“You know who should be in charge of disaster relief? Walmart. They have the logistics, the money, and the products to get people back on their feet.”
Yep. That’s why looters go there first. LOL.
BTW, your comment raises a couple of interesting questions:
1. Are big box retailers covered by their insurance for total loss of contents due to natural disaster?
2. Is loss due to looting also covered?
If the answer is ‘no’ to either of these questions, then does that mean Wal-Mart gets FEMA (taxpayer) dollars?
Some of my neighbors wondered about this after Katrina, when all 5 Wal-Marts within 5 miles of my neighborhood were looted. It looked like the buildings survived ok, except for the plate glass windows which were intentionally smashed. The contents were pretty much cleaned out, but some people were saying, who cares? It’s covered by insurance.
People have a gross misunderstanding of what FEMA is supposed to do in the early stages of a disaster. It’s job is not general disaster response. It was never intended to distribute food, water or generators to victims. That is a local or state responsibility.
FEMA is supposed to come in and assess damage and then get local and state agencies coordinating to get infrastructure operating as soon as possible Their basic job is continuity of government.
Yes Walmart is probably way better at providing logistics (food, water, ice and other needs for individual victims) than FEMA is. Where FEMA excels is providing heavy duty logistics (massive generators, heavy equipment, mobile communications units, emergency housing and infrastructure rebuilding supplies that Walmart or Home Depot don’t even handle.
FEMA is constantly getting roped into doing things they never were intended to do and responding to disasters that are not really “National” in scope. I worked for that agency and many good people there realize that it is being totally misused in many instances. Politicians of both parties look at FEMA as a source of $$$$$ instead of an agency with a specific limited mission.
FEMA is actually a very small agency that relies on reservists who are only called up when the President signs a disaster declaration. The vast bulk of FEMA employees do not work fulltime for the Federal government nor do they get any of the benefits that regular Federal employees have.
I highly doubt a company like Walmart has insurance on their products in a particular store. They are big enough to be self insured.