The following was sent to me by Poulson.
THINK ABOUT THIS FOR A MOMENT "North Dakota News"This text is from a county emergency manager out in the western
part of North Dakota state after the recent snow storm.
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 44 inches of snow and winds to 90 MPH
that broke trees in half, knocked down utility poles, 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 did nothing....
No one howled for the government...
No one blamed the government
No one even uttered an expletive on TV...
Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton did not visit
Our Mayor's did not blame Bush or anyone else
Our Governor did not blame Bush or anyone else either
CNN, ABC, CBS, FOX, or NBC did not visit - or report on this
category 5 snow storm nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards.....
No one asked for a FEMA Trailer House....
No one looted...
Nobody - I mean Nobody demanded the government do something
Nobody expected the government to do anything either
No Larry King, No Bill O'Rielly, No Oprah, No Chris Matthews and No
Geraldo Rivera
No Shaun Penn, No Barbara Striesand, No Hollywood types to be found
andWe just melted the snow for water
Sent out caravans of SUV's to pluck people out of snow engulfed
cars
The truck drivers pulled people out of snow banks and didn't ask
for a penny
Local restaurants made food and the police and fire departments
delivered it to the snow bound families
Families took in the stranded people - total strangers!
We fired up wood stoves, broke out coal oil lanterns or Coleman
lanterns.We put on an extra layers 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.
You also didn't have Mayor Asshole and Governor Useless on the job.
Posted by denny at March 9, 2006 02:07 PMDamn that was good!!!!!
Posted by: Paul on March 9, 2006 03:26 PMon target.
Posted by: mark on March 9, 2006 04:02 PMA-farookin'-men.
Posted by: Jim - PRS on March 9, 2006 08:09 PMLook close and you will see Cindy Sheehan and "Brother" Al Sharpton in the mix. Looks like a Move-On-Dot org fund raising for Hilliarious.
Posted by: gene hall on March 9, 2006 08:17 PMIf there were more Chocolates mixed in with the Vanillas in the Dakotas they would have had Oprah doing a show from a snow bank!
Posted by: vicki on March 9, 2006 10:53 PMvicki - Yah sure. Uffda! I speak a little bit of N. Dakotan.
Posted by: Denny on March 9, 2006 11:07 PMDontchaknow!
Posted by: AnnaD on March 10, 2006 02:13 PMIt usually seems that as far as the media is concerned, white people are incapable of suffering, only inflicting suffering or ignoring suffering. Kind of a sick perversion of the 'Always the bride's maid, never the bride'.
When people's homes and trailers in Oklahoma's tornado alley are destroyed, the tone seems "Well, they knew what they were getting into by living there." When people's homes are destroyed in New Orleans, a bowl sitting by the ocean in a hurrican-prone area, the tone is the opposite. You decide the variable that differentiates poor trailer-living Oklahomans from the poor of New Orleans.
Posted by: addison on March 10, 2006 03:19 PMYeah, those people in New Orleans are just whiny whimps. THEY are the real problem.
But seriously folks... I've been in 3+ foot snow storms before and they are not a natural disaster. Very inconvenient and in some limited situations it is dangerous. But that is nothing compared to a major flood in a major metropolitan area. It was a major disaster and they needed a lot of help from the federal government. If only Bush hadn't appointed Brown and Chertoff, maybe they would have gotten effective help.
Posted by: Scott on March 10, 2006 05:41 PMScott, unless you've been under a rock the past several months they got plenty of help from the federal government in the form of my god damn tax dollars to fortify the levies. Where did that money go? Not to fortifying the levies, that's already been determined. Read you post. This was a natural disaster. They happen. We are resilient Americans (or at least we used to be until be liberalized the country) and we will bounce back. But until the "victims" of Katrina like problems stop looking for Uncle Sam to bail them out of the problem, we will never be the good old USA as we once were. Question for history buffs on this blog (I'm not one). During the "dust bowl" days (was that the depression years also), did the federal government "bail out" all the farmers and families that lost their livelihoods, property and lives? I bet not.
Posted by: Ray on March 10, 2006 06:03 PMScott, I agree that a heavy snowfall is not a natural disaster, but that isn't what the post was describing. Blizzards are completely different- the high winds make the power go out, and people are screwed in those freezing temperatures. Also, in winter, people might know a few days ahead that a storm is coming, but there is no way of knowing what the storm will be like (a guestimate of the amount of snow is the best that can be hoped for). With hurricanes, people know well in advance whether or not they should evacuate. The way temperatures can fluctuate in the winter between freezing or above also creates huge problems. Check out http://www.nws.noaa.gov/os/assessments/pdfs/iceflood.pdf Thousands of people were left without power for weeks in freezing temperatures. Even proportionally, they received nowhere near the help or recognition the Katrina "victims" did.
Posted by: AnnaD on March 10, 2006 09:15 PMOnly in America can "poor" people be fat with cigarettes hanging out of their mouths.
We all know if the "victims" of Katrina weren't "poor" Blacks we wouldn't still be hearing about Katrina.
Personally, I'm sick of it.
Being poor in the USA is a choice.
Such a bad analogy. Blizzards in the midwest are a given. They do not wipe out entire neighborhoods. Many took advantage of the FEMA funds and got tat's and so forth. But many Good people are homeless.
Posted by: Teresa on March 10, 2006 11:26 PMUh, Teresa- Hurricanes in the south are a given, too!
Posted by: AnnaD on March 11, 2006 09:37 AMBad analogy. First of all, in Katrina, hundreds of thousands were affected, not just tens of thousands. Secondly, the area Katrina covered exceded the size of all of No. Dakota. Thirdly, we survived Katrina,it was the levee breeches the next day that did us in. Levees built by the Federal Government. That's why we expect the Federal Government to make us whole, just like you would have to do if you were responsible for destroying someone's property.
And by the way, the snow didn't fill hundreds of thousands of homes with 2 to 12 feet of water for weeks.
Posted by: Daddy -O on March 11, 2006 09:26 PMYeah, Daddy-O--it just knocked power out and left thousands of people freezing, landlocked from food sources or emergency medical help.
But hey, it's just snow. It's not like it's WATER or anything. *rolls eyes*
--TwoDragons
Posted by: Denita TwoDragons on March 12, 2006 11:14 PM