Later on in this post I will quote extensively from an e-mail I receive supposedly from a Denver emergency manager. As you may know, Colorado and the central/northern plains had two blizzards in a row in December, and snow was so high it covered roads, stranded people and in general caused havoc.
The e-mail makes a very important point: since when is it the government’s job to rescue people who don’t prepare for natural disasters?
Now, before you accuse me of not having charity for people who suffered in Katrina and other hurricanes, I would like to point out a few things. First, I live in Miami and have struggled through a half-dozen hurricanes (including the big one, Hurricane Andrew). I have volunteered to help people dig through the rubble after a hurricane several times. I’ve even posted about these experiences here and on Meridian Magazine. So, I am not making this post out of a lack of concern for the people who suffer through hurricanes.
I even went up to Mississippi to help people recover from Katrina, and believe me it was a mess. The entire town of Pascagoula was practically destroyed by Katrina. Members from our stake helped rebuild a half-dozen homes, and the owners were incredibly thankful. The Baptists in Pascagoula went from suspicious dislike of Mormons to appreciative love in the space of a week after we helped them rebuild several Baptist churches. I think the event helped demonstrate to many people that we really have the spirit of Christ and that we really do care for them.
My point is that the federal government does not need to be involved in these efforst except in the most general way. The governments that need to be involved in emergency response are the state and local governments. And in most cases the most effective groups responding are private groups like the Church and the Red Cross, who have less bureaucracy and less finger-pointing.
The criticism of the federal government that took place after Katrina was shameless, unnecessary and, frankly, un-American. Since when is the federal government principally responsible for disaster response? Yes, I know about FEMA. FEMA got involved after Hurricane Andrew, but anybody who lived through the hurricane will tell you that the most effective activities took place through the local and state governments and through private groups like the Church, which responded in a matter of hours after the hurricane.
For those of you who don’t know, the Church actually has trucks in Atlanta ready to roll to provide relief supplies wherever a hurricane hits. Those trucks are usually there a few hours after the storm passes.
State and local governments need to be trained to do the same thing. Disaster response should be a local activity, not a bureaucracy-laden federal activity.
It is worth pointing out that getting government too involved in relief efforts is harmful in several ways.
1)It decreases the possibility for volunteer activities because people begin to feel “the government will do it.” This damages our ability to build up a service culture, which I think is important.
2)There is an inevitable response on the part of some people to such efforts, which is, “if I live in North Dakota, why should I have to pay for some idiot who lives on a barrier reef in Florida that has been hit every few years by a hurricane? Shouldn’t we be encouraging the guy to leave, rather than paying him to rebuild his house every few years?”
3)Too much government involvement creates complacency. Instead of people preparing themselves to handle an emergency, they expect the government to take care of them. I think we saw a lot of this during Katrina, especially in New Orleans.
Now, the e-mail. Can I please ask that people avoid commenting on how uncharitable this e-mail is and instead concentrate on the real point of this post, which is a discussion of government involvement in natural disasters, especially federal government involvement? Thanks.
Denver Post:
This text is from a county emergency manager out in the central part
of Colorado after todays snowstorm.WEATHER BULLETIN
Up here, in the Northern Plains, we just recovered from a Historic
event— may I even say a “Weather Event” of “Biblical Proportions” — with a historic blizzard of up to 44″ inches of snow and winds to 90 MPH that broke trees in half, knocked down utility poles, stranded hundreds of motorists in lethal snow banks, closed ALL roads, isolated scores of communities and cut power to 10’s of thousands.FYI:
George Bush did not come.
FEMA did nothing.
No one howled for the government.
No one blamed the government.
No one even uttered an expletive on TV.
Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton did not visit.
Our Mayor did not blame Bush or anyone else.
Our Governor did not blame Bush or anyone else, either.
CNN, ABC, CBS, FOX or NBC did not visit – or report on this category 5 snowstorm. Nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards.
No one asked for a FEMA Trailer House.
No one looted.
Nobody – I mean Nobody demanded the government do something.
Nobody expected the government to do anything, either.
No Larry King, No Bill O’Rielly, No Oprah, No Chris Mathews and No
Geraldo Rivera.No Shaun Penn, No Barbara Striesand, No Hollywood types to be found.
Nope, we just melted the snow for water.
Sent out caravans of SUV’s to pluck people out of snow engulfed cars.
The truck drivers pulled people out of snow banks and didn’t ask for a penny.
Local restaurants made food and the police and fire departments
delivered it to the snowbound families. Families took in the stranded people – total strangers.We fired up wood stoves, broke out coal oil lanterns or Coleman
lanterns.We put on extra layers of clothes because up here it is “Work or Die”.
We did not wait for some affirmative action government to get us out of a mess created by being immobilized by a welfare program that trades votes for ‘sittin at home’ checks.
Even though a Category “5” blizzard of this scale has never fallen this early, we know it can happen and how to deal with it ourselves.