Survey on preparations for disaster

[MomH]

News article about the nation being individually ready for a disaster. Not particulary surprised but somewhat daunted. How do we wake people up?

http://www.sunherald.com/160/story/24474.html

[DanKellFla]

I don't think you can. After two storms in South Florida in one year, people were still waiting in line after Wilma hit. All you can do wean people off government care. But, once again, that punishes the poor and just inconveniences those with some money. We, as a country, have been trained to ask, "What is the government going to do for me?" after a disaster. Not, "How can I take care of myself?"

[MSRobi911]

Some people in South Mississippi have that attitude, that they should be taken care of by the government. But most of us have picked ourselves up by our bootstraps (cause that is about all we had left) and gone forward with our lives. We still have a lot of people in FEMA trailers (like 2500 in Jackson County alone). We do have a housing shortage, people don't have places to live, very few apartments available and virtually no Rental properties, but there are some out there. I see signs on apartment complexes that have apartments available. BUT there are those that are still in FEMA trailers because they don't want to have to pay RENT! You should have heard some of the comments when they were put in the FEMA trailers from the shelters because then they had to pay for ELECTRICITY! geeze some people I just don't get. They said they had no jobs and no money to pay for these things. Businessess are still begging for people to work, maybe not a high paying job, but a job with an income. Our Walmart is still not open 24 hours a day because they can't hire enough people to work, the local grocery stores are still not open 24 hours because of the same thing. The McDonald's and Taco Bells, Wendy's all have signs posted for Help Wanted. There is no excuse not to get a job if you have any kind of skills, even stocking a store or pushing buggys doesn't take a rocket scientist, not putting down those people that work in those positions, but there are jobs out there and for some reason people just won't go and try and get the job. There are construction jobs out the wazoo if anyone has any kind of skills with that sort of thing. Northrup Grumman has openings every day now that they or back working after their month long strike. People can apply for grants at the local Community College and go free and be trained to work in the ship building business or engine repair or any other number of job skills out there. I just don't understand lazy helpless people!

So are we prepared for another disaster, heck NO!

Mary

[Dionne]

Mary......we had people here in Mississippi that were lazy and no count long before Katrina arrived.

We established this welfare state, now we must live with the deal.

[Jagno]

Some people in South Mississippi have that attitude, that they should be taken care of by the government. But most of us have picked ourselves up by our bootstraps (cause that is about all we had left) and gone forward with our lives. We still have a lot of people in FEMA trailers (like 2500 in Jackson County alone). We do have a housing shortage, people don't have places to live, very few apartments available and virtually no Rental properties, but there are some out there. I see signs on apartment complexes that have apartments available. BUT there are those that are still in FEMA trailers because they don't want to have to pay RENT! You should have heard some of the comments when they were put in the FEMA trailers from the shelters because then they had to pay for ELECTRICITY! geeze some people I just don't get. They said they had no jobs and no money to pay for these things. Businessess are still begging for people to work, maybe not a high paying job, but a job with an income. Our Walmart is still not open 24 hours a day because they can't hire enough people to work, the local grocery stores are still not open 24 hours because of the same thing. The McDonald's and Taco Bells, Wendy's all have signs posted for Help Wanted. There is no excuse not to get a job if you have any kind of skills, even stocking a store or pushing buggys doesn't take a rocket scientist, not putting down those people that work in those positions, but there are jobs out there and for some reason people just won't go and try and get the job. There are construction jobs out the wazoo if anyone has any kind of skills with that sort of thing. Northrup Grumman has openings every day now that they or back working after their month long strike. People can apply for grants at the local Community College and go free and be trained to work in the ship building business or engine repair or any other number of job skills out there. I just don't understand lazy helpless people!

So are we prepared for another disaster, heck NO!

Mary

Mary; It's not just your area that is still experiencing these things. I'm in SW Louisiana and we are going thru the exact same thing. Our first convenience store to open 24 hours was about a month ago. The whole city was celebrating this milestone.

[flightwxman]

Man, I never realized how bad it still was out there. Its actually pretty sad that its taking people, the government, and whoever else is involved so long to fix things up.

[DanKellFla]

I just watched the first two parts of Spike Lees documentary about New Orleans. It is terrible what happened to the residents that were left behind. It is hard to tell from the documentary if there were any people in the Superdome who were prepared for an extended stay. I know that in the same situation I would have packed for 36 hours while feeling stupid for bringing so much stuff. I would never have been prepared for days. I nearly cried when I saw General Honore actually start to get something done. And when people tried to act in a pro-active manner to take care of themselves, they were turned away at the bridge. Yes, I did see a lot of people who were just waiting for the government to come to the rescue, but what else could they do?

[Dionne]

A very small percentage of the populace was prepared for the onslaught of Katrina. I know I got caught with my pants down. Who could have anticipated an entire infrastructure failure this far inland? We had early evacuees that arrived here from the coast only to end up evacuating this location. Those of us that are pro-active did not run after the storm. We stayed. Some of us even went further into the debris fields on rescue efforts seeking our children. What can we say? It happened and it won't be over for a long time. Some of us are more fortunate than others. There are still people that are down and out and this region is their home.