Nov 5
I’m Just Sayin’
This last Saturday & Sunday, New England felt the tail-whip of tropical storm Noel. The news-guessers were dancing around making last-minute adjustments to what they started the week calling a sunny weekend, bumping up rainfall predictions and wind gusts in each successive broadcast. Power companies called in crews to stock up service vehicles and opened satellite business offices that were normally closed on the weekend to handle anticipated increased calls and need to dispatch crews.
It was a rainy, windy storm but not as harsh as the “surprise” storm in April. The “danger music” (haunting cello cords) played on the local panic station Saturday evening was gone Sunday morning as they reported minor local damage. One news report did stand out: it showed a resident wading up to his knees in his basement, gathering floating sneakers and hauling out appliances. When they interviewed him, he spoke about his sump pump not being able to keep up, wondered why no one had “done anything” about the stream overflowing, and commented that he saw flashing lights and was going out to see “what they were going to do for him”. My involuntary and perhaps unfairly harsh comment was “Go back to New Orleans”. What!?!?
New Orleans, for all the political wrangling, is a perfect example of what happens when people do not think clearly about the future and take personal responsibility for their own lives. I am not only talking about the fools on Bourbon Street dancing around for the camera and sloshing their drinks everywhere the night before Katrina; I am also talking about good, sane, responsible people. The guy on the news obviously had a house to live in and a life here in Maine, and he is probably a great guy. He was down there working hard in his flooded basement (a no-no by the way, as one could easily be electrocuted), not sitting on a cot at the local high school with a wool blanket over his shoulders. What’s my problem then? The time to act is before the storm, not during or after. I don’t expect the man to build a dike along the stream (something for which our local envirelgionist cult fanatics would hang him by the thumbs), but putting the nicely buoyant Nike’s up on a higher shelf might have been warranted; maybe even hauling out the washer and dryer.
The point is that we should think about storms and other contingencies well in advance. I understand it is unpalatable - the roof doesn’t leak when the sun shines - but it is far more palatable to climb on the roof and enjoy the sunny view while tacking on shingles than to tear out soggy, moldy rugs, wallboard, and insulation. How many of us know that New Orleans (not Louisiana) was given 7 million bucks 16 months before Katrina to build an Emergency Operations Center? Auditors have not been able to determine where the money was spent.
I’m just sayin’….
