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Milton Part 2
Nov. 25th, 2024 10:22 amThe next day after that post, I went to work only to find all these cars lined up next to gas stations like it was lane to pick up their kid after school.
None of these stations actually had gas then. The cars would line up in the HOPE that gas would arrive at some point. They needed gas for the generators and because most people were charging their phones by running their cars. People no longer use radios to find out about the outside world, only their phones. The day after Milton, I immediately turned to the radio once I could find something that worked, but our local radio station; our record-winning radio station for playing 3 million songs in a row without a commercial and working on 4 million. Now it was just gone. The tower was collapsed on power lines and the power lines were wading in water over five feet deep. Around six weeks later, they're hoping to have it up by Thanksgiving.
I don't know if it's because everything is social media based and that was unreliable or just plain incompetence, but people didn't know where to go or who to call. Everyone felt so alone even as neighbors and strangers tried to help. On Saturday, the helicopters started. The sound is so uneasy as it is. Are they delivering someone dying or looking for a criminal on the loose? Now, they were heavy duty military birds, and they were plucking people from the water. At the parking lot of the park I'd walked to all my life, was World Central Kitchen. They go to War Zones and extreme catastrophes. The Daily Show had begged for donations for them while discussing Gaza, Ukraine, Haiti, and there they were, World Central Kitchen, just a mile from my house.
Another charity, Operation BBQ Relief, was here for weeks. If you donate, do them. The others are tight-fisted with lots of rules and personal bias. People are mostly back to normal, but some are still in their cars. There have been two Town Hall Meetings, but they were about navigating FEMA, not discussing what people want to discuss: that most of this flooding wasn't from the storm, but man-made from incompetence. Waterways that have existed for hundreds of years were ignored or filled in. Developers made their new construction flood-free at the expense of existing properties.
People just want reassurance that it'll be fixed, that it won't happen again, and the local government won't do that, probably because it knows they have no intention of fixing it and it will happen again. Nine days after Milton, we had a corporate visit at work. I thought they wanted to make sure we were okay, and whether we needed anything. They wanted to make sure we were all set for the holiday buying season...
None of these stations actually had gas then. The cars would line up in the HOPE that gas would arrive at some point. They needed gas for the generators and because most people were charging their phones by running their cars. People no longer use radios to find out about the outside world, only their phones. The day after Milton, I immediately turned to the radio once I could find something that worked, but our local radio station; our record-winning radio station for playing 3 million songs in a row without a commercial and working on 4 million. Now it was just gone. The tower was collapsed on power lines and the power lines were wading in water over five feet deep. Around six weeks later, they're hoping to have it up by Thanksgiving.
I don't know if it's because everything is social media based and that was unreliable or just plain incompetence, but people didn't know where to go or who to call. Everyone felt so alone even as neighbors and strangers tried to help. On Saturday, the helicopters started. The sound is so uneasy as it is. Are they delivering someone dying or looking for a criminal on the loose? Now, they were heavy duty military birds, and they were plucking people from the water. At the parking lot of the park I'd walked to all my life, was World Central Kitchen. They go to War Zones and extreme catastrophes. The Daily Show had begged for donations for them while discussing Gaza, Ukraine, Haiti, and there they were, World Central Kitchen, just a mile from my house.
Another charity, Operation BBQ Relief, was here for weeks. If you donate, do them. The others are tight-fisted with lots of rules and personal bias. People are mostly back to normal, but some are still in their cars. There have been two Town Hall Meetings, but they were about navigating FEMA, not discussing what people want to discuss: that most of this flooding wasn't from the storm, but man-made from incompetence. Waterways that have existed for hundreds of years were ignored or filled in. Developers made their new construction flood-free at the expense of existing properties.
People just want reassurance that it'll be fixed, that it won't happen again, and the local government won't do that, probably because it knows they have no intention of fixing it and it will happen again. Nine days after Milton, we had a corporate visit at work. I thought they wanted to make sure we were okay, and whether we needed anything. They wanted to make sure we were all set for the holiday buying season...
