We're Gonna Die!

I was reminded of the devastation done by Hurricane Katrina the other day while watching Donna Solli on TV in Staten Island shortly after it was ravaged by Tropical Storm Sandy. Veteran New York Senator Charles Schumer was touring the devastation, and Ms. Solli was giving him a piece of her, you'll excuse the expression, mind. "You don't understand," she screamed, "We're gonna die! We're gonna freeze! We got 90-year-old people! We need gasoline for the generators! You gotta get your trucks down here on the corner now! It's been three days!" Chuck Schumer hugged her and tried to comfort her. "I know what you're going through, sweetheart," he said.

Those of us who survived Katrina can surely sympathize with Ms. Solli. She was hungry, cold, dirty, worried and scared. Unexpected things had happened, and expected things hadn't. She was left to her own resources and didn't know how to cope. We understand; we've been there.

That having been said:

Ms. Solli's problems were of her own making, and none of them were life-threatening. She said she nearly drowned, but "nearly" means "hadn't" in this context, just like people in Ohio or Montana. We all heard about Sandy on the news for a week previously, and many of the smarter locals arranged to be somewhere else than a low-lying shoreline right in its path.

But it really wasn't that bad, considering. Most of the homes there were still standing and relatively undamaged. There was plenty of water in them in water heaters and canned and bottled drinks. Ms. Solli looked like missing a few dozen meals might have done her a world of good, especially if her survival rations consisted of cold pizza. The weather was cool, to be sure, but nowhere near freezing, and everyone had warm clothes and blankets and things like drapes and tablecloths to make more. They might have been cold, but there was no end of firewood scattered about. In some places, little flames were springing up here and there in case they ran out of matches.

Had Ms. Solli learned how to improvise, adapt and overcome in the girl scouts, Peace Corps or military, she would have been able to do that instead of bitching. Then she could have done something to help those 90-year-old people other than complaining. I found the "trucks down here on the corner now" remark particularly annoying. Having witnessed FEMA operate after Katrina, I know that the "trucks" she was talking about were already involved in helping other people, some no doubt in much worse shape than she. Griping about it didn't help anybody.

Here in "Hurricane Alley," we heard reports of absolutely disgraceful conduct in New York and New Jersey; about relief crews turned away because they weren't union. People reportedly threw rocks at utility workers who were doing everything to restore electrical power, working systematically from where it was to where it wasn't, instead of just putting up wires willy-nilly. Now they're whining about estimated electric bills that were sent out (on time) by computers deprived of meter reader input because the readers were busy responding to the emergency in other ways. Out of a reported 8.2 million people without power, there wasn't a single report - not one - of somebody caring enough to call the power company and tell them that the meter reader didn't show up and what the reading on the meter was. It reminds me of former New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin, cursing the heroic rescue efforts of other people in his flooded city from the comfort and security of his safe Baton Rouge refuge. For shame, people! For shame!

By all accounts, three hours later, Ms. Solli and her neighbors were eating MRE's and drinking bottled water furnished at the largess of American taxpayers who had more sense than to stay at home with their dogs in the face of the largest tropical storm in living memory. The same accounts stated that she was a "government transportation worker." but she sure as hell wasn't working government transportation that day. No doubt she felt that she was doing something else useful, but the fact is, the effort to relieve the consequences of irresponsible shortsightedness of Staten Island stayathomes was already well underway. Nothing that Ms. Solli said or did had any apparent effect other than to get her fifteen minutes of fame, such as it was.

Nobody put a gun to anybody's head and forced them not to fill their bathtubs with drinking water or lay in a supply of Dinty Moore beef stew or Progresso soup. To be sure, a few people stayed on Staten Island because they had to, possibly to be of service to others, but Ms. Solli was not one of them. Like her, far too many people just assumed that the government would take care of them "now" if they did something stupid. Hopefully they learned something.

But wait! It gets worse! The cut-rate insurance that some people bought really doesn't cover what it didn't say it covered, even if they hoped otherwise. Even for those things that it did cover, it requires ironclad proof of loss. Unfortunately, that proof is often the first thing to get lost. Additionally, many flood victims are now learning what flood insurance is for by not having any, and those who did have it, were often surprised to learn that it didn't cover their expensive furnishings in that non-habitable space between the ground and the required elevation, which is why it's called "non-habitable." No matter how hard one believes, his faith will not save him if he believes something that simply isn't true! The audacity of hope is a poor substitute for the certainty of knowledge.

There is paleontological evidence that human beings have been living on Staten Island, off and on, for about 14,000 years. For over 99 percent of that time, they didn't have any insurance, running water, electricity, gasoline engines, gas heat or trucked in supplies. What they did have was a society in which people took care of themselves and their own families and contributed to the community at least as much as they took from it. That's how they survived and prospered. Today, too many people in this Country expect somebody else to take care of them while they contribute nothing except complaints. As a result, as Michelle Obama pointed out, life is not good. They are divided into a community that is just downright mean. They are guided by fear. They've become a society of cynics, sloths, and complacents, a population of struggling folks who are barely making it every day. They're just jammed up, and it's gotten worse over her lifetime.

Recently this Nation again elected her husband, a President dedicated to the belief that Americans don't have to take care of themselves because "the government" will force other people to do it. He wants "the rich" to assume the burden "the poor" have generated for themselves by neglecting to plan ahead, dropping out of school, having illegitimate children, failing to learn a trade, committing crimes, abusing drugs, smoking, or being too fat. No matter how many resources "the government" devotes to protecting people from the consequences of their irresponsible decisions, eventually it just won't be enough, and some people will just have to fend for themselves. Many have never learned that, or have forgotten how.

The real tragedy is, Ms. Solli was right. They're gonna die!

John Lindorfer