Hurricane Break
Leslie finished a three week run beating up Portugal and the only thing stirring is an ‘area of interest’ in the Caribbean with a 20% chance of becoming a contender. I am mostly done with major work on the apartments and trying to get my house in order, so I Just Dropped In to see what has been going on.
I have been told by talking heads that Trump doesn’t want to seem like he’s ignoring the problems created by Hurricane Michael. Yeah, right, that’s why he is holding campaign rallies and playing golf while search teams and cadaver dogs are scrambling through debris on a corridor of destruction from the Gulf to the Atlantic. Ms Streisand has it right: Don’t Lie To Me.
When I was out shopping on Thursday and Friday I saw people loading up bottled water, 5 gallon gas cans, generators, and canned food in major quantities. Some were ‘church ladies’; others were deputies from Bay and Gulf counties. It was Friday afternoon that an alert went out that a center for food and distribution had opened at a middle school in Panama City. The Gulf Coast State College radio station (WKGC) is the only broadcast media facility still on the air in Panama City.
Where is FEMA? Where is the plan? These are Republican voters who just got smashed. When we got nailed by Ivan in 2004, the Shrubbery sent everything the government had to help out just before the election. WTF?!
SNAFU – which is why: I’m Not Ready To Make Nice… 😈
7 comments
FEMA director Brock Long is too busy figuring out how to rip off the government to actually run his agency, as far as I can tell. He already got ripped by the inspector general for using agency cars for his personal commute…. he’s also under fire for spending little time in Washington, instead taking four day weekends to his home in North Carolina.
The FEMA funds were sequestered for locking up dangerous migrant children kidnapped from their parents
Local officials are concerned if they do anything major without FEMA approval, FEMA won’t reimburse them. There is a massive amount of debris to be removed so recovery can be begin, but FEMA needs to approve the debris removal companies and certify their trucks. If locals just go to work FEMA can refuse to cover their costs which slows down the recovery. The system as it is currently configured under Homeland Security sucks.
After Opal in 1995, FEMA hired locals with pickups to load up with water, ice, and food and make deliveries to areas. FEMA brought in supplies and fuel and then depended on locals who find areas when the street signs were gone. Then they had other locals go around with cars loaded with forms to help people sign up for the various benefits.
Now people have to figure out how to get to one of the FEMA distribution points for water and ice, and how to “call an 1-800 number” or visit the FEMA web site when the phones don’t work and there’s no power to fill out forms. That is because it is “more efficient and less expensive”. It’s called “running government like a business”…
I can feel my post-Katrina outrage beginning to stir again.. Does anyone know how Puerto Rico is doing these days?
Puerto Rico is still struggling, but making some progress. In addition to everything else a significant portion of the population has moved to the mainland. With luck and a sense of justice they will have registered to vote against Republicans.
Local officials are concerned if they do anything major without FEMA approval, FEMA won’t reimburse them.
yep. and local governments, especially in florida, have no money, even in the best of times.
and thanks for the musical interlude. 🙂
You’re right and you’re welcome. Citizens Insurance, the state’s insurer of last resort, will be bankrupt because Batboy has been holding down premiums and depleting the pay out fund. Republicans have been spending the “rainy day” fund to cover their deficits cause by their tax cuts.