Informed Speculation

The Dallas Morning News sends out a love letter to intrastate rival Houston:

In 2005, Houston became the heart of Texas.

For resilience, resourcefulness and good old Texas neighborliness on a scale that did the whole state proud, Houston is the 2005 Dallas Morning News Texan of the Year.

To this day, an estimated 150,000 survivors of hurricanes Katrina and Rita call the Houston area home, and surveys show that most of them plan to stay. When Katrina hurled them, battered and destitute, onto Houston’s doorstep, Houston met the challenge with the largest shelter operation in the nation’s history. Singling out Houston is no slight to the scores of other communities that opened their arms to the storms’ victims, including those right here in North Texas. They, too, performed nobly and deserve vigorous applause. But the demands on Houston, by dint of simple geography, were of a stunningly higher magnitude.

Talk to the people at the center of the relief effort, and, over and over, you’ll hear words that echo those of Issa Dadoush, the city of Houston’s director of building services: “These are Americans. They’re our neighbors. If not Houston, who else?”

Or, as Harris County Judge Robert Eckels said, “We had no choice. It was just something that needed to be done.”

To get it done, “we” became far more than government. The extraordinary effort depended on churches, companies, nonprofits and tens of thousands of ordinary people. Commandeered by fate, they responded with the very qualities that distinguish a Texan of the Year: trailblazing, independence, staring down adversity, and affecting or influencing lives.

Well said, and a classy pick…