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Daily by krmb on Monday, 15 September, 2008
14 September 2008
Warning: What follows is a long-winded commentary having nothing whatsoever to do with the above photo. For those dear friends who just don’t feel like reading another rant by MaritaBeth, please know that I forgive you. 
Feel free to skip to the very end of this post and just read the last paragraph. But, if you take the time to read the whole thing, I’d love to hear your points of view! Please comment!
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Yesterday, I wrote that the storm (Hurricane Ike) didn’t seem to have been as bad as we’d feared it would be. That may be true. And, since most of our friends were far enough north and/or west, or had evacuated to even safer spots, our friends seem to be fine. Many without power, some downed limbs, and one house now in need of new shingles, but the people are fine. Even at TRF, all seems to be well. I will continue to check in on folks I haven’t heard from yet, but so far we are thankful.
Our beloved Galveston Island itself, however, does not seem to have fared so well. I have been trying to find everything I can possibly read regarding the damage there, and the current conditions. It seems that more than two thousand people defied evacuation orders and are now needing to be removed from the island. Most of those no longer have transportation of their own, so it falls to the Red Cross, FEMA, and other volunteer organizations and emergency services to help these folks. It is good that such organizations exist to help. It seems ridiculous to me, however, that they must use their energies and resources to now help those who didn’t bother to help themselves last Thursday and Friday. <sigh>
I read that over forty structures in Galveston are no more. We know of the loss of restaurants, shoppes and at least one hotel out on the seawall. Kyle saw one heartwrenching photo of the remaining corner of an older home—the corner where the 1900 Storm Survivor placque was mounted. One Flickr photographer has a couple of photos of the historic Strand about four feet under water, and that was from Friday! I’m still trying to track down information about other parts of Historic Galveston, and of course, the Tremont Hotel in particular.
What we do know, is that it will be quite some time before things can return to any semblance of normal, there. Storm damage to city infrastructure is severe—there is no power, no water, no sewage. That means, of course, that the area is basically uninhabitable. Those crazy enough to try to stay have already and will continue to place themselves and those who will eventually have to rescue them, in danger of injury and disease.
I don’t get it.
Many who know me well, will remember that I have always had a very healthy fear of earthquakes. (I know, this seems non-sequitor, but bear with me.) Earthquakes petrify me, mostly because with our current technology, we are almost helpless to forecast them. I know the experts are working on this, but basically, if you live in a zone where fault lines and seismic activity are commonplace, you simply never know when it’s going to happen. And for all of my lifetime, we’ve been half expecting “the big one” that causes most of California to fall into the ocean. That scares me to death—no warning, just instant ocean-front property in Arizona!
In the process of explaining (or justifying) my fear, I’ve always pointed to hurricanes as natural disasters you can “live with.” I grew up in the northeast, where although fewer than here near the Gulf of Mexico, hurricanes were a potential part of summer. You learned how to put away lawn ornaments and furniture, take down awnings, even board up windows. You knew “what to do.” And here in Texas, where almost every season seems to bring a good scare or two, its even more accepted that we get warning, and we can prepare. Sure, we never know exactly what Mother Nature is going to throw at us, but we have a pretty good idea, thanks to the folks at NOAA, and decades worth of experience. We know sometimes weeks in advance that there’s a potential threat. We can watch the tropical storm via satellite, see what it does in the Caribbean, and mentally prepare. Then, the experts create charts and graphs and maps that tell us what the storm will likely do. We have time to board up windows, move furniture to higher ground, and make travel plans! Then, ultimately, we have time to save ourselves, if not our property.
How ignorant does a person have to be, to ignore all those warnings? How selfish does a human have to be to place the lives of his pets and even his children in danger due to his own stubbornness? Nowhere to go? That’s what the Red Cross would rather do—provide shelters and food and clothing for those displaced. If they could concentrate their energies there, and not have to spend as much time and money rescuing those who didn’t bother to heed the warnings . . . . GRRRR! It makes me crazy!
I read one article this morning, where someone who was just now leaving Galveston, was quoted as saying, “next time they should warn us about this, not about the storm.” She was referring to the lack of city services, the sewage in the streets, the decaying food, the smell . . . where has she been? I saw and heard and read many a warning, that the aftermath of the storm would be just as bad or worse for people, than the storm itself. And really, how much intelligence does it take to know what’s at stake?
Did I mention, I don’t get it?
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Addendum: I know I’m not alone. Here is a very nice article on an MSNBC Blog by journalist Mark Potter. In case my link isn’t permanent and you later have to search archives: the name of the article is “Hard Lessons in Hurricane’s Aftermath.”
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My photo today is of Kyle at the Scarborough Renaissance Festival site. He’s sketching the back of our East Wind Games booth, so that we can get serious about our plans to do some needed booth improvements. We took a bunch of measurements, and now have an updated picture in our heads on which to base our plans.
~MB
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I know, my friends are all now nodding their heads. ;-) I get it, that many people chose to stay based on personal preferences of one type or another. Okay. Those people made a choice and had to be living under a rock to not know what they were risking. Many of them filled bathtubs, bought provisions, know how to use their generators safely, and are prepared to deal with the equivalent of living in a war zone—the stench, the continued health risks, the sense of feeling rather trapped, and the numerous other inconveniences and dangers that might arise, up to and sadly including death. My frustration comes not from those folks, but rather from those who chose to ignore evac orders, and then wanted to be rescued barely 24 hours after landfall! And worse, then want to blame the system or the government for their predicament. <sigh>
