Life without electricity is causing considerable Ike Fatigue for people who are accustomed to roofs over their heads, electricity, and drinkable water. Hundreds of thousands stayed put and now live by candlelight, while hundreds of thousands more returned to darkened and damaged dwellings. Daylight means an extended commute into the city for people expected to be in their places with bright, shiny faces, but who operate on little sleep and an abundance of anxiety.

Journalists never fully report on the logistics of disaster recovery. It’s too big of a story and doesn’t lend itself easily to quick sound bites. But consider that search and rescue personnel conducted 470 missions, rescuing 1,900 storm victims; officials authorized up to 7,500 Guard personnel to active duty; FEMA distributed 2.5 million liters of water, 2 million meals, and 100,000 tarps in the first week after Ike; Domino's Pizza gave away 1,000 pizzas to recovery workers and displaced people in one day; Comcast called in 500 extra technicians to bring customers back online; CenterPoint Energy gathered more than 1,000 trucks and maybe twice as many people from around the country just to clear away trees so 14,000 linemen from Texas and other states could restore power to a 15,000-square-mile area just in Texas.

Here’s a small list of things we’ve not seen: rampant looting; reports of assaults and rapes; bullets fired at helicopters and rescue workers; people standing around complaining about FEMA; a general meltdown of society.

Here’s a small list of things we have seen: people clearing their property and repairing their homes; neighbors pooling resources; thousands of volunteers collecting food and clothing with thousands more distributing water and food from social service agencies, churches, and FEMA; a strong and immutable spirit that is Texas, and in reality, that is America.

Very telling.

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