whodat

I wish I had the e-mail addresses of the Mayor of New Orleans and the Gov. Of LA. and it would also be a delight to be able to send this to some of the idiots that looted and shot as law officers and the ones that stood on the streets shouting slurs at FEMA and Bush and the American Government. But of course these are the same idiots that had the least to lose and the most to gain from us tax payers.

This is a great arlicle:
North Dakota News Bulletin

This text is from county emergency manager out in the western part of North Dakota state after the storm. Amusing, if it were not so true...

WEATHER BULLETIN
Up here in the Northern Plains we just recovered from a Historic event --- may I even say a "Weather Event" of "Biblical Proportions" --- with a historic blizzard of up to 24" inches of snow and winds to 50 MPH that broke trees in half, stranded hundreds of motorists in lethal snow banks, closed all roads, isolated scores of communities and cut power to 10's of thousands.

FYI:
George Bush did not come....
FEMA staged nothing....
No one howled for the government...
No one even uttered an expletive on TV...
Nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards ....
No one asked for a FEMA Trailer House....
No one looted....
Phil Cantori of the Weather Channel did not come....
And Geraldo Rivera did not move in.

Nope, we just melted snow for water, sent out caravans to pluck people out of snow engulfed cars, fired up wood stoves, broke out coal oil lanterns or Aladdin lamps, and put on an extra layer of clothes because up here it is 'work or die'. We did not wait for some affirmative action government to get us out of a mess created by being immobilized by a welfare program that trades votes for 'sitting at home' checks.

Even though a Category "5" blizzard of this scale has never fallen this early... we know it can happen and how to deal with it ourselves

Volt-Schwibe

that's funny.

basically they are saying, "buck up" or "be a man about it"

bry623

Yep, we all have our weather disasters. Again no power between Dec 23 and 1/2 for most around here and I did not once see a FEMA van. It took me until March to clear the trees from my yard no one helped me. That's what happens when the local and state authorities have you prepared.

Volt-Schwibe

i remember three times they flew the emergency alert system when i was 5-15 years old.

one, was when mt. st. helens blew up, the air was so thick with as you literally couln'd see the ground at your feet, and there was a total of 6 inches of ash on the roads, and we were all advised to not go outside without eye protection and dust masks. no aid, either from armed forces, or FEMA or anything. (at least not in our local area) the county just rolled the snow plows.

another time, we recieved an amazing 8 feet of snow in 3 days. people's houses we collapsing on them, everyone's pipes broke, the local power substation was shut down for 2 days, and the repair guys couldn't get to it. now, there was probably only about 400 houses without power. people died, lost in snow for days... again, no aid, from anyone. we just all grabbed shovels, even me, at 10, was needed to help shovel the entire town.

and the last time i remember it being flown, was when we were having strange lightning that was catching trees on fire all around the place. fire departments were called from 16 districts to deal with a raging fire that started in the woods near the feet of mt. st. helens. fire raged for weeks and weeks and guess what, we got it put out, no visit from the national guard was needed, just effort on the part of the people who were already in place.

now, there wasn't thousands of people dying in any of the events i listed, but if the local firefighters, police, search and rescue, and the local townspeople had not been so full of "sense of duty" then all three of these events could have led to hundreds, or maybe even thousands of deaths.

preparedness is the key. alot of times, people don't even think about the fact that we are living on the outer crust of a ball of magma hurtling through space, and that at any moment, anything could happen to it.

the term, "solid as the ground we stand on" only means so much, we are here living on this rock by chance, and need to understand that we are fragile and small, and need to be prepared for anything.