When The Bough Breaks

I have so far in life been sufficiently fortunate never to have been caught in a full-frontal weeks-long, totally-life-destroying national disaster. But I have been on the fringes of several brief national disasters; the earthquake that hit Sylmar in 1971, a massive typhoon that hit Northern Japan in the late 1970s, a horrendous rainfall in late 1998 which put a lot of South Texas floating down various rivers and creeks, another rainstorm a few years ago which flooded out the small Hill Country town of Wimberly, and an early spring snowstorm which dumped almost a foot of snow on South Texas, snow which stubbornly remained for most of a week, featuring freezing temperatures which knocked out both power and water in much of metro and suburban San Antonio. My parents’ retirement home in Northern San Diego County was destroyed in a massive wildfire in 2003. I also was on-line and paying attention to disasters like Hurricanes Katrina and Harvey, to the fires that destroyed Paradise, California, and Lahaina, Hawaii …

So, one way and another, I’ve gained a pretty good notion of what can be expected to happen during the disaster, and then afterwards. One of those insights is that first and foremost, you have to be prepared beforehand to help yourself and those closest to you; family, friends and neighbors. Having a plan, and the gear and supplies to cope with the emergency and the aftermath is key. The second insight is that most normal people will want to help out however they can when the waste matter hits the rotating foil. Most such people will start running towards the scene of disaster bearing aid and comfort even before the stuff stops falling. Which is a good thing because – and this is the third insight – it generally will take a week before official orgs like FEMA and the Red Cross pull up their socks and hit the ground, even with the best of intentions.

Yet it is heartbreaking to read social media posts and watch amateur videos taken by volunteers of the chaos in the wake of Hurricane Helene – of the hills and hollers and mountain creeks, of places that only have a single road in and out, a road that the torrential rain wiped out, or collapsed a moraine of mud onto. You know that even if folk had taken heed of warnings and prepared for the worst … what happened when the rain began to fall and the creek to rise out of its banks overwhelmed any sane preparation taken by the dwellers in those little mountain towns. This and the establishment media does do the constant Apache dance of ‘most horrendous storm ever is coming!’ – that perhaps a lot of people shrugged and wrote it all off as just another media panic, a troll for eyeballs and ratings.

National Establishment Media … oh, and that reminds me of the absolute sh*tstorm of rumors repeated and amplified over conditions in New Orleans after Katrina. Rape gangs! Snipers! Dead bodies piled up in the Superdome! Dead bodies washing through the flooded streets! All too horrible to be true, and all eventually proved to be … rumor and fabrication. Because all those horrors could be blamed, however unfairly, on GW Bush’s disinterest and inaction, and the NEM took enthusiastic pleasure in heaping that blame. In the interests of proving that the NEM is even-handed and dispassionate, it would be only fair if they heaped an equal portion of blame on Biden et all, but hey – we all know that media blame is only heaped on those administrations with an “R” in their designation, while those with a “D” are treated with kid gloves and generous paddings of cotton-cushioned excuses for their many, many failures of character and conduct.
Is the ineptitude so far exhibited by FEMA only their usual … or has the corporate emphasis on taking to heart the principles of Diversity, Inclusion, Equity had the effect of excising whatever shreds of competence and professionalism were left to that organization? Is this ineptitude a form of deliberate malice, or just a means of suppressing votes in a region not noted for enthusiasm for the Dems?
Discuss as you wish.