Weather wrap-up
Amidst stories of unions halting non-union power repair crews in New Jersey and residents in Bridgeport CT throwing eggs at utility workers because they weren’t working fast enough to repair outages, I have some post-Sandy stories about of a more edifying nature. (But first let me emend that first bit: I said “Unions” but I should have said the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, a top Democratic donor.) My neighborhood is right on Long Island Sound and was extremely hard hit by the storm.
A porch wound up on the playground; note the grill secured to the railing
The front of the house just vanished.
The owner told me the tree was sinking into the house almost an inch an hour.
Clean up and restoration will take a good long while and will doubtless involve countless irritations (as well as a large number of dollars). But the 106 households in the association displayed extraordinary spirit this past week. Thirty or forty dumpsters have been filled with debris and carted away. Residents who were not as hard hit have offered everything from babysitting services to food and drink and a place to stay for their less fortunate neighbors.
There have been some complaints about the local power company, though to be fair they are largely absorbed dealing with the hundreds of downed trees that have taken power lines with them. Yankee Gas has been exemplary. I arrived back at the neighborhood early the other morning just as a battalion of company vehicles had pulled up. Scores of workers from several states fanned out. Every gas meter was replaced, every gas line was tested, and the gas fired appliances of every house that survived were brought on line over the course of a couple of days. The men and women were working 16-hour days to make this happen. The neighborhood still looks a little like a war zone, but the transformation from day-one to now has been extraordinary.
FEMA and the Red Cross have also been by, distributing water and self-heating MREs. What really made the difference, however, were not those bureaucracies but the spirit of individual initiative. I suspect my neighbors are Democratic by a factor of at least 3 or 4 to 1, but in this crisis they have displayed a spirit of self-help and individual generosity Nancy Pelosi and the soon-to-be former President would surely consider politically retrograde.
An effective response to disaster involved responsible individuals, families, neighborhood associations, community organizations, non-profit foundations, churches, local, state and national government. Only a national government has the scope and powers for comprehensive coordination. Those who imagine that this latter mission is accomplished simply by adequate (or lavish) funding should consider the Benghazi story—one among many showing that the national government has a problem coordinating itself.
The key thing to remember is that it isn’t the specific bureaucracy – FEMA – that matters, it is the mission. If the bureaucracy begins to lose its mission effectiveness, then it is time for reform. Obama defends the bureaucracy, Romney defends the mission.
We are seeing what we saw in Katrina. Those who are essentially hostages of government are finding themselves “ignored” and unable to pick up the slack. While the help is slow, the “control” bureaucrats are out in force to prevent any initiative. Staten Island sounds a lot like New Orleans whereas other areas seem to be handling it more like Mississippi. That is, either wait for the government to come rescue you or band together to save yourselves.
I doubt this will change people’s party affiliation but I’d expect to see a lot more economic Tea Party ideas displacing total devotion to Progressivism. Once enough of the Dems come around to that, then we can fight over the social policy and still be prosperous with realistic economic policies.
Democrats get what they deserve. Bring on the riots – afterall, Bill Maher says his black legions know where we live.
I live in Galveston County, Texas. We were ground zero for Ike, so I feel for you Roger. Been there and done that. One thing I noticed was how – with the exception of a few places with bone-headed city governments (those that live here know which city I am speaking of) we got things cleaned up very quickly. No electricity for two days for most places. Others were off the grid longer. (My house was without electricity for over a week while the other side of the street had power. You know what those neighbors across the street did? Ran extension cords across the street so folks on my side could run their refrigerators and freezers. And the city government where I live didn’t object. Just told people to be careful.)
Anyhow, where you live sounds kind of like where I live. You should make it okay. Don’t know if as many folks in your neighborhood own chainsaws as in mine. There, the ones that did looked at the whole thing as a first-class opportunity to give them a workout. Two days later virtually all the downed limbs and toppled trees were firewood.
Can’t wait for these people to control our health care. What could go wrong?
Glad to hear your neighborhood is recovering, Mr. Kimball. I pray for no more deaths and a rapid return to normalcy for the area.
One has to wonder though, if NYC would not have fared better if its mayor had spent half as much effort in prevention and preparation as he has in trying to control what the little people eat and drink.
NYC has been warned for 30 years of the precarious nature of its infrastructure. By and large it has done nothing, much like New Orleans.
My heart does go out to those who have lost homes and lives. I am sick & tired, however, of the whining from those who live in coastal flood plains, many of whom could never afford to do so if they had to pay a realistic flood insurance rate based on risk, and never received federal largesse to rebuild.
I dropped a donation into a special offering this morning for aid to those in need in the NYC area. The difference is I did that of my own free will. When I see my tax dollars go to rebuild in stupid places and my insurance money go to subsidize coastal rates, that is confiscation and it pisses me off mightily.
The problem is not that the unions are democrats, it is that unions structured in the models that were written – some would inappropriately say sanctioned – by government interest are setup to prescribe disputes.
I hope everyone can get things back together. I myself was there not just more than three months ago. Too bad these humbling acts of nature are to be treated as tools to ensue political gain by claiming veridical responses. That doesn’t hold any fair bit better than discrepancies over power line repairs for me.
I applaud the people providing relief for their neighbors.
Endorsement of Obama for climate change, running a marathon instead of a rescue effort, the fake empathy, ignoring swaths of storm-wrecked residents..
Bacile should be punished. But he should be punished not for making a very stupid film, but for making a film that he knew would result in Muslim violence AND claiming he was an Israeli Jew and that the film was financed by American Jews so that the violence would be directed against Jews.r nr nNo jew would ever make such a poor film. If a Jewish film producer wanted to make a film based on an anti Islam theme, he could have done a far better job..