Terrible as it is to be engulfed in snow, freezing with no power, it does
not equate one iota to being forcefully evacuated from your home, not allowed to
go back to your home, and once you DO go home to find that instead of its nice
little landscaped plot it USED to be sitting on, it is now sitting in the middle
of the street down around the corner from where it started, or simply
non-existent. You haven't lost anything but some time, wear on your winter
clothes, and having to share your home (maybe) with a stranger or two. 50
MPH dry winds are nothing compared to hurricane force winds with rain and storm
surge that literally lifted homes from concrete slabs and moved them like
houseboats. At least by staying in your house you could be relatively safe
from the storm, there was no 'safe' in Katrina, nor in Rita.
While I do agree that the government created many problems in this
situation, I hardly find it fair or kind to state the generalization that
"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." Seems to me the
Government that you're speaking of is housed a little bit north of 48
degrees North Latitude
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."
