NO overshadowing other victims?

[C.Ann]

I was watching some coverage last night that focused more on the other areas that have suffered devastation from HK and it got me to wondering how much aid and attention is being directed to those people..

People had already gone 3 days without food or water and were being told that FEMA and other basic aid may not reach their areas for a full 5 days.. I'm sure that the frustration level in those areas is also reaching the boiling point..

I look at the footage of all of the various areas and all I can think is, "Where and how do you even start the relief efforts?"

 

[RickinNYC]

By virtue of the extent of this disaster, federal and local authorities are being forced to triage the areas and provide assistance in the order that it is need most.

I hate that fact but it's really the only efficient way to handle the situation.

 

[C.Ann]

By virtue of the extent of this disaster, federal and local authorities are being forced to triage the areas and provide assistance in the order that it is need most.

I hate that fact but it's really the only efficient way to handle the situation.

---------------------

I honestly and truly wouldn't even know where to begin if I were a relief worker.. It's just piles upon piles upon piles of who knows what?

So many people will die - as an after fact - and I can't even imagine how those poor relief workers will deal with it.. They're doing the best they can, but the magnitude of the situation and the vast areas that are involved are just mind numbing..

 

[HayGan]

I've been wondering the same thing myself. Where do you even begin? I can't imagine having to decide who gets picked up by chopper or who gets that last meal or bottle of water. It is all just so heartbreaking

 

[Doug123]

Where is the help is right. It takes them five days to coordinate sending a truck full of bottled water a few hundred miles south? It's taken this long to get reinforcements for the New Orleans police to help restore order? What have Emergency Management officials been doing all this time to prepare for this predictable disaster? What have the politicians been doing to help ensure the safety of their people in the face of catastrophy? Where did the millions (billions?) of dollars to the Homeland Security go - aren't they in disaster preparedness too?

It amazes me, after the events of 9-11 and everything else that's happened in the last few years, that we as a country seem so poorly prepared. Let's hope we turn the horror of this disaster into improved policies and meaningful disaster preparedness.

 

[RealMickeysGirl]

My inlaws are here with us and they would not be if DH had not driven from Montgomery to Gulfport Tuesday morning to get them. Their house had 6 ft o water from the storm surge - their house is about a block off the beach on the Longbeach side of Gulfport. They had been told from what should have been a reliable source that the hurricane would be a category 2 with storm surge of 13 ft when it hit - they have stayed under circumstances like that before and were ok. After their power went out they had no way of knowing that the storm did not lose strength or how high the waters would get.

DH was able to drive to their house because of a neighbor of theirs who's son has heavy equipment and cleared the street to his mother's house and the front of my inlaws house. The national guard was setting up road blocks when they left. They know they will not be able to get back in to salvage what little they can. They are not letting anyone back into the neighborhoods - it doesn't matter that their road has been cleared they don't want people going back into unsafe houses.

DH filled his trunk with water and peanutbutter and bread before going down there and passed out what he could to other neighbors who had rode out the storm. Hopefully, they have been able to get out by now. Some had family in other parts of MS trying to get to them to bring them out - I just hope they were allowed to do so.

They have lost most all their posessions but they are safe. You don't know how releaved I was when I got that phone call - when he finally got far enough out to get a cell signal - that said "I've got them and we are heading back, they are ok".