Unprecedented Storm. Surprise?

We can all take a lesson from these guys.

No, not really. The world can expect storms, more powerful storms and more of them as a direct result of climate change. The Northeast got hammered. They had some notice from the National Weather Service but no one could be prepared for this magnitude of disaster in a short time. So we come to the aftermath. There were 8.5 million people without power, now 1.7 million. The mass transit of several states was off or nearly off. Now many are running, albeit with reduced schedules. Houses in coastal areas are gone, damaged beyond repair or somewhere in between. It is a terrible mess, but getting better.

Brings me to the response. A grand combination of public and private organizations has mostly cooperated to maximize help and minimize delay. FEMA was on the ground early and began doing what they do as soon as they could. What they don’t do is restore power or water or sewer or transportation. They provide disaster relief and coordinate disaster relief with private agencies. The Red Cross, Salvation Army (a religious organization that is for disaster relief and against gay marriage), many social organizations, churches, corporations and individual people have all jumped in to help. Relief after a disaster of unprecedented damage should be a National, State, City and Town, Corporation, Religious and Social group activity. So what pisses me off is for someone to take on one of the groups and claim things are going badly because of them. Case in point: FEMA gets blamed for the slow restoration of power when in fact the restoration has been amazingly fast and restoration is being done by private contractors and municipal units. Not the purview of FEMA to fix power lines. Or the City of New York Mayor being blamed for the time it takes to get water out of the subway. There are only so many pumps.

Blame? Oh Yeah. Blame the politicians for being asleep when 30 years ago they were warned that seas would rise and eventually be swept ashore. They were told that storms would get worse and that a more robust defense should be mounted, like sea walls, and a more robust response plan should have been funded. They didn’t and now the Northeast is in the crapper. Let’s pull together and thank all the participants and put the blame squarely where it belongs: Lazy, partisan, uneducated and shallow politicians. Not the ones in office now, the ones who kicked the can down the block 30 years ago.

Image: http://images.politico.com/global/2012/10/121031_obama_christie_ap_605.jpg