Sign of the times

Vision is Everything

In my last post I talked about the issue of dealing with clouds of people who were willing to spend their day waiting in line. Since then I've moved away from the urban disaster recovery center to a more rural environment that includes some heavy industry and the change in environment is dramatic.

At this facility we see slightly more people who have been damaged by the floods, but there is a lot more structural damage with foundations failing due to hydrostatic pressure and some subsidance of building because the water washed out underneath the walls of the building. These are major events and repair will be time consuming and expensive and many of the people I talk to have lived in their house for several decades. They didn't anticipate their later years to be taken up with finding money to rebuild their home, spending inordanate amounts of time geting the work done and still trying to live a productive life.

Listening to an 80 year old couple tell me that they don't have insurance, live on Social Security and have no friends or family makes me proud of the resiliancy of the human spirit when they tell me that they really feel bad about asking for assistance since "there are others who need help more than I do". Old and frail they might be, but in their minds they are coping and adapting in a way I can only admire.

Working the line

The Disaster Recovery Center I'm working out of is located in one of the (Big Northeastern city) suburbs in a very affluent county. My job is to talk to each of the applicants about how to repair the damage that they endured and also how to prepare and respond to future events that come their way. I speak for the federal program but cooperate with any state programs that address mitigation. In addition the DRC hosts a range of state programs that offer aid and assistance to those in need, and therein lies the root of a problem we had last week

The state welfare department announced that they would be handing out electronic food stamps to qualified individuals and that well intentioned support gesture resulted in a massive turnout of applicants from the city. It was just turning light when I checked into the center (about 3 hours before official opening) and found a line of about 50 people, and by the time the doors opened we had about 650 people in line and since it took the state a minimum of 15 minutes to process each applicant the math indicated we would be working until very late that night to process just the food stamp people. That meant that the applicants were going to be waiting...and waiting...and waiting before they could be processed. A perfect setting for high frustration levels and a potential riot situation.

The Center manager and a couple of the program managers took it upon ourselves to try to cool emotions and keep the peace. We walked and talked, offered sympathy and told everybody the truth about why we had the stack up and what we could and could not do to make their wait in line go faster/easier. Strangly enough the sight of "officials" walking the line and listening to their complaints not only calmed emotions, it even brought smiles and friendly comments. At least one other station lost control of their crowd which makes us believe that we must have done something right.

The old management rule of "managing by waking around" was proven that day.

Riding to the rescue

One of my alternative lives includes periodic employment by FEMA as a mitigation specialist. After a disaster there is an immediate need to set up and staff recovery offices that are tasked with assisting those people who have been impacted by the disaster. Since the government doesn’t maintain warehouses of trained staff it has to call on a group of available and trained people who step away from their normal lives and respond to the needs of others.

So most of the people you see running around in blue shirts are not full time employees of the government, they are folks like you who came to help because they have empathy and sympathy for their fellow humans.  And I’m one of them.

FEMA is best known as an agency that gives people money, but much of our work load comes from helping people cope with the present disaster and preparing for possible future events.  I teach them, among many other things how to remove mold after the flood, build a strong room in preparation for tornado season and how to assemble a survival kit for when you have one of those really bad days.

Right now I’m in Pennsylvania trying to help people cope with the flooding  of August; we work from early in the morning to about 7 at night and process lots of people each day. In our off time I get a chance to fix supper, do laundry and maybe get a good night’s sleep. The Disaster Recovery Center I’m working out of is located at a local fire and police training facility which is a lot better than the school gymnasium, church lobby or even windblown tents that I’ve worked out of before. The people come to us with all flavors of damage, need and desire, but they all have been impacted both physically and emotionally by Mother Nature. It’s the elderly and frail that need help and are being ignored by family and local governments that really get to me.

One lady I talked with yesterday has a small (about 2 feet wide and 6 inch deep) creek running through her property that during the flood grew to a width of several hundred feet and a depth described by her as “several stories”. Of course after the flood receded there was a veritable dam of debris blocking the creek and now the local jurisdiction tells her that the creek they claim as their own when the weather is good is now her responsible to clean up. The lady is a widow in her 80’s, not in good health and with limited income…and no one wants to help.

And that’s why FEMA is on the ground…our job is to make sure that resources, federal, local and volunteer are there to help. We can’t make you whole…but we will try to bring you back to the condition you were in just before the event that brought us to town.

FEMA gets bashed by many people who don’t understand (or want to understand) what our role is...We are recovery people, not rescue people and we really are here to help.

Report from the field

One of my alternative lives includes periodic employment by FEMA as a mitigation specialist. After a disaster there is an immediate need to set up and staff recovery offices that are tasked with assisting those people who have been impacted by the disaster. Since the government doesn’t maintain warehouses of trained staff it has to call on a group of available and trained people who step away from their normal lives and respond to the needs of others.

So most of the people you see running around in blue shirts are not full time employees of the government, they are folks like you who came to help because they have empathy and sympathy .  And I’m one of them.

FEMA is best known as an agency that gives people money, but more of our work load comes from helping people cope with the present disaster and preparing for possible future events.  I teach them, among many other things how to remove mold after the flood, build a strong room in preparation for tornado season and how to build a survival kit ready for when you have one of those really bad days.

Right now I’m in Pennsylvania trying to help people cope with the flooding episodes of the past August; we work from early in the morning to about 7 at night. In our off time I get a chance to fix supper, do laundry and maybe get a good night’s sleep. We’re located in a local fire and police training facility which is a lot better than the school gymnasium, church lobby or even windblown tents that I’ve worked out of before. The people come in all flavors of damage, need and desire, but they all have been impacted by Mother Nature. It’s the elderly and frail that are being ignored by family and local governments that really bug me.

One lady I talked with yesterday has a small (about 2 feet wide and 6 inches deep) creek running through her property that during the flood grew to a width of several hundred feet and a depth described by her as “several stories”. Of course after the flood receded there was a veritable dam of debris blocking the creek and now the local jurisdiction tells her that the creek they claim as their own is now her responsible to clean up. The lady is a widow in her 80’s, not in good health and with limited income…and no one wants to help.

And that’s why FEMA is on the ground…our job is to make sure that resources, federal, local and volunteer are there to help. We can’t make you whole…but we will try to bring you back to the condition you were in just before the event that brought us to town.

FEMA gets bashed by many people who don’t understand (or want to understand) what our role is...We are recovery people, not rescue people and we really are here to help.

Days of Infamy

    11 September 2001                           07 December 1941

                 I cannot forget              I will not forgive


But the earth endures and mankind persists and civilization survives

Rosewood and Music

Last week the Gibson Guitar Company was raided by the Feds, records were confiscated and equipment and product were confiscated. What was their crime? They were in violation of an Indian law and political idealists.

There are American laws on the books that honor foreign environmental laws and it seems Gibson was using Rosewood imported from India without the proper export license being obtained by the Indian export company. So the U.S. authorities seized the illegal wood and in effect have almost shut down the company.

The interesting point in all this is not that the U.S. is supporting foreign laws (which is usually a good thing to do) but that the importer who brought the wood into the country also sold much of the same Rosewood to other instrument and specialty companies. The importer and the other companies have not been targeted and have not had any of their stocks confiscated.

The article I read about this event indicated that one of the reasons for the Gibson raid is that the owner of the company is a strong contributor to conservative party causes, while the importer and other users of the wood seem to be neutral in their political beliefs or supporters of more liberal philosophies.

My only comment is that the law needs to be applied evenly or not at all.