We know the feeling. Spotty communication is starting to emerge with Dominica, mostly through text messages and satellite phones (before yesterday, there were only a few ham operators). A few pictures too. Enough to see the devastation and hear of family members who are safe. Unfortunately, the village where my mother in law lives is still completely cut off. Nobody can reach out not has any clue what the situation is there. My wife has been losing her mind for days. :(
I feel like everyone was so stressed about the first two (three?) hurricanes it’s like we don’t have enough worry left to worry about the big storm that actually hit.
Now lets get Congress put aside their prejudices and actually put together a repair plan for Puerto Rico.
Some comedians say it’s never too soon to make jokes about dark, heavy matters. While I don’t always agree, it’s nice to see such boldness and bravery alive in these forums.
Sad to say, Congress has far more important things to do in the coming days, like fucking over all of America on healthcare just so they can claim a “win”.
It’s both unsurprising and very sad that we’ve just watched as several U.S. territories, including PR, got hammered by hurricanes and Congress seems to have barely noticed at all. Hell, they’re barely responding to the effects of Irma and Harvey here in the mainland U.S… FEMA is pretty much out of money, the military is coordinating many efforts that civilian authorities should be in charge of because of the fact that civilian authorities don’t exist because the Trump Administration has yet to staff over 500 positions within FEMA and other emergency response organizations.
In the past 30 days we’ve seen an unprecedented amount of near-simultaneous infrastructure damage to the United States and United States Territories (including the wildfires out West and flooding outside of Texas and Florida) and Congress is working on trying to ram through a shitty Obamacare repeal because Republicans “promised the voters we’d get rid of Obamacare”. Guess what morons, NOT ONE PERSON in the affected areas gives even ONE FUCK about repealing Obamacare right now. All they want to know is how they put their lives back together, and who is going to help them with doing so.
I’m so fucking sick of Republican asshattery right now. I can’t even find the words to describe how reprehensible I find every singe one of them at this moment.
EDIT : Sorry, this was more a P&R rant than a Everything Else post, but the relation back to the weather-related damage and the lack of focus on such makes it applicable here.
Unfortunately, a lot of them are philosophically opposed to foreign aid.
(said using a sarcastic font)
There’s so much i want to do… that should be done. This stuff isn’t hard. But apparently it is.
My condolences, @Wendelius. I really hope both parties hear some positive news soon.
In fairness to my friend, she’s sort of an Elven Ranger/hardcore survivalist who literally never leaves the house without a bag of supplies that would prep her for an unexpected camping trip and/or apocalypse. She learned all this from her parents, who live in a steel-reinforced concrete bunker built into a mostly mud-slide free hill with a generator or three and enough food/water to ride out armageddon. So I mean, if anyone’s gonna make it through Maria unscathed, it’s them. . . but still. Not knowing blows.
May I ask why her family lives in a bunker? Anticipating World War 3?
I mean, it’s a house in a strict sense; it’s just built like a military bunker.
And mostly due to the hurricanes.
Ah, I see. I get a different mental image when I hear the word “bunker” but I can see where being underground would be helpful in a hurricane.
Given that Sessions referred to Hawaii as “some island in the Pacific” I very much doubt they care.
Edit: whoops, this isn’t P&R. I’ll see myself out.
Yeah, that was my poor attempt at a snide joke. :)
My friend was posting some pictures of cell towers that were basically just twisted hunks of metal and wire. While affluent areas will be back up and running shortly just due to the concentration of resources and manpower there, a lot of outlying areas are basically going to get to enjoy taking a trip back a century or four for a good long while :-/
Well, I thought it was funny.
No power for six months is gonna turn into some Lord of the flies type shit.
It makes you appreciate what you have.
If this keeps up, I imagine you’ll see a wave of climate refugees fleeing the Caribbean. The smalller islands have tiny populations, but Puerto Rico has 3.5 million people, and they’re all US citizens with as much right to travel to the US as any other American.
Some good news at last. Nobody has been able to reach the village where my mother in law lives yet, but a radio operator managed to make contact last night and confirm she was ok. By now, the majority of the family members have been accounted for.
Such a great relief. Thoughts of the extended family have more turned to support, shipping supplies, tarpaulin and help to survive the next few weeks while the clearing and rebuilding effort starts.
Great news, man. Here’s hoping they get supplies quickly as well, Wendelius.