Posted on 05/01/2011 9:24:06 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
PRATT CITY, Ala. — Church groups, students and other volunteers worked aggressively Saturday to bring food, water and other necessities to communities ravaged by the second-deadliest day of tornadoes in U.S. history.
Across the South, volunteers have been pitching in as the death toll from Wednesday's storms keeps rising.
At least 340 people were killed across seven states, including at least 249 in Alabama, as the storm system spawned tornadoes through several states. It was the largest death toll since March 18, 1925, when 747 people were killed in storms that raged through Missouri, Illinois and Indiana.
In Pratt City, a working-class suburb of Birmingham, police vehicles and military jeeps filled the roads surrounded by leveled and gutted homes on Saturday. Officers barked orders to residents wandering through to clear the roads.
Thomas Brown said volunteers had stepped up to bring supplies — a day earlier, a truck patrolled neighborhoods with volunteers jumping out of the back to hand out water and groceries. Dozens more turned an elementary school into a community hub, where people dedicated one room to storing bread and another to sorting donated clothing. A doctor set up shop inside, and a grill was set up outside. Students formed an assembly line to unload fresh supplies.
Video: Storms turn sports enemies into allies (on this page)
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
You seem angry!
Feel free to answer the question now:
Since entitlements and taxes are a problem, until that is addressed, should the U.S. Government continue to pay billions of *our* dollars to *foreign* countries?
The old fashioned American Spirit is alive and well in Alabama. The are picking up the pieces themselves. They don’t need 0bama. They don’t need the UN. They don’t need foreign aid. The are doing it themselves with their faith and belief in themselves.
God’s speed to our citizens in the southeast
You needn't worry about that. There ain't none coming.
Thank you - I am a little surprised at the reaction it’s getting.
Were I comparing the misery, you may well be correct but I am comparing the resilience of both peoples. Big difference but evidently a little too subtle for you.
Not celebrating their pain but their resilence and faith which your apparently small mind can’t quite comprehend.
“Not celebrating their pain but their resilence and faith which your apparently small mind can’t quite comprehend.”
Yeah its quite evident from this “(JAPAN’S GOT NOTHING ON ALABAMA!!!) “
But thanks for the personal attacks, don’t expect more from you skippy.
You come on this thread for the sole purpose of attacking me and now you whine about personal attacks - you just need to get your head out of your butt, driftdiver, and grow up ...
Seriously. The Japanese suffered a 9.1, tsunami, then large aftershocks, then more large single-occurrence earthquakes. On top of that, a mostly out-of-control nuclear power plant to add on top of that.
Having read through the thread, I think the gist of what Chi-townChief is saying is this: throughout the course of tsunami hitting Japan - and with all the stories coming out afterward about how united the people of Japan were - there were a slew of stories from the leftwing media putting Americans down, wondering why we weren’t more like the Japanese. Essentially, these stories were putting all Americans into the same boat as all of the people of New Orleans who just sat around and went rioting after Katrina hit.
So here we have a story of the charity and resilience of the people of Alabama, a direct counterexample to the overarching media spin during the tsunami, namely that Americans were hopeless without government aid.
Chi-townChief wasn’t comparing the magnitude of the damage done, nor was he trying to determine who had suffered more; he was simply excited to say ‘Hey, MEDIA! You wanna say what you said again?’
Though in all fairness, your headline addition as written is INCREDIBLY crass.
Very gratifying to see and definitely showing some genuine traditional Southern spirit and hospitality and brotherhood that gets so badly maligned by folks on the coast.
But remark about the Japanese was indeed completely uncalled for. I understand that it was important to commend in the highest regard how the Alabama people are coping, but there is no need or reason to malign how the Japanese handled it. Both the Japanese and Alabamans, (hopefully that is not considered derogatory to people in Alabama) showed that how well you handle disaster has nothing to do with poverty, haves vs have nots, or any kind of socio-economic status. It has to do with ability to trust your family and community and God (and though people in Alabama and Japan of course have very different interpretations of God, they still do have spiritual leaders they trust in) and avoiding entitlement culture. That is what separates both the Japanese and the Alabamans from the Haitians or the folks of socialist enclave New Orleans.
Thanks - the story of the Clemson Tigers coming to the aid of their arch-rival Crimson Tide was the inspiration for it. Alabama shows that they can pull together in a crisis as well as Japan!!!
The Alabamans and Japanese were equally impressive - maybe the Japanese more so... The real issue is they’re both miles and miles ahead of New Orleans and typical elite liberal dems...
The headline is disgusting. This isn’t a contest. While Alabama suffered greatly, the devastation in Japan is horrific.
Oh, and the Japanese have not pulled together in their time of extreme crisis and helped each other?! Are you for real, man? You obviously have not seen the MANY reports of them doing just that. And for God's sake, the nuclear workers knew they were going on suicide missions and resigned themselves to that fate for the sake of the greater good. The Japanese have handled themselves extremely well and with much compassion for their fellow human beings. As well as the many news reports which you have chosen to ignore apparently for the sake of putting down another culture in order to erroneously say, "See, us Uhmmurrrrkins are better, yessiree," I have been getting first-hand reports from a friend who lives there and has testified repeatedly to the stoic grace in which these people have handled their drastic situation.
That is not to say that the people of Alabama have NOT acted very admirably -- as far as I've seen, they have. But your parenthetical headline addition remains very tasteless and just plain false.
Don’t believe all the liberal hype you hear about the Ugly Americans - much of it is just left-wing pigressive fantasy.
As for "Ugly Americans" -- you, sir, are perpetuating that perception right here.
LOL - well, you have an active imagination, I’ll say that much for you.
LOL. Ignore facts all you want. Doesn’t change the fact that your headline addition is disgustingly tasteless and that you are obviously a mental midget who is not worth spending any more time on.
Talked to a friend in Haleyville. Power there, finally, but no food anywhere. Can’t use the little gas they have to drive far hoping to find supplies either. They haven’t seen much in the way of help there.
The big cities are getting the news, not much heard about northern ALA, Huntsville area.
The friend miraculously escaped damage, she said the tornado took out the warning sirens first,so they didn’t have that. Her aunt, just a mile away, was sucked out of her house. She’s in ICU still, broken arms, legs, pelvis. Lots of people missing.
Roads are a mess- so that is hampering aid, but helicopters could be bringing basic food supplies in, IMO.
We get food to foreign disasters in days-but not rural America? I can’t understand why.
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