4 ms·

A member of the Cajun navy would be quite justified in taking the cost of boat, gas, safety equipment, etc out of any taxes owed to the government. Seeing as ho

A member of the Cajun navy would be quite justified in taking the cost of boat, gas, safety equipment, etc out of any taxes owed to the government. Seeing as how he is doing their job and all.

jstanley 9y ago
Maybe... But such a system is open to very easy abuse. Let's say I fancy a nice 4x4 "so that I can tow people stuck in the snow in winter". Do I get to write off the cost of my 4x4 just because I tow people in snow two days a year?
- meddlin 9y ago
  Great point. Not only that, but the level of disorganization during these operations is probably enough to dissuade this type of tax program.
- dawnerd 9y ago
  You’d write off two days of the year, give or take depending on their calculation for depreciation and such. Now if you bought t only for that purpose and didn’t use it any other time...
  - fleitz 9y ago
    Or... start a business, and throw some ads on the side of it...
meddlin 9y ago
After serving in Vidor, TX this year...I would love to see this made possible. Further, FEMA has failed Louisiana too many times, and we're fed up with it. That name has become a "swear" in this part of the country.
- chiph 9y ago
  Heh. Ask the people in the Carolinas what they think about FEMA. While the agency eventually provided aid, it usually arrived too late, and was too encumbered with rules and regulations.
lb1lf 9y ago
That may be a bit of a stretch, but a per diem covering at least your running expenses would be reasonable. While it appears there's room for improvement in US disaster response services, we should keep in mind that any major emergency is basically Nature pulling a DoS attack on us; it would be unreasonable to expect the government to be everywhere immediately. (Which, basically,is why they should reimburse private citizens coming in to help.)
- labster 9y ago
  As opposed to non-emergencies, where humans are pulling a DoS attack against Nature. Saw the fires cresting the hills from home this week. But what do people expect if they build a long string of homes into chaparral? The long urban-wildland boundary denies access to nature, until it is reclaimed by the fire. It sucks having lots of friends lose their homes, but those homes never should have been built in the first place. When Venturans got a chance to vote on new houses in the hills, 85% of us rejected it. And thank goodness, because 100% of those homes would be ashes by now.
  - dleslie 9y ago
    Not to worry, nature always wins in the long run.
    - labster 9y ago
      Heh, yeah. But will it be James Lovelock's nature or H.P. Lovecraft's nature?
      - dleslie 9y ago
        Either sounds awesome to me.
- closeparen 9y ago
  We're not talking about the end-times here. Hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, and wildfires are routine events with hundreds to thousands of prior examples. It's not at all unreasonable to expect organizations that are chartered to deal with them to be pretty good at it by now. "Will there be an organized response to a disaster?" is right up there with "Do murders get routinely and professionally investigated?" in terms of whether or not we are living in a civilization. Aiming no higher than reimbursing the ad-hoc vigilante efforts is such a dark worldview.
TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
Part of what makes the Cajun Navy far more efficient is that it is completely separate from the government, which has to worry about things like liability, legal hiring, risk analysis, proper management and dispatching, and legislators adding unnecessary red tape. If the Cajun Navy tries to interface with the government, all of those efficiencies would be lost in order to meet regulations and standards that the government would require.
- viraptor 9y ago
  > which has to worry about things like liability, legal hiring, risk analysis, proper management and dispatching Apart from official hiring issues, why do you think they're free from the other ones? They're all natural things you have to deal with one more than one person is involved.
  - michaelt 9y ago
    If the fire department sent firefighters into danger with faulty breathing apparatus and they died because of it, you'd expect the fire department to have to compensate their families, right? But if someone joins the Cajun Navy with faulty equipment and they die because of it, you wouldn't expect the Cajun Navy to be liable for that - if indeed the Cajun Navy is even an identifiable legal entity with any assets.
- connorelsea 9y ago
  True, but also, recent disasters were "freak" ones. Flooding on this level has never really happened in these areas before. A lot of the homes destroyed didn't require flood insurance (homes in the standard flood planes / hurricane areas do require that the owner have flood insurance) When your town looks like this, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZSXGin-zNA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZSXGin-zNA , and the fire department is fully underwater, the locals with boats win on quick response time. (Followed by disaster-specific response teams like the coast guard, etc.)
  - jtnegrotto 9y ago
rdl 9y ago
Some level of deduction for equipment/depreciation/services rendered would be appropriate, or possibly a tax credit. Another option would be donating to a charity which then compensates people for expenditures during situations like this; the challenge is doing it after the fact. However, it's not like this is the last time the CN will respond, so it could also be done prospectively. I've shown up at car accidents as a private individual and expended wool blankets (not taking one back after it's covered in blood), first aid supplies, water, etc. Maybe $300-500 lifetime total, which isn't a big deal for me, but it'd be nice to be able to get reimbursed/replaced.
akadien 9y ago
Honestly, those costs were the last thing anyone worried about. There were so many local donations of fuel, water, food, etc. Some of the folks I helped evacuate offered cash donations to cover those things, which we turned down because we didn't need it and knew they would.

A member of the Cajun navy would be quite justified in taking the cost of boat, gas, safety equipment, etc out of any taxes owed to the government. Seeing as how he is doing their job and all.

jstanley 9y ago

Maybe... But such a system is open to very easy abuse. Let's say I fancy a nice 4x4 "so that I can tow people stuck in the snow in winter". Do I get to write off the cost of my 4x4 just because I tow people in snow two days a year?

meddlin 9y ago
Great point. Not only that, but the level of disorganization during these operations is probably enough to dissuade this type of tax program.
dawnerd 9y ago
You’d write off two days of the year, give or take depending on their calculation for depreciation and such. Now if you bought t only for that purpose and didn’t use it any other time...
- fleitz 9y ago
  Or... start a business, and throw some ads on the side of it...

meddlin 9y ago

After serving in Vidor, TX this year...I would love to see this made possible. Further, FEMA has failed Louisiana too many times, and we're fed up with it. That name has become a "swear" in this part of the country.

chiph 9y ago
Heh. Ask the people in the Carolinas what they think about FEMA. While the agency eventually provided aid, it usually arrived too late, and was too encumbered with rules and regulations.

lb1lf 9y ago

That may be a bit of a stretch, but a per diem covering at least your running expenses would be reasonable. While it appears there's room for improvement in US disaster response services, we should keep in mind that any major emergency is basically Nature pulling a DoS attack on us; it would be unreasonable to expect the government to be everywhere immediately. (Which, basically,is why they should reimburse private citizens coming in to help.)

labster 9y ago
As opposed to non-emergencies, where humans are pulling a DoS attack against Nature. Saw the fires cresting the hills from home this week. But what do people expect if they build a long string of homes into chaparral? The long urban-wildland boundary denies access to nature, until it is reclaimed by the fire. It sucks having lots of friends lose their homes, but those homes never should have been built in the first place. When Venturans got a chance to vote on new houses in the hills, 85% of us rejected it. And thank goodness, because 100% of those homes would be ashes by now.
- dleslie 9y ago
  Not to worry, nature always wins in the long run.
  - labster 9y ago
    Heh, yeah. But will it be James Lovelock's nature or H.P. Lovecraft's nature?
    - dleslie 9y ago
      Either sounds awesome to me.
closeparen 9y ago
We're not talking about the end-times here. Hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, and wildfires are routine events with hundreds to thousands of prior examples. It's not at all unreasonable to expect organizations that are chartered to deal with them to be pretty good at it by now. "Will there be an organized response to a disaster?" is right up there with "Do murders get routinely and professionally investigated?" in terms of whether or not we are living in a civilization. Aiming no higher than reimbursing the ad-hoc vigilante efforts is such a dark worldview.

TheAdamAndChe 9y ago

Part of what makes the Cajun Navy far more efficient is that it is completely separate from the government, which has to worry about things like liability, legal hiring, risk analysis, proper management and dispatching, and legislators adding unnecessary red tape. If the Cajun Navy tries to interface with the government, all of those efficiencies would be lost in order to meet regulations and standards that the government would require.

viraptor 9y ago
> which has to worry about things like liability, legal hiring, risk analysis, proper management and dispatching Apart from official hiring issues, why do you think they're free from the other ones? They're all natural things you have to deal with one more than one person is involved.
- michaelt 9y ago
  If the fire department sent firefighters into danger with faulty breathing apparatus and they died because of it, you'd expect the fire department to have to compensate their families, right? But if someone joins the Cajun Navy with faulty equipment and they die because of it, you wouldn't expect the Cajun Navy to be liable for that - if indeed the Cajun Navy is even an identifiable legal entity with any assets.
connorelsea 9y ago
True, but also, recent disasters were "freak" ones. Flooding on this level has never really happened in these areas before. A lot of the homes destroyed didn't require flood insurance (homes in the standard flood planes / hurricane areas do require that the owner have flood insurance) When your town looks like this, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZSXGin-zNA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZSXGin-zNA , and the fire department is fully underwater, the locals with boats win on quick response time. (Followed by disaster-specific response teams like the coast guard, etc.)
- jtnegrotto 9y ago

rdl 9y ago

Some level of deduction for equipment/depreciation/services rendered would be appropriate, or possibly a tax credit. Another option would be donating to a charity which then compensates people for expenditures during situations like this; the challenge is doing it after the fact. However, it's not like this is the last time the CN will respond, so it could also be done prospectively. I've shown up at car accidents as a private individual and expended wool blankets (not taking one back after it's covered in blood), first aid supplies, water, etc. Maybe $300-500 lifetime total, which isn't a big deal for me, but it'd be nice to be able to get reimbursed/replaced.

akadien 9y ago

Honestly, those costs were the last thing anyone worried about. There were so many local donations of fuel, water, food, etc. Some of the folks I helped evacuate offered cash donations to cover those things, which we turned down because we didn't need it and knew they would.