OK, Here I Go.... (Hurricane related)

The BBQ Pit
1

I’m SO FUCKING SICK of all this “they deserved it” for living in a “hurricane prone area below sea level” shit.
Am I alone?
Does anybody with a soul really believe anybody in New Orleans or South Mississippi could have seen this coming?

"These troglodytes say, “Yes!!#$, of course they should have known better, it’s OBVIOUS it was in a hurricane zone, New Orleans was below sea level, there was nothing in Mississippi to begin with… etc etc etc”

“What IDIOTS would have lived there in the first place?”
Yeah, cuz EVERYBODY knew the Big One would hit THIS YEAR.

Fucking ignorant assholes.

What gets me the most, is that these particular assholes were Canadian, supposedly the bastion of political correctness and compassion, at least when it comes to anything contrasting America. Or I should say “Bush”, because EVERYBODY here voted for him. You might be surpised to see how many out and proud gays there are here in Tupelo, Mississippi. More, per capita than in Wicker Park Chicago, IMHO. Oh, and my wife and myself, who personally loath Bush.

I wasn’t asking for anything. Nor were the unfortunate saps who had taken refuge here, who have just lost fucking everything. There is NO DOUBT in my mind that these people were genuine. Our mini-town has taken in thousands of refugees from Louisiana, Alabama, and Southern Mississippi. I can tell by all the foreign license plates at WalMart.

But somehow it somehow came up, the AID and CHARITY card… and they went off.

HAHAHAA Americans who are ALL FUCKING RICH need help? HAHAHAHHA

It just really pissed me off, and I can’t think of what to say about it.
I’d be willing to bet that 99% of the people on earth would not be so crass toward people who’d just lost their homes… yet I experienced just this very same thing firsthand, at the bar.

I guess that’s what I get for dealing with drunks (and sorta being one myself).

2

I suppose I should mention that our friends were from Montreal, a city that I’ve visited twice, and love.
Great hookers there :smiley:

3

Of course not. It pisses me off too.

4

FWIW, this Canadian certainly doesn’t feel that way. I’ve been horrified at the footage I’m seeing. The devastation and loss of life - no one deserves that.

Oddly, I heard a little blip saying the US was not seeking international donations at this time. Checked out the Canadian Red Cross web site and it says:

I can’t believe your “friends” would spew such hateful garbage.

5

Cyros, they were just being hateful for hateful’s sake, I think.

It is no dig on any group of people… I’m sorry if I dug on Canadians…

Only that I’d seen the attitude on the internet, then experienced it first hand, in Tupelo Mississippi, of all places, and I expected better.

6

Hey, we have our share of assholes. No offense taken.

7

I definitely think your friends went way over the top but…

::donning flameproof suit::

I don’t understand why the National Guard, sheriff’s department, and other rescue organizations are spending their days and nights pulling people off the tops of buildings. The evacuation order came through in plenty of time for people to get out, there were organizations providing busses and other transport for elderly/indigent/otherwise incapacitated folks, there were facilities for them to go to, yet (last time I caught the news) over 3,000 additional people have been found and rescued. 30 people died in a “beachfront apartment complex”- how can you NOT know, if the size and intensity of the storm is predicted and the evacuation order given, that a BEACHFRONT building is going to be hard hit? So many deaths could have been prevented. That guy they’re featuring on all the news channels who lost his wife when he couldn’t hold onto her hand anymore? How much horrific guilt is he going to be carrying around for the rest of his life? How about his kids and grandkids?

This happens all the damned time… you see on the news all the folks saying “we’re gonna ride this one out, no big deal…” and I just DON’T GET IT. [sarcasm]Is it too much to ask to NOT help out Mother Nature when she goes on a PMS-driven killing spree?[/sarcasm]

And don’t get me started on the people on the news yesterday screaming and frothing at the mouth that if they weren’t allowed back in their disease-ridden, under-20-feet-of-water neighborhood RIGHT NOW they were going to stop paying taxes. :rolleyes:

8

Are you fucking serious?!?!

Because if they don’t get rescued from the roofs, they’ll FUCKING DIE???

How’s that for a reason?

9

Although I understand the whole “you should have evacuated when told” thing, I don’t understand how people can say that it’s the homeowners’ faults that they lost their homes; that they should have known better than to build there. I mean, everywhere has its natural disasters. If they weren’t in hurricane zone, they could be out in California in earthquake zone, or out west in tornado zone. There’s no place truly safe from natural disasters.

10

It’s not exactly fair, but the sad fact is that a disaster of this magnitude was inevitable. Nobody saw it coming this year, but the mere fact that the authorities were discussing the possibility means that they were cognizant of its inevitability. Which then naturally leads to the question that people have been asking: sooner or later you had to know that you were going to get smacked, so why did you move down there? It’s the same question that I would ask anybody who decided to move to a location near the San Andreas Fault, or near an active volcano, or even on the banks of the Mississippi. These are anticipated disaster areas, and are totally unlike the areas affected by the tsunami last year. Now that they know that something like that can and does happen they have to plan for it. As to what makes people move into areas like that I cannot speak to, but they had their reasons, and everyone’s got to live somewhere, right? I’m not too worked up about that. But to deny that it was coming sooner or later is to put blinders on, and is silly and counterproductive.

As to the aid question, that’s a good one. Where’s the massive amount of aid? Or are we exempt from such largesse because we’re the United States, and why should we help those rich people when they don’t help anybody else (which is totally and categorically false)? I’d throw down the gauntlet right now but that would be a waste of time and would undoubtedly result in a 5 page flamewar so I’ll keep my own counsel on that topic.

11

I think the intent was to question the sanity of the people who stayed, and to question why so many resources are being wasted when there should have been nobody left to rescue. I think we are well within our rights to call the people who stayed a bunch of dumb fucks. I know that if I were pulling them out of danger I’d be saying it, if only under my breath.

12

I respect you, Airman, but uh… how about being born there? Without a car?

13

And you can’t leave? People have the ability to go wherever they want to go. If they choose to live there, that’s their choice, but you don’t need a car to move. Again, everybody has to live somewhere, but there are consequences everywhere you live, and some are exponentially worse than others.

14

Given that there were convoys of buses taking everybody to Kansas City.

Oh, wait.

15

How far could they have walked in 12 hours?

16

Three days, average walking speed 4 miles per hour, 8 hours per day, that’s almost 100 miles. It’s a little hard on the feet, but it’s a damn sight better than dead.

17

Gov. Haley Barbour: “I can only imagine that this is what Hiroshima looked like 60 years ago.”
Biloxi Mayor A.J. Holloway: “This is our tsunami.”

Yes, your town was decimated. However, let’s compare:
Hiroshima: 135,000 deaths (and about twice as many over time)
Tsunami: 220,000
Katrina: 100

I’d like to also add that those in the path of Katrina had warning. They knew a hurricane was headed their way. Same cannot be said for the victims in Hiroshima and Southeast Asia.

I don’t want to downplay the fact that cities were razed, and that hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of lives adversely affected. I only wish elected officials would tone down their hyperbole; Katrina is not on the scale of devastation of either the tsunami nor the bombing of Hiroshima.

18

Christ! (and I don’t even believe in any “Gods”)

Category 3, Category 4, Category 5 with hours to go.

No car.

You fucking walk out of that city.

19

From a material point of view it certainly was. Loss of life is incomparable, but as you said there was warning. As far as destruction, I’d say that it definitely rivaled both events.

20

Are we ignoring the fact that there were people who had the means to leave and definitely the opportunity to do so when the voluntary evacuation was started and when the mandatory evacuation was ordered, but there they were on CNN doing interviews talking about how they just chose not to.

I cannot understand how someone could see on the news a Category 5 hurricane the size of Florida heading in their general direction and say 'Well fuck it, I think I’ll just hang out here."

Even if they didn’t think they were going to be at the very worst part of the storm, it’s pretty clear that there’s significant risk to your life if you hang around for a storm like that.