Obama, Sandy and the powers that be in New York!

[candycorn]

Makes you wonder why this is in politics if the OP didn't want it to be political

 

[BlindBoo]

Movies have warped people's expectations.

The government is doing the best they can, and by all expert accounts they have done a decent job. However it takes time to bring supplies in and distribute them. There is no magic wand or instantaneous rescue where an hour after a diaster hits in comes a line of tanks to save the day.

It's a week later. There is no excuse for not providing life sustaining essentials by this point

If they were not providing these necessities then I might agree with you.

FEMA distribution centers in Nassau County - Long Island Parenting | Examiner.com

 

[Remodeling Maidiac]

Makes you wonder why this is in politics if the OP didn't want it to be political

I post everything in politics because that's where it draws attention rather than a sub forum with 8 viewers.

 

[Katzndogz]

Watching so many suffer while others get their needs met makes me wonder if disaster relief should be turned over to the states. FEMA, while they may be doing the best they can just don't seem capable of assigning resources responsibly. Where as if states were given the same power would know their peoples needs much better making relief efforts more efficient

You mean like Romney proposes? Yes, an excellent idea.

 

[WillowTree]

Rumor Control

There is a lot of misinformation circulating on social networks. Check here for an on-going list of rumors and their true or false status.

Hurricane Sandy | FEMA.gov

Watch interviews from the unhappy victims. whydonchya?

 

[WillowTree]

Why the fuck isn't there semi trailers full of drinking water located in the most needed areas? Most of the water has receeded and there is just NO EXCUSE for all those people to be hungry and thirsty.
I just saw a story about people in the projects that have no support of any kind.
We don't need to do everything for them but without power how the fuck are they supposed to do for themselves?

You have no idea. You just can't mobilize that many people to get water into zones that have none.

Look I can go minimum 60 days and ready to extend to 90. People aren't built like me. Most don't understand being prepared.

most people aren't feebleminded survivalist wusses.

who knew?

I would have guessed camel!

 

[BlindBoo]

Rumor Control

There is a lot of misinformation circulating on social networks. Check here for an on-going list of rumors and their true or false status.

Hurricane Sandy | FEMA.gov

Watch interviews from the unhappy victims. whydonchya?

Why? That's what happens after a hurricane. I can empathize. After Ike we were without power for 17 days. Life doesn't begin to retun to normal until the power comes back on. The point is FEMA did not run out of water. Who is responsible for distribution of the goods FEMA has brought in? Hint: It's the States and the Localities who are responsible for setting up the POD sites/centers.

 

[AmyNation]

Rumor Control

There is a lot of misinformation circulating on social networks. Check here for an on-going list of rumors and their true or false status.

Hurricane Sandy | FEMA.gov

Watch interviews from the unhappy victims. whydonchya?

Why? That's what happens after a hurricane. I can empathize. After Ike we were without power for 17 days. Life doesn't begin to retun to normal until the power comes back on. The point is FEMA did not run out of water. Who is responsible for distribution of the goods FEMA has brought in? Hint: It's the States and the Localities who are responsible for setting up the POD sites/centers.

Good point.

 

[Rocko]

Why the fuck isn't there semi trailers full of drinking water located in the most needed areas? Most of the water has receeded and there is just NO EXCUSE for all those people to be hungry and thirsty.
I just saw a story about people in the projects that have no support of any kind.
We don't need to do everything for them but without power how the fuck are they supposed to do for themselves?

what are you talking about?

there is water. there is food. there are warming centers.

if you choose to avail yourself, there are tons of places to go for help.

stop trying to pretend this is katrina.

the people who live here aren't pawns in the little bash obama game.

especially when he did ten times the job of your guy.

Obama didn't do jack shit. There's nothing to blame him for and nothing to give him credit for.

 

[Katzndogz]

There is water, there is food, there are warming centers. At least according to the media telling the government's story.

As for the people who are directly affected, there's no water, no food, no warming centers, just a lot of looters.

 

[Claudette]

Watch interviews from the unhappy victims. whydonchya?

Why? That's what happens after a hurricane. I can empathize. After Ike we were without power for 17 days. Life doesn't begin to retun to normal until the power comes back on. The point is FEMA did not run out of water. Who is responsible for distribution of the goods FEMA has brought in? Hint: It's the States and the Localities who are responsible for setting up the POD sites/centers.

Good point.

Excellent point.

Same thing happened after Katrina. State and local officials dropped the damned ball and expected the Feds to catch the damned thing.

 

[TakeAStepBack]

Lots of arm chair QBs from out of state doing what arm chair QBs do....

 

[BlindBoo]

FEMA During Hurricane Katrina and Beyond


But was it really FEMA's failure? Many of the FEMA staff like myself had worked at FEMA during our "glory days" of the 1990s, when FEMA was renowned as a fast, effective agency responding to disasters. Why was it now so slow?

For starters, FEMA under DHS had been forced to throw away its clear, workable disaster response plans in favor of a confusing set of plans that no one understood. When FEMA was still an independent agency, it responded to disasters under the Federal Response Plan, the "FRP." The FRP had clear lines of authority and specified exactly what was to be done in a disaster. No plan is perfect, but the FRP had served us well in numerous disasters.

But under DHS, the FRP had now been replaced by something called the "National Response Plan," or "NRP." The NRP had been written by DHS contractors, with very little involvement from FEMA disaster professionals. It was complicated and hard to understand, something you definitely do not want in a disaster.

As Hurricane Katrina bore down on the Gulf Coast, lines of authority under the NRP were unclear, a sure death blow to any emergency plan. For example, under the old FRP, a Federal Coordinating Officer (FCO) from FEMA was in charge of federal disaster responders in the field. Every federal responder in the field knew that and understood that the FCO was calling the shots.

But under the NRP, while there was still an FCO from FEMA, now there was also a Principal Federal Official (PFO) from DHS, who would do ... well, no one quite knew what, exactly. As the disaster unfolded, it was unclear who was in charge of which things at the federal level ... the FCO or the PFO. As a result, the NRP was confusing and almost useless and added to the delays in responding to the storm.

Even worse, FEMA was now operating under DHS, so instead of getting our orders from the seasoned disaster veterans like Witt or Lacy Suiter, who had run FEMA in the 1990s, our orders now came from managers at DHS who had no experience in disasters. In the middle of the Katrina response, phone calls to the NRCC from these DHS managers would continually interrupt the work of the FEMA employees with a barrage of questions which clearly were not related to the emergency response, but to speechwriting for DHS executives, distracting the FEMA employees from their emergency work.

For example, on one night during the Katrina response, there was a discrepancy in the number of people who had reportedly been rescued from the flood waters that day in a particular locale. The discrepancy was small ... maybe one report said that 35 people had been rescued and another report said it was 40. In the confusion of a disaster, such a discrepancy would be normal and it did not really matter. The fact was, about 35 to 40 people had been rescued from flood waters that day in that particular area.

But "about 35 to 40 people" was not good enough for DHS. I was working my shift at the NRCC that night and a staff person at DHS phoned me at about 2:00 in the morning and ordered me to phone down to Louisiana, wake up some people on the federal rescue team and have them send in a more exact number immediately.

These rescue team members were firefighters and medics who had been doing hard, dangerous rescue work for about 15 hours or more and were now getting a little sleep before going out to do more rescues and I was ordered to wake them up to fix some numbers in a report.

I was not permitted to refuse an order from DHS, so I said O.K., I'll call them right away. I hung up the phone, waited about ten minutes and then I phoned back to DHS. Sorry, I said, the phone lines to the rescue team are all down because of the hurricane, so my call could not get through. I promised to keep trying and hung up the phone. In truth, I never even attempted to phone the rescue teams. I was not going to wake up exhausted rescuers in the middle of the night just to get some numbers for a speechwriter.

 

[Remodeling Maidiac]

Lots of arm chair QBs from out of state doing what arm chair QBs do....

Criticism is valid. Accepting status quo is not

 

[tinydancer]

That's extremely funny.

Turn off Fox.
It's bad News for America.

Oh by all means listen to real "news guys". That's it. You get your "real news".

Where's JD these days?

JD Roberts?

I used to work with him in rock and roll......JD and I hosted Ronnie Specter and Genya Raven when I held a huge bash up party for Ronnie.

Would you like me to continue?

no

you always crack me up.

My only point was to try to say that these people out there, they aren't journalists any more.

We're not getting the real deal. Who is out there really giving us the "boots on the ground" so we know where these poor souls need stuff?

Is there anyone we can clue in on? I'm only on radio. My kids and ex husband are ready to launch out of the GTA. I'm too far west but I can organize from here.

Can anyone get us the real deal?