Posted on 11/01/2012 6:24:55 AM PDT by blam
Tempers Flare: Residents Complain Government Is Too Slow Distributing Food And Supplies
Mac Slavo
October 31st, 2012
Hurricane Sandy made landfall just 36 hours ago and already weve received reports of looting in hard-hit areas with some people brazenly taking to Twitter to post pictures of their new found wealth.
Ahead of the storm panic buying left grocery and hardware store shelves empty as concerned residents stocked up on food, water, batteries, flashlights, and generators.
With the run on supplies over the weekend, tens of thousands of people were inevitably left without essential survival items due to shortages across the region, and now they are demanding action from government officials.
Officials in the city of Hoboken, N.J., are defending their response to severe flooding from superstorm Sandy.
Public Safety director Jon Tooke says at least 25 percent of the city on the Hudson River across from Manhattan remains under water. He estimates at least 20,000 people are stranded and says most are being encouraged to shelter in place until floodwaters recede.
Tempers flared Wednesday morning outside City Hall as some residents complained the city was slow to get food and other supplies out to the stranded.
Tooke says emergency personnel have been working 24/7. He says the scope of this situation is enormous.
Without any way to heat their homes due to power outages, no food in their pantries and water supplies potentially tainted with polluted flood waters, those who failed to prepare are now at the mercy of the Federal Emergency Management Agencys crisis safety net.
But, as FEMA has advised in its emergency preparedness guidelines, despite millions of dollars in supplies having been purchased by the Federal government, if emergency responders and the transportation infrastructure is overwhelmed, help may not be coming for days or weeks.
While damage from Hurricane Sandy may not be as widespread or severe as earlier reports suggested it could be, what should be crystal clear is that any serious long-term emergency would be horrific for the non-prepper.
In New Jersey some 20,000 residents are affected and already there are not enough supplies to go around and sanity is rapidly destabilizing.
The government simply does not have the manpower to deal with an emergency requiring the delivery of food and water to hundreds of thousands of people. The saving grace for the east coast is that the damage was not as bad as it could have been, and residents were made aware of the coming storm days in advance, giving them ample time to stock up or evacuate.
Imagine the effects of an unforeseen, more widespread disaster such as coordinated dirty-bomb terror attacks, a natural disaster requiring permanent mass evacuations of entire cities, destruction of the national power grid, or the collapse of the currency systems necessary for the global exchange of key commodities.
Even those who set aside supplies for such disasters would be hard-pressed to survive; never mind those who have less than three days of food in their pantries.
Same here, in fact, I’ve had to try donating much of my food to local churches and charities instead of actually keeping it for the storm, which didn’t really knock out power in my part of Delaware at all. The flooding though, a problem. But given the fireplace, myself and my wife could survive over a week without power, plus we’ve got plenty of books, and little tweaking aspects of the house to pass the time, plus, we could actually, given the food, toilet paper, etc., in reserve, we could also support four additional people. I know what you’re saying however, it seems all too many people don’t seem to know what life without power is.
Husseins fault!
Husseins fault!
Isn’t there an app for that? (Eye roll)
He really congratulated Obama way too soon. In fact, wouldn’t it have made more sense to wait say, 1 week, at least, just to demonstrate that the recovery was nearly complete? Anyways, I guess Christie thinks like the Nobel Prize Committee, and won’t be a viable presidential candidate in the near future either. Oh well, that’s his loss.
lol
Right. Abolish FEMA and use a new app to coordinate the response to disasters. heh
One more thing.
Prepare to be a leader. You may not need to be but having a plan to lead will come in handy if you find neighbors looking for direction.
Have no fear. The Distributer in Chief is in Vegas at the craps.tables, turning our tax dollars into relief funds.
The “gubmint” just gets in the way.
If the politically correct “anti-gouging” officials would just let the free market work, there would be no shortages in very short order.
It was a Category One storm. The near hysterical coverage by the news media with reports of a ‘Frankenstorm’ or ‘The Perfect Storm’ made it seem like another Camille or Andrew. It affected a lot of people due to population density, but as far as hurricanes go it was not a super storm. I lived in Fla for over 30 years and took the media coverage as kind of an insult to the folks in the South East who’ve gone through much worse. Things will be better in a few days, till then you just have to deal with it.
LOLOLOL!!! Love that Looter Guy!!!!!
How can this be? Didn’t nobama fly over the area and bless it? All praise the nobama.
FEMA is little more than another bloated entitlement program. The Mayor of NJ is already calling for them to pay for dune restoration.
This can’t be!
Just yesterday I saw Bams on TV saying no red tape, just call the goovermint and they will get to you in 15 minutes!
They even have a website with everything you need on it.
/s (sarc tag because tempers are short these days)
I saw, with my own eyes, the President himself touring the devastation PERSONALLY!
Why, he even hugged someone to make them feel better!
And how can there be looting?
There is no mention of it on the news!
Makes sense.
It’s always best to not try and be prepared so you can be a burden on the rest of us.
First of all, Sandy was estimated to be four times more powerful than the Perfect Storm.
Second, many folks are saying the Saffir-Simpson scale needs to be re-worked to not just rely on wind and structural damage. Katrina hit as a Cat 3 but had Cat 5 surge. Ike hit as a Cat 2 but had Cat 4 surge. Sandy was a Cat 1 with Cat 3 surge. Sense a pattern? Very large storms, covering a wide expanse of ocean, can create surge much larger than their wind-driven Saffir-Simpson scale ratings. And surge is in most cases the most destructive aspect of hurricanes (with Andrew being a notable exception).
Maybe if Crispie Creme didn’t spend so much time getting his face on every morning show in the country and schmoozing with Obama, this may not have happened.
Which sounds ridiculous
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