[Farmer Dean]

The government sees a crisis and thinks,damn it another expense.We see it as people who we care about in trouble and we want to help them.

[USNBandit]

I have a friend that runs an administrative staff for an office in DHS. She had volunteered to be part of a deployable group that responds to disasters, going door to door and filling out FEMA paperwork for homeowners.

What she saw during the Sandy recovery effort was an incredible amount of waste by FEMA. FEMA brought up a bunch AmeriCorps types that were completely useless and seemed to spend all day shopping and staying at incredibly expensive hotels. My friend's group stayed on an old merchant marine training vessel from King's Point.

She said what made it worth while was the people in area. Her group would work their way through neighborhoods and the people were really great and upbeat. Despite not having much, they would offer my friend coffee or a sandwich just because they were being good neighbors.

I can understand why those people didn't find the government helpful. All my friend did was fill out applications. That doesn't mean anything was done with the application once it entered the swirling bowl in Washington. They also have the memories of people in FEMA shirts walking down the streets of Manhattan with their arms full of bags from Bloomingdales.