I have to disagree

I occasionally publish my thoughts and could be considered a blogger. That's a term with about as much credence as "assault rifle" and "dumb blond" but I enjoy speaking my mind and letting the few readers I have know what I'm thinking. As most bloggers do I also read the product of other bloggers both to get ideas and to tune my own writing skills in comparison with people whose writing ability I admire and hope to emulate.

I ran across a post from a blogger who believes that governmental disaster response is both too expensive and muddleheaded. Writing about "Sandy" the recent east coast disaster he made it clear that if you build on a barrier island you deserve having your house washed away. If you decided not to have flood insurance he sees no benefit in the government helping you recover from the result of your stupid decision. In short he thinks that money spent on disaster recovery is a bad social investment, with no good return on investment in his eyes. Interestingly enough I can see the merit (but not the logic) of his commentary.

I am a reservist with FEMA (as are the majority of FEMA people, which means we have a life outside the periodic call to help others) and at the moment I'm stationed on one of those east coast barrier islands that was devastated by the storm. I'm seeing first hand the impact poor decisions made years ago can have on people. And often those decisions were made by other people who didn't have a clue that what they decided would hurt future generations.

I see people who have lived in their seaside cottage for over half a century. A cottage that was built long before there was an understanding of the dynamics of barrier beaches and long before the concept of building codes. Logically society should not have built infrastructure on barrier islands but reality is that society established itself on the island and we have to live with the consequences of decisions made by those long dead people so many years ago.

The older couple I mentioned just a moment ago probably bought their seaside cottage in the 1950's or 60's and after decades of occupancy they finally paid the mortgage off. What they failed to realize is that the mortgage company, when they finalized the mortgage also terminated the National Flood Insurance coverage the couple had paid for over the years. And as often happens the elderly pair didn't realize they had no insurance or made the (bad) decision that the premiums were higher than they could afford.

What do I, as a representative of a government that prides itself on caring tell these octogenarians when they approach me for help. Their cottage has been knocked off its foundations and the contents of their home (and the visible memories of their lives) have been washed into the ocean or are ruined by mold. I have to tell them that when their insurance lapsed they forfeited their best opportunity to recover their declining years and that the most their government can do for them is fund them to a ceiling of $31,900 which barely gives them opportunity to turn their back on their lives and their history and find a safer place to live.

So while I agree with my fellow blogger that we should not reward bad decisions I have to ask if individuals should today bear the burden of past generations making those poor decisions. There is a need for society to make some serious changes and we need to discuss what they should be and what the implications of those decisions will be.

I look forward to that conversation.