Hurricane Gustav
- Thread starter MRXRAY
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mike_s
Contributor
Well there were complaints about the food in the evacuee shelters here also. They interviewed evacuee's on the news who mostly only had complaints. Of course a few of them were positive interviews also.
What the evacuee's didn't mention was that the food that they were eating was costing them nothing. Free. And the people preparing it were mostly all volunteers who worked 12 hour days to prepare them 3 hot meals a day so they could bitch about it.
Like I said, I'm sure some were thankful, but it digusts me to see people whine about getting a handout or thinking they aren't getting their "fair share" of a handout. Especially when others are busting their asses to help them.
As for looting... I remember seeing the video of looting after Katrina, including two policemen/women in the store looting with the others....
When they had the big floods up in Iowa, when the leevie's broke. Did anyone here see the pictures of people looting all the stores up there like they did in Katrina? Nope? Neither did I.
WELCOME BACK TO THE MODERN WORLD! Glad to things are starting a slow progress back to normal for you!
Caroyn:shark2:
Ps: There are no words to describe humanity, except there are times that it amazes me how disgusting people can be. For all the good there will always be the "filth" that must destroy what doesn't belong to them. Such a shame!
http://www.al.com/news/huntsvilletimes/index.ssf?/base/news/122121091053770.xml&coll=1&thispage=1
They just restored my cable and internet access. I can now start getting back in the flow of things. (Now, all I need is to have my car back in ship shape... but who's counting? 
)
)
mike_s
Contributor
Well the final bill is in for our local shelter (at a coummunity college). this just in an article in our local paper.
After paying for all the items damaged/destroyed, the employee salaries, the HAZMAT team to come in and clean the "bodily fluids" smeared on the walls and floors, etc...
it cost $175,000 in clean up costs and to pay for equipment and salaries (of employees, security, etc) for the 300 evacuees to stay 5 nights in our shelter.
The HAZMAT cleanup fee was $25,000 alone. Plus other janatorial costs.
Hundreds of dollars of "Roto Rooter" costs to unclog plumbing where they tore up the blankets and flushed them down the toliets and stopped them up because they were "unhappy" with their shelter.
Now FEMA says it won't pay employee overtime costs either... so the college will have to "eat" those costs.
For $175,000 for 300 people for 5 nights, they could have put them all up in a place as nice as a Marriott, EACH IN THEIR OWN ROOM, and not destroyed our local college gym.
Based on $175,000 divided by 5 nights divided by 300 people = $116/night cost.
$116/night to sleep on a cot.
This doesn't include the FEMA cost to charter 6 buses to give them roundtrip travel and the repair to the buses where seats were soiled and torn.
Of course if we'd put them in the Marriott or any other hotel, they would have just torn it up and cost the taxpayer more money in the long run.
I just can't understand how people in "need" can be so ungrateful when someone else helps them and then they try to "get even" by destorying the place for how they perceive they were "treated".
After paying for all the items damaged/destroyed, the employee salaries, the HAZMAT team to come in and clean the "bodily fluids" smeared on the walls and floors, etc...
it cost $175,000 in clean up costs and to pay for equipment and salaries (of employees, security, etc) for the 300 evacuees to stay 5 nights in our shelter.
The HAZMAT cleanup fee was $25,000 alone. Plus other janatorial costs.
Hundreds of dollars of "Roto Rooter" costs to unclog plumbing where they tore up the blankets and flushed them down the toliets and stopped them up because they were "unhappy" with their shelter.
Now FEMA says it won't pay employee overtime costs either... so the college will have to "eat" those costs.
For $175,000 for 300 people for 5 nights, they could have put them all up in a place as nice as a Marriott, EACH IN THEIR OWN ROOM, and not destroyed our local college gym.
Based on $175,000 divided by 5 nights divided by 300 people = $116/night cost.
$116/night to sleep on a cot.
This doesn't include the FEMA cost to charter 6 buses to give them roundtrip travel and the repair to the buses where seats were soiled and torn.
Of course if we'd put them in the Marriott or any other hotel, they would have just torn it up and cost the taxpayer more money in the long run.
I just can't understand how people in "need" can be so ungrateful when someone else helps them and then they try to "get even" by destorying the place for how they perceive they were "treated".
Although the total population runs the gamut between the extremes, there are two "sides" that stand out when I look at situations such as the hurricanes. On the one side are people like those on our block.
Halfway up the block, a large oak had fallen, completely blocking the street. Just north of my driveway, a pecan had fallen, also blocking the street. Before Gustav had even cleared out (Why waste a cool, breezy late afternoon?), the guy with the oak had a chainsaw out. We all converged on the sound and got to work, and not one of us was asked. It was just the right thing to do.
In less than an hour, we had the entire tree sliced, diced, collected, and piled up out of the road. Then the entire group of us walked down the block to our pecan and made quick work of it. (It was quite a bit smaller than the recently majestic oak.) Making a few sorties into side yards to carry off some big branches that had, for the most part, barely missed houses was lagniappe.
Anyway, the storm hadn't even completely passed, and we'd already cleared the street. Other streets around town were still blocked for days or more as people waited for someone to help. My brother actually tracked down a chainsaw and spent a day clearing other streets in the subdivision. Why not make things a little better if you have the opportunity, eh? I kept a generator running to keep food from spoiling (my sisters' families brought all their perishables), and I made ice as fast as possible for those without. (Ice was among the hardest commodities to come by.)
Anyway, we are the people who just roll with what comes, work for the best, and appreciate the little things (like someone bringing a bin of ice when you've been craving a Diet Coke with ice for a week). On the other hand, you have the ungrateful few who show up extremely disproportionately in the news (and as you note, on the bottom line).
If only the news covered the good guys, too. I dare say *we* suffered more, but you're not going to hear us whining about it. (Not to say we won't ever complain, and FEMA *is* a four-letter F-word to many around here, but you vent, you deal with it, and you move on.)
Halfway up the block, a large oak had fallen, completely blocking the street. Just north of my driveway, a pecan had fallen, also blocking the street. Before Gustav had even cleared out (Why waste a cool, breezy late afternoon?), the guy with the oak had a chainsaw out. We all converged on the sound and got to work, and not one of us was asked. It was just the right thing to do.
In less than an hour, we had the entire tree sliced, diced, collected, and piled up out of the road. Then the entire group of us walked down the block to our pecan and made quick work of it. (It was quite a bit smaller than the recently majestic oak.) Making a few sorties into side yards to carry off some big branches that had, for the most part, barely missed houses was lagniappe.
Anyway, the storm hadn't even completely passed, and we'd already cleared the street. Other streets around town were still blocked for days or more as people waited for someone to help. My brother actually tracked down a chainsaw and spent a day clearing other streets in the subdivision. Why not make things a little better if you have the opportunity, eh? I kept a generator running to keep food from spoiling (my sisters' families brought all their perishables), and I made ice as fast as possible for those without. (Ice was among the hardest commodities to come by.)
Anyway, we are the people who just roll with what comes, work for the best, and appreciate the little things (like someone bringing a bin of ice when you've been craving a Diet Coke with ice for a week). On the other hand, you have the ungrateful few who show up extremely disproportionately in the news (and as you note, on the bottom line).
If only the news covered the good guys, too. I dare say *we* suffered more, but you're not going to hear us whining about it. (Not to say we won't ever complain, and FEMA *is* a four-letter F-word to many around here, but you vent, you deal with it, and you move on.)
DoubleHoseDiver
Contributor
Clay, it was like that during Katrina. If the news would have focused on ALL the good that was going on around them INSTEAD of all the horrible things, I think it would have been better for us all. What you and your neighbors did for each other is what I have seen. Compassion for one another. Because of Gus, I've now met more of my neighbors! Focus on the positive.
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