Hurricane Ike - Heads-up for Texas and LA in post #60

[Deb & Bill]

I just heard on a conference call this afternoon that the mayor and governor are not setting up any shelters in Houston for this hurricane. They really don't want anyone to come back to town. But there are a lot of people who don't have much to live in and they were told not to leave.

FEMA (or as the T-shirt sold in New Orleans says, Fix Everything My ---) probably used up all their food and water stocks in Louisiana during Gustav.

I know that the Federal Medical Shelter that I helped with during Gustav didn't have any food or water contracts set up until about three or four days after the shelter opened. It was through the goodness of the University where it was set up that the evacuees and volunteers were able to get food and water. That was DHHS that failed that one.

And our shelters here in town didn't have showers for several days after they opened. They were lucky that they had portable toilets.

To me it's rather amazing that many of the shelters are staffed mainly with volunteers who get nothing but grief while they are volunteering.

Jim, those other two disturbances out there in the Atlantic aren't going to turn into anything else, are they???

 

[Camping Cat]

I just heard on a conference call this afternoon that the mayor and governor are not setting up any shelters in Houston for this hurricane. They really don't want anyone to come back to town. But there are a lot of people who don't have much to live in and they were told not to leave.

FEMA (or as the T-shirt sold in New Orleans says, Fix Everything My ---) probably used up all their food and water stocks in Louisiana during Gustav.

Here is a photo that was making the rounds in New Orleans after Katrina. One picture is worth a thousand words, right?

 

[DisFlan]

Love the pic, Camping Cat! Yes, that DOES sum it up well.

Deb - FEMA hasn't delivered the portable toilets, either. A local company heard about it and brought some in. And no water from FEMA so far, either.

DisFlan

 

[magicalmcwho]

Hi,

Sorry to hear about your house Goldenrose and I am glad you and your family are safe.

Our house only had a good area of shingles blown off the front and back of the house which lead to several leaks in the ceiling. We also had 3/4 of our fence blown down. We are all safe as well and came out pretty well compared to others. We were without power for about a day and lucked out with our power coming back yesterday at 8pm. Only our house and two houses next to us have power in the whole subdivision.
I have been asking the neighbors if they need any thing charged up and been giving them our bags of ice we have since we have power. We have all of our family staying with so there are 12 of us in the house.

Jim.

 

[JimMIA]

Having been through things like this, I know how frustrating it can be the first few days. And it's always easy to criticize emergency managers who don't provide catering service or portable toilets.

But you have to realize that we are still in the search and rescue phase of Hurricane Ike. Emergency managers may not be providing all of the things some people expect to be provided, but they did rescue 2,000 people yesterday. They've got their eye on what is really important, and they are doing what they are supposed to be doing.

The people that get through events like this as well as possible are those, like many of the posters above, who take care of themselves and work together with their neighbors to help everyone.

 

[DisFlan]

The people that get through events like this as well as possible are those, like many of the posters above, who take care of themselves and work together with their neighbors to help everyone.

Kudos to the people of Houston - they turned out with more than enough food and water for their rescue workers - even folks who were starting to run short themselves. No government agency can match that kind of spirit.

BUT - I don't think it's unfair to criticize FEMA's logistics and response times. Yes, I realize it's a huge undertaking, but they still seem to have problems in these areas.

DisFlan