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From an email sent to me by a coworker:
For those of you who are not aware, North Dakota, southwestern Montana, and parts of Colorado got hit with their first blizzard of the season a couple of weeks ago. This text is from the county emergency manager out in the western part of North Dakota state after the storm.WEATHER BULLETIN
Up here in the Northern Plains we just recovered from a Historic event --- may I even say a "Weather Event" of "Biblical Proportions" --- with a historic blizzard of up to 24" inches of snow and winds to 50 MPH that broke trees in half, stranded hundreds of motorists in lethal snow banks, closed all roads, isolated scores of communities and cut power to 10's of thousands.
- George Bush did not come…
- FEMA staged nothing…
- No one howled for the government…
- No one even uttered an expletive on TV…
- Nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards…
- No one asked for a FEMA Trailer House…
- No news anchors moved in…
- We just melted snow for water, sent out caravans to pluck people out of
snow engulfed cars, fired up wood stoves, broke out coal oil lanterns or
Aladdin lamps and put on an extra layer of clothes…Even though a Category "5" blizzard of this scale has never fallen this early... we know it can happen and how to deal with it ourselves.
Everybody is fine.
Snopes has more background. It's based on some truth, and after having lived through five North Dakota winters (and many many whiteout blizzards), this strikes me as pretty much the NoDak attitude I remember.
Posted by Ted at November 16, 2005 05:56 AM | TrackBackI admire their attitude and spirit, but as Barbara over at Snopes.com said.."you can't shovel water." :-)
Posted by: Silver Blue at November 17, 2005 03:07 PMI saw this as well. I've also received many of the usual polemicist emails that run the net(s) during such times.
I want to throw one extra consideration into the mix that I've not heard much during of these discussions.
government organizations such as fema exist year round. Taxpayers pay for those organizations to exist, function and perform their usual perpetual motion year-round, regardless of whether or not there is a disaster to respond to. We pay for their offices, their employees, the computers and networks and fax machines and security personnel and photos of politicians on the cafeteria walls and their vehicles and their office furniture et al. If the citizens of the nation, aren't supposed to expect those organizations to perform on their behalf when the disasters strike, then why must we continue to pay for those organizations during the down time? If the states are supposed to take care of themselves, then why must we pay for a federal agency who has the charter?
I'd be overjoyed to be responsible for myself... in pretty much all regards.
Just another useless thought to toss into the mix.
Posted by: BLUE at November 18, 2005 11:56 AM