I assumed that you were complaining about a lack of foreign aid (as has happened in several other threads). My point was that the US is capable of coping financially with this disaster.
It is of course terrible when your home is destroyed. Nevertheless the US has sensibly made plans for disaster relief and can provide food and shelter for all the refugees.
I assume that every homeowner has insurance, so they have not ‘lost everything’.
Their bank balance is not affected.
If they loaded up their car before leaving, they would have many valuable possessions.
If I sound hard-hearted, it’s because you seem incapable of understanding by comparison what it was like for people in the tsunami.
They had no warning, no insurance, little Government aid and have indeed lost everything.
Perhaps you could turn your emotions into sympathy for them.
You assume too much. This disaster, even with the massive amounts of insurance, will still cost FEMA a pretty penny, and the truth is that none of that matters right now. There’s no food, water, or shelter to be had anywhere near the city. Insurance won’t feed or clothe you.
The only quote I read that mentioned the tsunami was from the mayor of Biloxi, who said “This is our tsunami”. At least 100 people (and very possibly a lot more) are dead in a city of 50,000. There is widespread destruction. I interpreted his statement to mean “this is our tragedy. We are devastated.” I think that’s a fair thing for the mayor to say; he didn’t say that it was as bad as the tsunami or that he wants a billion dollars in aid, he just said that “this is our tsunami”.
If there are people who are claiming that Katrina is as bad as the tsunami, they’re off their rockers, but I haven’t seen that.
In reply to "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. ", you said:
“Are you fucking serious?!?!
Because if they don’t get rescued from the roofs, they’ll FUCKING DIE???
How’s that for a reason?”
See post 17 in this thread.
Biloxi Mayor A.J. Holloway
Where do you get my ‘hatred’ from?
I’ve posted:
“Certainly the international community should rally round to help anyone in need…”
“Of course we should all feel sad at loss of life and property, wherever it happens.”
“It is of course terrible when your home is destroyed. Nevertheless the US has sensibly made plans for disaster relief and can provide food and shelter for all the refugees.”
Oh, right, sorry, I forgot I’m only allowed to have sympathy for one disaster at a time. Let’s see, if I finish caring about the hurricane by this evening, then tomorrow I should have time for the 630+ killed in a stampede in Iraq, and maybe I can get arround to caring about the famine in East Africa sometime next week.
As for why people live there, why do live where you do? How about because people grew up there, have friends, family, a home and a job there? Yes, you can move without a car, I moved from Baltimore to Boston without a car. I spent all my savings, and put a few more thousand dollars on my credit card, to move my stuff, find an apartment, and support myself until I could find a job. It was absolutely terrifying, and the only thing that kept me from collapsing in a heap of panic was knowing that, as an absolutely last resort, I could move back to Wisconsin and live with my dad if I had to.
Did you actually read my whole post, or are you too busy frothing at the mouth? I was quite clear in saying that I did not support the comments you heard. My point was there should not be over 3,000 in one city alone (never mind however many other thousands are being picked up) to be rescued. They CHOSE to ride out the storm, and now the attention/resources that could be given to helping those that are now in serious danger and need to be evacuated (i.e., the Superdome folks) is being wasted. How many people did they rescue from the hairdressing salon? Ten? Who the bloody hell thinks “well, it doesn’t look too bad, and nothing really horrible has ever happened here, so instead of following everyone in charge’s order to evacuate, I’m going to hole up at work”??? It’s one thing if you’re battened down at home with invalid great-great-great grandma and your 36 children under the age of 2 and truly feel like you have no other options… it’s something entirely different to decide to stay in a business with ten of your closest… uhhh… customers, I guess.
The Superdome holds, what, 75,000? How many are there- 10,000? People didn’t HAVE to walk out of the city, or plug up the highways, or hole up in their homes, if they truly felt like these were not choices they could take. They had a ready-made option not far away, and they chose not to take advantage of it.
Now wipe your mouth and take a Valium or something.
A very large oak branch blew off the top of a very tall tree and blew a hole in my fence. Naturally it landed right next to my satellite dish, too. Another demolished my flower bed. I lost about a dozen shingles. Lots of debris everywhere. Apparently I REALLY know how to build a privacy fence, even if one of the lines isn’t exactly, um, straight.
Neighbor on one side had a willow tree from the house behind her get uprooted and pushed through her fence. Total loss on that thing. Neighbor on the other side had a nine foot bartlett pear tree snap off at the base.
Currently there are lines about 30-40 cars long to get gas and, naturally, they’ve only got super-maxi-premium available. Power is out nearly everywhere (except for my office so I get to work today - yay!), and has been out at my house since about 2pm Monday.
Fortunately, my girlfriend’s condo never lost power and once we realized that on Tuesday morning life got much more livable.
Keep in mind that I’m in Jackson, a good 220 miles from New Orleans and about 200 from the Mississippi coast.
You appear confused. My posts have constantly expressed sympathy for the victims of all tragedies.
The point I was making is that Eleusis doesn’t appreciate the difference between a tsunami victim, who probably has lost everything and someome fortunate enough to live in the US, where insurance and other considerable help is available.
I live in the UK and have moved from London to the South Coast and now live in the Midlands.
Each time I have bought property, I have had an extensive surveyor’s report on the building, checked for flood plains / radiation emissions etc , and had a lawyer check for future motorway plans and other legal complications. I also took out extensive insurance. I also checked each potential area for quality of schooling, crime rate, local amenities and transport.
I have never owned a car.
I appreciate that people have lived in disaster-prone places like New Orleans and San Francisco for a long time. (Of course this is not just an American problem - people live near all sorts of natural problems, e.g. malarial regions.)
I think it is an unfortunate situation, but that the likely disaster is both foreseeable and inevitable.
I flew over the Mississippi Delta and along the Gulf Coast three weeks ago. Looking down from however many thousand feet, I remember thinking how utterly huge of a bitch it would be to meander out of there. What few roads do exist are torturously circuitous and winding as they follow a path not of the crow but of what meandering, fluvial deposits allow. It stuck me that had I lived there, rare would be the day that I mustered to energy to make that trip out. Add to that the fact that information well may have been slow to reach many there. Not everyone, especially those in the backwaters, have access to cable, satellite, etc. Plus, just plain ol’ apathy probably came into play as the area had dodged so many threatning bullets in the past.
One more thing… even when the weather forcasters all came out and said Katrina was going to turn north towards N.O., I drug out the ladder and trimmed my trees in Houston in full anticipation that they could be wrong. I can’t rightly blame someone else for having that same sense of mistrust.
Anybody who lived in that area had a responsibility to prepare for that eventuality.
The people who stayed (with few exceptions) were dumber than a bag of hammers.
The issue of aid for the victims of this disaster is a contentious one that I would like to see addressed more thoroughly, but I will not start it because I don’t feel like getting into a fight over it.