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[RC] re: [RC] How True This Is - Christina SchiroHere is another perspective, one from someone that grew up in Chicagoland and relocated to FLORIDA in 2000: I live in Pensacola, FL. Hurricane Ivan was 15 MONTS AGO, yet: I lived on a boat in the middle of a BAYOU for 13 months after Ivan where I had to haul my drinking and bath water, haul fuel for a generator, and dingy to shore to my car to get to work (where for weeks it took me at least 3 hours one way to go a normal 15 minute drive because most roads were GONE). Sometime I couldn't go home at night and had to stay at the library till late at night waiting out lightning storms and waiting for 3 foot waves died down to safely row "home". 15 months later, I STILL have NO ELECTRICITY and have to live off a generator, because the owner of the property where I live is tired of having to redo the electric after hurricane after hurricane after hurricane wipes it out. From March - October we had to use a cooler with bags
of ice instead of using my refrigerator since I didn't want to run my generator while I was gone at work to keep my freezer frozen. We personnally are looking into getting our very own electric pole because of this, but it's a little pricey, so we are saving up; Interstate 10 is STILL down to ONE lane for several miles heading east over Escambia Bay in Pensacola, so you can image the traffic. The new bridge will not be complete for a year or two still. Check out the web cams at: http://escambiabaybridge.com/; Hurricane Debris STILL lines some roads and yards and has yet to be removed because there is SO MUCH and SO much money has already been spent to remove it; I pass numerous HOMES on my way too and from work that has yet to be repaired because of INSURANCE DISPUTES, LACK of people to fix them, owner's personal financial problems, etc. When I saw need to be repaird, I mean you CAN'T LIVE
in them, they are crumbled, torn in pieces, etc.; We Pensacolians though IVAN was bad, then came KATRINA and we stopped bitchin'. Have you had towns completely wiped off the face of the earth? And I'm not talking about New Orleans. How about the small towns that were bypassed and were not covered that much in the news. It takes YEARS for a town to recover from a hurricane because they are so devasting. Should I take some current pictures to show you proof of how our area is still recovering? It will take towns ruined by Katrina 10 times longer. Christina Schiro, Pensacola, Florida, Escambia County ******** This text is from a county emergency manager in the western part of
North Dakota, after the storm. Truly emphasizes that "perspective is reality" 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 'sittin 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. "In my many travels, I have noticed that once one gets north of about 48 degrees North Latitude, 90% of the worlds social problems evaporate." --
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