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ROWLETT RAMBLINGS

I am furious!!

2/14/2016

2 Comments

 
Yesterday, I read Ray Leszcynski's article in The Dallas Morning News regarding FEMA's denial of individual assistance of tornado victims.  I was livid.  My wife said she had never seen me so angry.

I headed to the computer immediately to write a post on this blog site.  However, in a rare sense of adulthood, I realized my vocabulary had taken a sharp turn to the gutter.  I decided to wait until my temperature got back below 100 degrees.

I have one very simple question, however I would like to set the stage to ask the question. 

First, we have to assume FEMA's mission is to offer federal relief to victims of natural disasters.  If that is not their mission, what is?  Is it a war chest to disburse money to political cronies?  Maybe it's existence is to provide jobs to keep the unemployment rate down.  If FEMA's mission is not to provide assistance to massively damaged victims of natural disasters, then we need to change the complexion of Washington, DC by a substantial amount.  I have never much cared for bureaucrats, anyway.

At this point, we must assume that FEMA's existence is honorable.  Anything other than that suggests that a whole bunch of people need to go to jail.  As for intelligence, we probably shouldn't push the envelope.  I have a 6 year old great grandson that can tell if someone's home has been completely destroyed, or not.  He's pretty bright, but he doesn't have much of a resume, yet.

So, let's assume FEMA staff can tell if someone's home has been destroyed.  That doesn't seem to be a hard assignment. 

See how easy analysis can be?  We now have assumed that FEMA was created to aid victims of disasters.  We also have assumed that FEMA is intelligent enough to recognize victims when they see them.  This second assumption may be a stretch, but it has to be made to get to my question.

Now, Mr. Leszcynski reported that Debra Young, of the Austin FEMA office, has informed local and state authorities that there  wasn't enough damage to warrant FEMA aid.  That is about what I would expect from a imbecilic, moronic, dimwitted  bureau staffed by bureaucrats.

It would appear that there must be at least 800 homes destroyed or suffered major damage, that were uninsured or under insured, before FEMA assistance becomes available.  People, that is pure discrimination!!  People fulfilling all the damage criteria in an 810 home disaster is granted aid, but someone fulfilling the exact same criteria in a disaster of only 790 homes is denied aid.  That is discrimination in pure form.

Now my question:  I have to rely on you for the answer.  You're pretty smart.   If you read this blog, you are capable of intelligent thought. 

Clearly, FEMA has gone thru some kind of thought process whereby it was decreed that a certain number of damaged properties were necessary before any aid was needed. 

Since I don't trust bureaucrats, I must rely on your answer to my question.  Please tell me how anyone that suffered catastrophic damage in a tornado destroying 790 homes, and meets the same criteria as victims of a tornado damaging 810 homes, is damaged less than victims of the 810 damaged units storm?  What the hell does the number 800 have to do with anyone's need for aid?  The very first assumption above was that FEMA was formed to aid victims of natural disasters.  Was that a lie?  Was it only for certain victims?  Politically connected victims?

Let's take a hypothetical widow, living on Social Security of $1350 per month.  How easy to you think it would be to let the insurance payments slip when you're in the doughnut hole and paying outrageous prices for medicine, paying utility bills, buying food, and trying to live a subsistence life.  People, it ain't easy.  What is easy is to gamble that you won't have a catastrophic loss and avoid $125/month for insurance.  It is an easy enticement to succumb to and many, many, senior citizens take the gamble.  

So, you tell me why this hypothetical widow is less damaged because her storm only destroyed 790 houses instead of 810.

People, I am really angry for such moronic logic coming from our government!!

You all have a computer, or you wouldn't be reading this blog.  Therefore, you probably have email capability.  Below, you will find contact information for our closest FEMA office in Denton.  I would have given you FEMA's Debra Young if I could find it. 

I would fire off a stinging email to the below FEMA office, and call your friends and neighbors and have them to also send email.  You are the voters.  This is an election year!! I am copying this post and sending it to Governor Greg Abbott, Cindy Burkett, Pete Sessions,  Ted Cruz, and others who solicits votes from us.  Please point out to them that our disaster victims are just as damaged as others. 

We need to bring what pressure we can to get FEMA to find the error of their ways and help victims of this disastrous storm.


Contacts for Texas
(Removed per FEMA request)


2 Comments
Cindy Stone Jenkins
2/16/2016 07:49:38 pm

Reply
Jennifer wilson
2/17/2016 09:15:21 pm

Ron, I usually agree with your reasoning and logic behind most of your postings, but I differ from you on this FEMA issue. FEMA's sole purpose is to step in and offer aid when it has been determined that a catastrophe is so large that the local and state officials cannot handle the cleanup and aid. That is why they have such stringent thresholds set in place. Everything works off a math table--that's why our public aid was granted and the individual aid was denied. The only way to get individual aid is to have a larger population of uninsured and underinsured damage claims. I am not sure how that would help our town--have even more people need help than we already have?

I believe that the attention needs to be placed squarely on Austin and our state government. We, the State of Texas, are currently sitting on an $11 BILLiON surplus rainy day fund. Hell, it was even bragged about JUST TODAY by our local state legislator, Cindy Burkett. When is the governor and other state officials going to be tapping that fund to help the needy around here? It is raining at a lot of homes in Rowlett tonight.

If I was a FEMA official and I was looking at Texas' balance sheet while pondering whether or not there was a need federal action, I sure would have a hard justifying sending in aid to this state!

I do agree with your anger, we have a lot of folks who need help tonight and tomorrow but I think your anger is aimed at the wrong set of bureaucrats.

$0.02.

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