Obviously, as I live here, that's all I see on the news. I have had people from around the country (and even a friend in Finland) contact me to see if we were okay, so it must be on somewhere. The worst of the flooding in our area is over although there are still areas downstream and on the Mississippi that are currently of concern.
I agree part of it has to do with the location/population density. I mean, almost everyone has heard of New Orleans but maybe 1/4 of the country (probably less) has heard of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, or even care about Iowa in general. Multiple cities have been impacted with possibility of more as the flooding continues downstream. It's difficult to pinpoint one area whereas with Katrina, it was easy to focus on New Orleans.
Also, while 25,000 or so people were evacuated in Cedar Rapids, less than 20 people have died as a result of the flooding. And amazingly, looting is minimal. I was looking at the local paper today and they reported only one case so far.
What I don't think people realize is the economic impact these floods will have on consumers. Right now they're estimating 2-4% of the entire corn crop for the country is lost. Already corn prices are at record highs, but yields will be extremely low this year due to a cold, wet spring and the floods. Other commodities and produce will be affected as well. It is not going to be a good year for farmers.
ETA: Rob posted while I was in the middle of this post, and I agree with him also in the fact that we did have some time to prepare and do the best we could WRT sandbagging and creating barricades, even though much was for naught. While there have been disgruntled people, for the most part they are accepting of what the mayor, city council and governor have put into action. Hell, I can only shower every other day and can't flush our toilets until our water system is at 100% capacity and we were 15 blocks away from the worst of the flooding. It's not ideal, but I'll gladly take it if that means it will help recovery efforts. While this blows away the floods of '93, those also taught our cities lessons on preparedness and dealing with this type of catastrophe.
ETA2:
local news media websites:
www.gazetteonline.com - Cedar Rapids paper
www.dmregister.com - Des Moines paper
The image galleries from the Gazette are seriously insane.