From Walter White came this rapid response to what I posted earlier…
Just wanted to say thank you for the kind and heartfelt posting on newsfromme.com regarding Sandy, safety, doing more, etc. Here in Connecticut, where the brunt of the wind impact is hitting and storm surge pushing up Long Island Sound is going to cause not only coastal flooding, but rivers running in reverse (cue brilliant Elvis Costello tune… poignant to me, as I live near the Housatonic River which feeds into the Sound)….
I did, though, want to give you some hope. Last year we got hit with Hurricane Irene, which packed a heck of a wallop at the end of August, only to be hit with Winter Storm Alfred on this very day last year (three feet of wet snow falling in one night while leaves were still on the trees People lost power for weeks, buildings collapsed…it was eerie, that morning after the storm, with clear, blue skies and a perfectly white landscape, perfectly still and silent except for, every twenty seconds or so, the sound of another branch, somewhere, snapping…)
At the time, the response of the government was slow, of the utilities was slow (turned out Connecticut Light and Power hadn't bothered paying its bills to other utilities it had borrowed help from in the past…so the nearest help that would bother was in Ohio, and took days to arrive.) It was a huge fiasco, and much political hay was made.
What at the time seemed to be the usual forming of committees and requesting of studies that lead nowhere and have no effect began. Those happen all the time.
Except this time, it didn't. What we've experienced in the last four days has been a revelation: Timely updates and information of substance and usefulness; Well controlled plans to prevent problems before they become an issue; Coordination of personnel along the coast to aid evacuation to a large list of shelters which have been opened, staffed, and supplied as of yesterday; The closing of restricted access highways (anything with on/off ramps) to emergency vehicles only this afternoon; The suspension of public transportation last night, including buses, and declaring a State of Emergency, which is keeping many workers off the roads and at home, rather than what happened last year with people being stranded, unable to return home; Coordinating with FEMA a pre-landfall declaration for a disaster area designation, making the month of pursuant debating with the Federal Government last year over that issue post-crisis an already done deal this year; Additional road crews already conscripted and on their way, coordinated not by the utility companies alone, but as a joint effort with the State government.
Really — sometimes I think about it too deeply and I start to get teary just thinking about how refreshing it is to have a government being sensible, logical, proactive, and caring. Haven't seen this kind of efficiency before in my lifetime here. That a government would even learn from its mistakes enough in one year to effect that much of a transformation is incredibly heartening.
So, have heart. While we can do more, and should do more, for the first time I'm beginning to think maybe we will do more.
That's so good to hear. You know, I have little problem with an honest assessment — if there is such a thing — that a given function of government can be done better at the state level. I have an immense problem with this kind of boilerplate assumption that the Federal Government screws everything up and that everything would be better if they'd just turn it over to the states or, better still, private enterprise. Hurricanes don't respect state borders. I don't know why the preparedness and clean-up operations should.
What oughta matter here is not proving someone's theory of government incompetence but helping people whose lives are devastated by the kind of thing that no private insurance was ever intended to address. My mind reels every time I hear someone suggest that fire departments be "privatized." Fire departments! No one has any real theory of how that might work. Apparently, if your home is ablaze, you go to the Yellow Pages and call around to see who's available to come over with hoses and axes. I'm surprised some people are even willing to let our Federal Government wage war. They'd like each state to send its own delegation to Afghanistan.
I hope Sandy doesn't do as much damage as they say she might. It's comforting to hear that already, preparedness has minimized some of it.
Later, I received this from Walter…
Right now we're experiencing the worst of the wind… the worst storm surge is coming later tonight (about two hours from now)…. the wind is the worst it has been all day. Indoors, it sounds like we're on a ship in a squall at sea. I think the speeding up of the storm means the worst of it will be done by morning, rather than dragging on through tomorrow as they originally expected.
Anywho, I'm not a possessive sort – mi palabras, su palabras.
Hopefully, the power doesn't flicker on me again. I'm tired of rebooting my router and modem…
And hopefully, that's the biggest problem you'll have. Good luck, Walter…and anyone in the path of Frankenstorm.