By Tom Deignan

The horror of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans lasted almost a week, but the political fallout from the mess will surely last months, even years.

Just on Tuesday, word came down that New Orleans Police Chief Eddie Compass was stepping down. This after members of the New Orleans force were stretched so thin in the nightmarish wake of the hurricane that some deserted their duties.

“I served this department for 26 years and have taken it through some of the toughest times of its history. Every man in a leadership position must know when it’s time to hand over the reins,” Compass said at a news conference. “I’ll be going on in another direction that God has for me.”

As profoundly disturbing as the events in New Orleans during the late summer of 2005 were, however, it got me thinking that they were not entirely unique.

This, after all, is not the first time a major American city has more or less had to rebuild itself. There was the downtown Manhattan fire of 1835 and the Chicago fire of 1871.

Meanwhile, a new book by one of Irish America’s most interesting writers reminds us of the devastation — and political fallout — of the horrific San Francisco earthquake of 1906.

Indeed, historically speaking, when natural catastrophe (that is, fires, hurricanes or earthquakes as opposed to terrorism or rioting) has struck, there has always been a long investigation afterwards. Also, Irish Americans often suffered or played a prominent role in the response.

Take San Francisco. True, when the earthquake hit at 5:12 a.m. on the morning of April 18, 1906, the city’s mayor was named Eugene Schmitz, while Abe Ruef was the best known machine boss in town.

Nevertheless, San Francisco was a heavily Irish town. So it was only natural that the Irish took as big a hit as any other community following that fateful April morning which left 3,000 people dead.

The ensuing fires levelled the city and raged for days. In all, well over 500 blocks and 28,000 buildings were destroyed, and 200,000 people needed to find new homes.

These statistics come from Dennis Smith’s fascinating new book San Francisco Is Burning: The Untold Story of the 1906 Earthquake and Fires.

Smith, whose mother was an Irish immigrant, is a former New York City firefighter whose other books include Report from Engine Company 82 and the more recent Report from Ground Zero.

In his latest book, Smith painstakingly dissects the aftermath of the San Francisco conflagration. One can’t help but think that another expert will be doing the same for New Orleans down the road.

Another heavily Irish town which more or less burned to the ground was Chicago in 1871. Back then, 40,000 Chicagoans, about 15%, were Irish born.

According to legend, it was the cow of an Irish immigrant, Catherine O’Leary, who tipped over a lantern starting the blaze. (Later investigations by Chicago police and fire departments exonerated O’Leary.)

But in light of what happened in New Orleans, perhaps the most interesting parallel is the downtown Manhattan fire of 1835.

New York was not nearly as Irish then as it would become by the 1850s. But for the Irish Catholics who did call New York home, fire chief James Gulick was considered a friend.

As FDNY historian Terry Golway notes in his book So Others Might Live, Gulick was able to compel the city’s largely Protestant fire department to extinguish an earlier blaze at the old St. Patrick’s Cathedral, then the center of Irish life in New York.

When the 1835 fire broke out, the loss of life was minimal. However, looting was rampant, with over 400 people eventually arrested.

“The miserable wretches who prowled about the ruins...seemed to exult in the misfortune,” one observer wrote.

There was an initial outpouring of vast financial support for New York. But soon enough the political aftermath of the devastating fire split the city. Gulick, sick of dealing with politicians, actually walked off the job.

All in all, some people were nearly as injured by the subsequent divisions which emerged following the devastation.

Through it all, though, all involved promised that the great city would once again be built.

Sound familiar?

(Contact Sidewalks at tomdeignan@earthlink.net.)