I have been through six typhoons since I moved to the Philippines, but only once did we get cut off from electricity, water, internet, and local help for more than a day or two.
We lived off of local food and generators for a week; our pump, which we had stopped using because the water level had fallen, was restarted and voila, it worked so we had water.
So the disaster in the mountains of the Southern USA is worse than what we went through: Because in the USA, the need for backup generators is rare: but here, brownouts are common, so most middle class folk have one.
When disasters strike in the USA, usually local first responders have a plan intact. The local National Guard often has water supplies and the ability to purify water, and often the fire departments are volunteer based and have equipment to help rescue folk; the church groups have food banks and often help distribute supplies and even house those whose homes are destroyed.
Relatives and friends arrive with pickup trucks full of supplies, the local boaters come in to rescue those in flooded areas, etc. because the outside help often can't get in because of blocked roads.
This is chaotic, and the bad part of this is often supplies are not distributed to where they are needed: Too much aid goes to one area, and no aid to another.
This is the background of FEMA stopping private aid going to the hurricane/flood victims: Their plan is to collect those supplies to make sure that it goes where it is needed, and then distribute it, including making sure all the paperwork is done correctly.
Because to a bureaucrat, the rules and paperwork are the priority: Things have to be done properly.
But as the saying goes: When you are up to your tush in alligators, there is no time to have a meeting on how to drain the swamp.
The bad part about this is that doing paper work to arrange who needs help, and who should get it first, takes time: Sometimes days.
And in a disaster, time is lives.
And that is what is going on in all those hysterical stories about FEMA blocking private folks trying to rescue their friends and relatives. Because paperwork and following regulations is more important than reality.
I see we’ve reached the stage of civilizational decline where the sclerotic federal bureaucracy is hamstringing the tech billionaire’s effort to run private disaster relief in the face of government inaction while trapped civilians run out of food and water… https://t.co/9QSXZBIavy
— John Daniel Davidson (@johnddavidson) October 4, 2024
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