[PLMerite]

I can’t speak for pushy/lazy FEMA people, but as to your first case, even people with nice cars and laptops are in the same boat as anyone else when the power goes out. And the nicer my stuff the more inclined I’d be to hang around to protect it.

[GOP_Thug_Mom]

As my post was already long, I left out some details--one of which was we were volunteering at a POD in my little town which is 40 miles north of Galveston. Before I took my kids to pass stuff out, we hit the Dominoes Pizza across the street. Also, the Kroger was open, so getting food was not a problem. It did take a few days to get a regular supply of gas coming in, though. It was inconvenient that we were without power for 11 days, but the only thing really needed was ice--which FEMA ended up having melted (you may have heard that story, too.)

My husband's company had no power, but his boss got a generator--as did most--to get some work done. Thus, he only missed one day at the steel company he works for near the Ship Channel.

Even though I was accused of gossiping (although how can you tell anyone anything without it being mostly secondhand?), here's some more in order to give FEMA some credit: my friend's brother, who's in the fire department in Baytown (the whole town was evacuated) said that FEMA seemed to be doing a fairly good job there so far.

I did also forget to mention a news story from the county next to us that received all the debris from Crystal Beach and Bolivar Pennisula that washed up. After finding one person alive in the rubble and 2 dead bodies, FEMA refused to help the sheriff search that rubble. There was an article on the local news that on some days, only 3 people in the sheriff's department were going through it. I called it help, but learned that tv coverage got a couple other counties to help them.