Pilot threatened with arrest for helping NC victims of Hurricane Helene...excuse me?

[Daleandee]

Add: so, do we disband FEMA and leave it to the states to fend for themselves or do we properly fund and oversee FEMA? And if the latter, with what money?

If FEMA had competent leadership they would have money. In fact Mayorkas stated earlier in the year that they were prepared and ready. Now he says they don't have the funds. Without getting tossed for being too political let me refrain and only say that I believe a lot of Americans are furious at where the money went ...

 

[flyingcheesehead]

Here’s a NYT story about fund less fema instead

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/02/us/politics/fema-funding-shortfall-hurricane-season.html

Is that article available somewhere that isn't behind a paywall?

Real Clear Politics?

Add: so, do we disband FEMA and leave it to the states to fend for themselves or do we properly fund and oversee FEMA? And if the latter, with what money?

I support the latter -IF it’s truly a problem. Lots of complaints about various government entities here - with no solutions proffered.

The real issue is that most of our government is underfunded, on purpose, because certain people like the narrative that government sucks. Well, if you underfund everything, it does suck... But then it still costs money while being completely ineffective. If you're going to do something, either properly fund it, or don't do it at all.

I've been thinking about how you solve situations like this. I was actually supposed to go down and help today and had to cancel due to non-aviation issues... But I wanted to maximize my impact, and it was somewhat difficult. I had to work with two different organizations - One who was collecting donated stuff to be flown in via fixed-wing aircraft and then distributed via helicopter, and another that was taking stuff delivered via ground to an airport down there and then using fixed-wing aircraft to fly it up to smaller airports in the mountains. It would have been nice to be able to say "Here's where I am and here's when I'm available, use me as best you can" rather than have to find multiple orgs myself. I was also hoping I'd be able to take someone and fly them back out of the area to family back up toward me or something like that, but they're very gun-shy about flying people because of cost-sharing considerations. (Scowling in the general direction of the FAA...)

I've been thinking how FEMA is such a giant bureaucracy that when they finally get on the ground in a crisis situation they can't get out of their own way... But there are SO many volunteers, first responders, military and government resources, etc that there has to be a better way to coordinate it all. It's really just a massive logistics operation, getting volunteers, rescue and recovery workers, and supplies in and getting rescued people out. But FEMA has proven incapable of really making things happen on the ground.

So, the real need is for the gov't to provide funding and/or infrastructure for the various organizations to be able to coordinate between each other and with the people in need. It also needs to ensure that the right people are dispatched, so for example if you need a large tree removed from a roadway you get someone who is trained and knows what they're doing, not Cletus who borrowed Billy-Bob's chainsaw and wants to get in on the action. (Cletus can maybe do some smaller jobs...)

One org I was working with was the Civilian Crisis Response Team, who seems to have a lot of training set up and available for people to learn useful skills before they are needed, and that should be another aspect of this.

At the end of the day, the need is to get bad government out of it, and the only way that is going to be done is by properly funding it, whatever "it" is... Because I think that all of the stuff I'm describing is stuff that FEMA is supposed to be doing.

Oh brother. The important part is the quote of a guy deployed from the Florida State Guard who's there and trying to help; I don't give a rip who prints what he says, it's HIS story. And if you'd bothered to read what he has to say, you might have realized it isn't a FEMA story.

But go ahead and keep your mind closed, as usual.

Unfortunately, for a site like that, I have to remain somewhat skeptical. At least some of what he said is false: https://www.wral.com/story/fact-checking-5-misleading-claims-about-helene-relief-efforts/21658052/

There's a lot of misinformation going around, and unfortunately it hurts the victims of the hurricane even worse because they don't donate things for fear that "FEMA is just confiscating everything" and such. The orgs that I was working with were having to actively refute that and encourage people to continue donating and volunteering, and that time could have been much better spent on the actual response.

 

[hindsight2020]

That FL state guardsman is not incorrect in pointing at the archetype of bureaucratic sclerosis federal agencies are often saddled with. That said, his anti "title 10" bias a shows a bit much when he gets indignant about USA Today confusing him with Florida NATIONAL Guardsmen. I'm willing to give the journalists over at news aggregators like USA Today the benefit of the doubt. Most people don't know some states have "state guards": bona fide militias, not affiliated with the Federal National Guard Bureau, which is what most people think of when they think of Citizen airmen/guardian/soldier/sailors. That struck me a bit of the lady doth protest too much on the part of our Florida volunteer.


Just sayin'....

--brk brk--

My heartfelt thoughts are with the people of Western North Carolina. Reminds me of the dark year of 2017, complete with potus throwing paper towels at some of mine. Son of geriatric survivors of Maria (and childhood survivor of Hugo and half dozen others myself), I'm well aware of the panic and heartache in waiting for that cell signal to come, taking weeks (for some it never came). Flights were shut down and I couldn't exactly drive 900 miles of atlantic ocean.

Which reminds me, another warm shout out to Amerijet and the rest of the 36th st mafia for helping me smuggle (yes smuggle, I had to represent myself as my father, no way otherwise to sign the airway bill absent electronic means) a fixed/anchor 9kW diesel generator to my parents so they could survive what would be a 2 month long affair to electric power restoration. Complete with all the post-trauma that resulted from the desperation and chaos of procurring anything in the intervening weeks among the innocent and the sociopaths/sadists alike. In fairness, I offered my parents a ticket out, but proud as we all are of our home, they decided to stick it out, good bad or stupid. I'm sure many in W Carolina lived/died under similar pretenses, though we know most who do do generally are acting under economic duress. No judgement either way from me on that front, as I said, I had parents with the financial ability to get the hell out of the way of Maria and they stayed. Digressing.


What I've seen so far from Tar Heels leads me to believe they're resourceful, grit-laden Americans who show no signs of backing down. I have no doubt they'll continue to show examples of resilience and heroism regardless of the speed of federal response. And to those who have provided assistance whether financial or emotional, the effort is not wasted. We're in this together folks, we all share a stake in this finnicky experiment that is our Union, imperfect as it may be.