4 ms·

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

by 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.
- connorelsea 9y ago
  The recent flooding associated with the cajun navy is not a routine event. It was regarded as a "500 year flood." Local rivers (Amite River) that rarely have a problem with capacity overflowed into nearby cities (Baton Rouge, Denham Springs, etc.) Houses on land that did not require flood insurance were filled with water to the roof-level. Not Normal: https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/2016/08/16/louisiana-flooding-stack/assets/images/590191904-1254.jpg https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/2016/08/16/louisiana-f... Video of devastation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZSXGin-zNA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZSXGin-zNA Law enforcement would have been prepared to handle normal-scale hurricanes, flooding, etc. (They do) but were not prepared to handle this kind of uncommon disaster. And even though the disaster was unforeseen, the government still helped some - my parents were removed from their house via Coast Guard. (But many more in the same area were removed by locals with boats) I do agree that it makes sense to reimburse cajun navy participants in some way but I'm not sure how
jfoutz 9y ago
> it would be unreasonable to expect the government to be everywhere immediately eh, it really hinges on how much we want to pay. i'm not saying you can just throw money at problems to make them go away, but there are quite a few things we could do. An obvious government organization that feed and clothe tens of thousands of people half way around the world at a moment's notice is the military. That of course costs ~$600 billion a year. It's feasible to have caches of food and water and generators and mobile cell stations that can be trucked or airlifted with no notice. Mobile emergency rooms, kitchens and shelters aren't really that hard to put together. It would cost billions, but it's totally doable. The other half is about people. Partly getting high skill people from around the country to where they're needed, when they're needed. Electricians for example. really important for recovery. Also, volunteer organization. There are effectively a ton of unskilled people that need to be fed and sheltered. And there's a ton of unskilled work that can be done. I'm not saying we should force people to work to get fed after a disaster. I'm saying lots of those people want to fix things, and we're not great at using their labor. FEMA is what it is. it could be very good. but that ain't cheap.

by lb1lf 9y ago

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.

connorelsea 9y ago
The recent flooding associated with the cajun navy is not a routine event. It was regarded as a "500 year flood." Local rivers (Amite River) that rarely have a problem with capacity overflowed into nearby cities (Baton Rouge, Denham Springs, etc.) Houses on land that did not require flood insurance were filled with water to the roof-level. Not Normal: https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/2016/08/16/louisiana-flooding-stack/assets/images/590191904-1254.jpg https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/2016/08/16/louisiana-f... Video of devastation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZSXGin-zNA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZSXGin-zNA Law enforcement would have been prepared to handle normal-scale hurricanes, flooding, etc. (They do) but were not prepared to handle this kind of uncommon disaster. And even though the disaster was unforeseen, the government still helped some - my parents were removed from their house via Coast Guard. (But many more in the same area were removed by locals with boats) I do agree that it makes sense to reimburse cajun navy participants in some way but I'm not sure how

jfoutz 9y ago

> it would be unreasonable to expect the government to be everywhere immediately eh, it really hinges on how much we want to pay. i'm not saying you can just throw money at problems to make them go away, but there are quite a few things we could do. An obvious government organization that feed and clothe tens of thousands of people half way around the world at a moment's notice is the military. That of course costs ~$600 billion a year. It's feasible to have caches of food and water and generators and mobile cell stations that can be trucked or airlifted with no notice. Mobile emergency rooms, kitchens and shelters aren't really that hard to put together. It would cost billions, but it's totally doable. The other half is about people. Partly getting high skill people from around the country to where they're needed, when they're needed. Electricians for example. really important for recovery. Also, volunteer organization. There are effectively a ton of unskilled people that need to be fed and sheltered. And there's a ton of unskilled work that can be done. I'm not saying we should force people to work to get fed after a disaster. I'm saying lots of those people want to fix things, and we're not great at using their labor. FEMA is what it is. it could be very good. but that ain't cheap.