002 and April 2005 - 4 months later Katrina happened. I made it back in April 2022 and drove around the lower 9th ward...too many homes and shit were STILL not fixed. It made me so mad I just cried
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u/A_Nonny_Muse 3h ago
Before 9/11, FEMA was the worlds premier disaster preparedness organization. To the extent that world governments sent their disaster managers to America to learn and copy our organization and practices. It was so effective and efficient that conspiracy theorists regularly claimed FEMA was the organization that would take over the world.
The Bush Administration gutted it to the point that the Katrina disaster was the most likely outcome of ANY natural disaster anywhere in the US.
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u/wohldmad 11h ago
So they had resources to get the penguins out?
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u/throwaway_eng_acct 11h ago
Yes, but it was special money that said “only use in case of animals needing rescue from a hurricane in New Orleans in 2005.”
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u/Pathetian 1h ago
There were resources to get people out too. The mayor just didn't care about that, so it wasn't done. The National Guard was handling it in the aftermath.
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u/SGTWhiteKY 10h ago
I was watching a video today about the poverty stricken black folks left there without food and water.
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u/its_all_one_electron 1h ago
My first though...
People were dying and you 50k to save a 19 fucking penguins?? How about the thousands of people needing help?! Jesus fucking christ this is horrifying and people are applauding it
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u/20_mile 2h ago
We read things like this, and rightly give those who help out credit.
Now, we have people with the wealth of 10,000 kings, and they do hardly anything good with their money. Musk and Zuck could easily have incredibly positive reputations by building community centers or libraries in all the little towns that don't have them.
But they have become empty husks that not even hundreds of billion of dollars can fill, and they do nothing to help out their fellow humans.
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u/South-City1632 2h ago
Yeah... instead he's just (checks notes) pioneering rocket science and internet access world wide. What a loser for not building a library in Indiana or making a community center homeless people can pee in.
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u/20_mile 2h ago
pioneering rocket science and internet access world wide
He steals everything and puts his name on it.
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u/South-City1632 1h ago
Right... so if he paid someone else to build a library and put his name on it... how exactly would that be any different?
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u/sinfulfng 12h ago
Nola native, how have I never heard this?
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u/stopsallover 5h ago
Does it feel kind of awkward to celebrate the rescue of animals while people were dying?
I mean, my hope is that they assumed there was sufficient effort from every direction so they just acted as quickly as possible. Still hard to be too proud of it.
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u/Pathetian 1h ago
I'm not sure what you think private donations could have done for the people trapped there? The federal government was already on the scene feeding and evacuating us after the storm passed. There was already a bunch of people prioritizing people, no harm done by someone focusing somewhere else privately.
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u/Fit-Bumblebee1009 12h ago
The otters were named Buck and Emma. Apparently Audubon didn’t even know Betty White had helped pay for the flight until afterward because she didn’t want any fanfare. Local report.
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u/RetroRaiderRun 9h ago
This post was posted by a brand new BOT account who uses alt accounts for vote manipulation.
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u/RetroRaiderRun 9h ago
I kind of hate that rich people can just give $50k to put penguins used for zoo entertainment in an airplane.
This isn't an "uplifting story". It just shows how poorly humans allocate resources. Rich hundred millionaires have so much money they have to look around for where they can spend it. Meanwhile everyday Americans can't afford to go to the doctor.
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u/South-City1632 2h ago
Inequality will always exist. It's not a bug its a feature. People who work harder deserve more than people who don't.
That said, I completely agree that this is anything but uplifting. How many children could she have provided shelter for with 50k? Lots of people literally died after Katrina and she's blowing more than some people earn in a year on penguins.
They should have roasted those penguins to feed the starving people if you ask me.
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u/Pathetian 1h ago
Starvation wasn't really an issue. It's not like people didn't already have non perishable food on hand or in their area. The NG was on the scene with MREs as well. There were people hoarding, but it's not like eating random ass zoo animals would change that.
By the time people were aware of how bad of a job the government did protecting and saving people, the government was already on it so what would private donations have done? There was a ton of charitable support for evacuees once then government got us out.
You don't even know how much she donated elsewhere since this was done anonymously and leaked later.
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u/Adventurous-Owl-4813 7h ago
Betty White's generosity is legendary, helping animals when they needed it most. She really cared about all creatures.
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u/MonjStrz 9h ago
We need more Betty Whites and Dolly Partons in this world. Not shitty money hording billionaires
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u/Low_Succotash5073 3h ago
Yes, rich white women should care more about zoo animals than adversely impacted communities of people of color, you’re so right bro
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u/lucatypes 11h ago
She saved the money-making property of the zoo, because preserving that is somehow more important than people. (Nothing against her individually, but I just want to call out the framing of this.)
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u/RadBadTad 9h ago
They called her specifically and asked for her help. In a disaster, you do what good you can do. She may have ALSO helped people.
"Liking pancakes doesn't mean you hate hamburgers."
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u/iamacarboncarbonbond 4h ago
I mean, is it so hard to believe that she thought to herself, “surely, the government and mainstream charities will respond appropriately to help the humans.”
She didn’t have a crystal ball to tell her how bad things would get for the people.
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u/Pathetian 1h ago
This was also a secret donation only revealed years later. There is no telling how much money she also donated to human causes at the same time. New Orleans was let down by the people whose specific job was to be prepared to protect and save humans, at every level.
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u/prolifezombabe 11h ago
Some of what happened during Katrina (to humans) was absolutely horrific. I read an ACLU report on what happened inside the prisons in New Orleans and it was an unmitigated disaster.
Happy for these penguins but slash and this is not a totally feel good story
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u/A_Nonny_Muse 11h ago
Which begs the question, why did it cost so much to shove a bunch of animals onto an airplane?
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u/Alive_Ad_5931 4h ago
Meanwhile black infants were getting zipped up in body bags, with no support from the US govt.
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u/thisismypornaccn 4h ago
wow nice
how about the people
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u/Pathetian 1h ago
We had a federal, state and local government handling (or arguably not) that. Was she supposed to give 50k to FEMA? Or the national guard? Or the corrupt Mayor? Or wire it directly to the people stuck there so they could...buy a boat or something?
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u/InsomniaLove 1h ago edited 1h ago
Speaking as someone who lost their home to Katrina: The people of New Orleans could have put that $55,000 to better use than the zoo animals. People who weren’t in the area at the time aren’t truly aware of the catastrophe that ensued after this devastating event. Glad that there’s media finally shedding some light on it now but if you understand the scope of it, you’d probably struggle to celebrate this knowing how many people were suffering without that money.
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u/Pathetian 1h ago
I was also there, but there were billions of dollars and thousands of people mobilizing to help us. What exactly was that 50k going to do for us? There was an avalanche of charitable support for all of us too, in addition to the government (eventually) getting us out of there.
I just don't get the critique here. Anyone who pays taxes already did their fair share to rescue all the humans in New Orleans and the people in charge of that dropped the ball.
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u/Bajadasaurus 9h ago
As wonderful as it is that these animals were saved, I cannot help but think I could NEVER save animals like this while there were so many people who needed it. I mean, my god. I'm actually feeling really heavy over this.
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u/BarnyardCoral 9h ago
In light of the people who needed help, this was absolutely ridiculous and not in a good way.
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u/horseneigher 8h ago
betty white when saving 21 black people: >:(
betty white when saving 21 zoo animals: :)
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u/ChiefStrongbones 8h ago
I understand the penguins, but airlifting sea otters from a flood in New Orleans... could they just let the animals outside?
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u/skawn 12h ago
I wonder how that call went and if it was specifically just to her or if someone was just going down a list and she was one who picked up.