Oh, and another thing?

[kyburg]

I can't imagine anything being much more terrifying that being told you have to sit inside a covered arena in the near-dark after the power is lost, during the strongest hurricane in forty years - and you can't leave, go anywhere or do anything about it because you can't afford it.

And then multiply that by multitudes if you are too elderly and frail, as well as broke.

You want suckage, that's about pegs the meter in my book.

Katrina, huh.

If she had a face, she'd look like Ann Coulter.

Comments

[foogod.livejournal.com]

Howabout being told you have to stick it out on your own because you're not welcome anywhere safe, and if you die, nobody cares?

Believe it or not, in some communities, some people are actually being told that by their governments. If you're a registered sex offender, you're not permitted in most shelters (for obvious reasons). In many communities, however, not only have people passed legislation to keep such people out of the shelters, but they've (in some cases deliberately) provided no other safe place for them to go instead.

Add to that the fact that in most cases, these people's movements are monitored so they're not allowed to leave the area (and if they do they'll be hunted down and locked up), and being ostracized from most "good" communities a lot of the places they're living aren't the safest in the world even in non-hurricane conditions, and you're looking at people huddling in a ditch, alone, because it's mildly safer than the trailer they live in, praying for themselves that they live through it, and knowing nobody else is.

I'll be the first to admit that what many of these people did were horrible things, but they are still human beings. Denying them the basic tools they need to survive while at the same time forcing them to stay in the path of disaster is just downright barbaric, no matter what their past history is.

Anyway, I don't know if this particular problem is true of any of the specific areas being hit at the moment.. it may not be. Still, after hearing a while back about these situstions which do exist in many disaster-prone areas of the US, I have a hard time not thinking about it whenever the issue of natural disasters and shelters comes up.

Some people might be out there right now wishing they had a dark arena to cower in..

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

If you look at any of the belief systems that have a Good Guy as a Deity, you see the admonishments to care for the sick, elderly and poor.

Because it's Hard. Because you won't want to do it.

And you have to be taught, reminded and threatened, in some cases, into it.

This makes me sad in ways I forgot I knew.