Houston: 2005 Texan of the Year

Welcome to 2006! If our first news of the new year is any indication, the apocalypse may be drawing near: Dallas is giving Houston props.

In its Sunday editions, The Dallas Morning News names the city of Houston "Texan of the Year" for 2005 for the way it handled evacuees from Katrina and Rita, saying Houston showed "resilience, resourcefulness and good old Texas neighborliness on a scale that did the whole state proud."

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. ... 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.

The article highlights the two men most easily associated with coordinating the evacuee influx: Mayor Bill White and County Judge Robert Eckels. But it also refers to the "hundreds, thousands of unsung heroes" — and to Houstonist, they are what made the effort so incredible. Houstonist saw first-hand the ordinary citizens giving their days and nights to help the evacuees. We remember the tens of thousands of people who came when the call for volunteers went out from the Astrodome. We saw the warehouses full of food, supplies, clothing and toys Houstonians had donated. We were — and are — amazed.

So to our home city: Congratulations. There's still a lot left to do, of course, but we'll get to that next week. For now, happy new year!