In the past few days, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has ordered searchers not to break into homes. They are supposed to look in through a window and knock on the door. If no one cries out for help, they are supposed to move on. If they see a body, they are supposed to log the address and move on.
And don't tell me that this is all about liability. If there's ANYTHING about this rescue effort that shows the feds are acting defensively, prophylactically against future lawsuits, I swear, I am going to...
Oh. Wait.
Nevermind.
What the hell was I thinkin'?
(Thanks to RobertinWisconsin for the lead)
3 comments:
Well we need to keep one thing in mind, not that I feel a burning desire to defend FEMA- but its awfully hard to judge what's appropriate from where we are. I don't know how much time it takes to break into a house to search- and when many homes thankfully are empty- perhaps cumulatively it subtracts minutes from a life down the road.. in a house where someone is alive. See, a person that cannot move or respond or scream- is likely dead by now, no???There has to be a system I guess, like the tear off labels with the color codes- yes, some people were left for dead because in catastrophe, I guess it makes sense to save more lives versus one. Hell I don't know. We don't know how things are prioritized, we only know that there was alot that seemed to go wrong, in hindsight the 'wrongs' go back years. Everything- from the neglected levee to not heeding warnings to the overdeveloped buffer wetlands- we know that many things went wrong. Catastrophe happens and people have a way of suddenly asking questions though that should have been asked- As you pointed out, its 'news' that the "press" (and I use the term press loosely) are actually ACTING like a group of journalists. Woo-hoo. Doesn't bring back the dead in the south, the dead in Iraq, the dead in the Sudan, the dead in Niger.... and people will forget as soon as Britney Spears has a baby or we get to another "American Idol". Hooray that Americans can really rally and care in between commercials- and ask these tough questions.
Hooray for the press, for "getting tough" on FEMA. It takes historically low job approval ratings to challenge a President???? Come on. As many comedians have pointed out, will he have enough medals and awards and high level positions to reward all these crooked morons???
The Medal of Negligence, maybe?
To rely on several bad metaphors, this story is like lemon juice on a paper cut from where I'm standing. Every day something new turns up about this fiasco of our national response -- peel back a new layer, find another rotten one.
And this week will not dissappoint, my friend. You'll see!
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