Re: DS Alert (1-5)

On Jan 9, 12:00 am, "Blinky the Wonder Wombat"
<wkharrisjr_i...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
<LNER4...@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message

news:e01f7ced-77c2-4059-8a64-dba0d6a69637@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx





Last I looked, this is what we have FEMA (and similar state-level
agencies) for. The funding for those agencies should pay for this. And
it's those agencies that should have done the advance organization to
handle stuff like having bus drivers on hand and on call.

*Okay, casting ALL politics aside at the door:
You do realize that your simple pronouncements above have basically
just proposed at the minimum a doubling of the FEMA budget, and once
we actually handle all of it to the end, possibly as much as
quadrupled said budget? And you know what? There really ain't a
damned thing you can do to MAKE bus drivers available. Even if you
write it into their contracts that they MUST be available to drive
people out of town i case of a hurricane, push comes to shove, you're
not going to get more than, say, 5% to 10% of those folks actually on
hand. They're just going to bolt and save the skins of themselves and
their families.

But your premise is that we know that X number of hurricanes will strike
within a given area during a specific time period. Emergency supplies will
have to be found and delivered, no matter who pays for it (sorry, that's
just the nature of Americans). Wouldn't it be better to have those supplies
stockpiled and sent to sent to forward areas in anticipation of the storms?





We're not talking about fallout shelter level stuff--months and months
worth of supplies. We're talking days' worth. Indeed, if the supplies
like tarps, wood, etc. are handled properly, food supply (except for
water) shouldn't really be an issue.

The problem was that stuff should have been handed out BEFORE the
floods even happened. Emergency preparedness does not mean locking the
barn after the horse is loose.

*Okay, so what you've just proposed is distributing a trainload of
MRE's before a storm hits. Hint: Logistical nightmare. We're not
talking the Superdome, we're talking ALL of the New Orleans area, PLUS
Mobile, Gulfport, Biloxi, Lafayette, Metarie, Chalmette, LaPlace,
Baton Rouge, Pascagoula........... and that's for ONE storm's track.
Heaven help you if you gotta divert said trainload to Pensacola, Port
St. Joe, Galveston, Tallahassee, Corpus Christi, Padre Island,
Brownsville, Key West...................

How is it a logistical nightmare getting the supplies to forward postions
BEFORE the storm hits? Seems to me it would be more difficult to distribute
them after the storm was destroyed the infrastructure.

Perhaps you mean that said MRE's would be distributed at the beginning
of the year--say, a week's worth per person in a household. You seem
to have faith that folks would actually set aside said food for an
emergency, as opposed to opening it to save a trip to Mal-Wart. To
which I say, with my human experience: Har-har! Oh, and just because
you live in a hurricane-prone zone, you get a week's worth of
emergency rations? That REALLY isn't going to go over well with those
who have enough sense NOT to build on the coast. Maybe you should be
providing emergency rations to those who might get snowed in over the
winter? What about those who might get affected by high water for a
week? Or those who might get hit by tornadoes? Heck, millions live
in rowhouses--why not see to it that they have protection should their
neighbors accidentally burn them out of their homes?

Again, I think you are forgetting the premise- how would one prepare if we
knew preciesely how many hurricanes would strike in a given time period. No
one asked about tornadoes, blizzrds, or fire.





Do you comprehend by now why I say this is a political disaster of
epic proportions? You are specifically granting security entitlements
to those who chose or were condemned to live in a disaster-prone area
at the expense of those living in more "sensible" areas. That, or
you're passing another unfunded mandate upon those folks.

If I want to be cynical, I'm going to guess that at minimum a million
households on the Gulf Coast ALONE would fall under these emergency
mandates. (Hint: How many households were in New Orleans alone?
200,000+?) Between, say, plywood, MREs, emergency generators, water
storage, etc., you've asked for perhaps a thousand dollars per
household. Being conservative here. Some of this is "evergreen",
some of this would have to be refreshed annually or so.

You got a spare billion? Or three? Remember, I only talked the Gulf
Coast. To hell with the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts. Or the fire-
prone hills. Or the drought-vulnerable Plains.

But won't this money be spent anyway AFTER the storm hits? Isn't it better
to plan ahead of time than scramble trhought he rubble afterward?


I've decided to stop arguing this with him. He's so opposed to any
government spending on ANYTHING (except defense, as he defines it)
that you cannot convince him that preparation for disasters is
preferable to clean up afterwards. His response always comes down to
"but who pays"? And the answer "the same people who pay to clean up
afterwards" doesn't satisfy him, because he's convinced that means HE
will have to pay for something he doesn't get.

Of course, he might get something when we prepared for some other
predicted disaster in HIS area, but he's not getting anything THIS
time, so he's opposed.


.

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