A week into the greatest natural disaster in North Carolina’s history, the Feds are still trying to find something useful to do. Now mind you, they’ve done a lot, like getting in the way of folks who were, you know, actually on the ground the next day rescuing people, raising funds, and moving supplies in for distribution. But useful? I haven’t heard any reports of that.
Many stories and rumors are floating around. How many, if any, are true there is no way to know. Some may have a grain of truth but have been blown out of proportion in the multiple retellings. For example, I doubt that there are “thousands of bodies”. I suspect it’s more like hundreds; some won’t be found for months or years, if ever.
I was going to write a post detailing the ones I’ve heard, but John Carter, proprietor of Postcards From Barsoom, has beaten me to it and done a better job to boot. It’s long, and if you go through the comments it triples in length, and it’s worth reading. He links to a lot of places, and following those is worth your time as well.
I’ve been listening to the W4HTP repeater on and off, and it seems that most of the notations are along the lines of “X is available here and Y is available there” plus reports on power restorations, road conditions, and the like. Of particular interest, I just heard the report “That there’d be a whole lot more supplies in Lake Lure if they’d just take them.” That came from a gentleman who had delivered a trailer of supplies there today and apparently had some fun doing so.
Following up on my earlier post that included the story of the chopper pilot who was threatened with arrest for doing the job Lake Lure can’t do, we have this.
Names are named for people to be shamed. And I’d like to reach through the screen and choke the shit out of that sanctimonious city manager.
The people of Appalachia have an in-built distrust of government based on generations of painful experience. If 10% of what I’ve heard or read is true, this will be so reinforced that, unto the tenth generation, they will have less than zero trust.
I can’t blame them. It’s probably where I got it from.
Worthy of note in the video, after the duplicitous says that the AH assistant fire chief is not available, he sticks his head in the door behind her at 9:43 into the video. Proving once again that the officials are lying. The people have fact driven reasons to distrust government.
add “city manager” after duplicitous.
Thanks for posting this, and the link to Postcards from Barsoom. It disgusts me to read some of it, but the way people step up, on their own, to help out, is inspiring. I especially like the idea of mule trains delivering supplies. Mules can get where vehicles can’t go. Not as good as small helicopters, but still a big help, I bet.
I don’t trust most of the organizations. I may drop some cash on Samaritans Purse.