Unintended consequences. Glitches in the system. Shady agendas. Contracts and personal gain. Failures of management.
There are many reasons not to trust government, or to put too much power into its hands.
This time, a false alarm issued by incompetents manning the FEMA alert system nearly panicked millions of people into fleeing a long, thin island that is already clogged with traffic during summer and which only has two major highways and access to the mainland only through New York City’s toll bridges, or ferries.
As the AP reports:
Federal officials in New York are investigating an emergency alert system after a mistakenly truncated message about storm system Hermine wrongly advised TV watchers on Long Island of an ordered evacuation, authorities said Sunday.
The Saturday night confusion started after Suffolk County emergency officials used an aspect of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s alert system for the first time since gaining access to it after Superstorm Sandy. They had hoped to advise viewers that a voluntary evacuation had been ordered for Fire Island, a thin strip of land off of Long Island’s southern shore and a popular summertime destination.
Instead, somehow only the first part of the message — that an evacuation order had been issued — was broadcast to viewers. That the order was voluntary and only applied to those on Fire Island didn’t make it onto TV screens.
[…]After county officials realized the misleading alert had been sent to the public around 7:30 p.m. Saturday from FEMA’s Integrated Public Alert and Warning System, a clarifying alert was subsequently issued, Miniutto said.
Officials decided to use the FEMA broadcast system because most of the people on Fire Island are tourists and visitors who don’t have landlines or sign up for emergency alerts on their phones, he said.
Fortunately, nothing major happened… but it was close enough to a total disaster.
To imagine how bad this could have become, you really have to picture how isolated and vulnerable this massive island really is.
Image: Wikipedia.org
Regardless, the potential scale of this bungling is indeed quite enormous.
That is particularly true, since this is supposed to be a system put in place as an improvement instituted in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, which precipitated FEMA’s second most expensive emergency storm clean-up ever – at an estimated cost of at least $65 billion.
Don’t expect too much from the feds and their emergency infrastructure when the next big things hits; it is safe to assume that far too many people will be put in harm’s way – not only by what nature may bring, but from the response by government.
This real FEMA sign, and others like it, appeared in the news during the response to Hurricane Sandy:
This real FEMA sign appeared in the news during the response to Hurricane Sandy.
Let’s simplify. During an emergency: Do. Not. Trust. Government.
Prepare your own family for what’s coming instead.
Here’s a look at the storms currently headed for the East Coast.
Remnants of #Hermine off East Coast keeping high pressure anchored over Ohio Valley. Dry & warmer here into midweek. pic.twitter.com/gXTPgSAMoG
— NWS Wilmington OH (@NWSILN) September 4, 2016
I just had to listen to Lee Hamilton and Thomas Kaine regurgitate 911 on Communist News Network (CNN). Two “insiders” who are guilty as sin but continue walking around as free men, plowed through the same old fairy tale of 911 like anyone really believes the “official” story anymore.
I say a good public hanging would be good for America. Cheney and all the Bush’s would be priority hangings on prime time TV. The lesser minions, like Hamilton and Kaine, they’re not prime time, couldn’t make enough money to hold people in wonder of their fate. Cheney and the Bushes, I’d pay for hangin’ tickets just to watch them do the dance. Either way, we’ll have a good stretch on that rope when we’re done. There’s a lot of folks that need their necks stretched! Can we start today? This will take awhile and I don’t want to miss out. It just ain’t the same upon replay.
I’m not interested in the weather, or FEMA’s notorious incompetence, but what’s interesting in this article is a reminder that New Yorkers do need to consider the strategic vulnerability of their location.
“…which only has two major highways and access to the mainland only through New York City’s toll bridges, or ferries.”
Forget Long Island; the entire city of New York can be isolated by closing off about five or six bridges and highways, and 8 million people trapped there to starve. The ease with which so many people can be killed off by so few makes them a target.
If you live in NYC, watch for an exodus of Jews, because that event will precede any catastrophe there.
“Don’t expect too much from the feds and their emergency infrastructure when the next big things hits;…”
Other than death, that is.
Having been raised about ten miles from the South Shore near Hempstead and Jones’ Beaches and just north of one of the “two” main exits from Long Island, the Southern State Parkway (the other is the Long Island Expressway aka the LIE shown in red on the map above, with the Northern State Parkway parallel to it), let me make the following observations as to escape routes, FEMA warnings or not: 1. Use the Southern State Pkwy if possible, because it barely even touches NYC and heads mainly for the Verranzano Bridge to New Jersey. 2. NEVER USE THE LIE! Worst hwy ever except for Manhattan’s west side hwy! They don’t call it the LIE for nothing! 3. You are better off taking boats from the north shore to Connecticut. 4. If you live in the central part of Long Island (not near north or south shores), just stay there! Long Island is 110 miles long and at its highest point, smack in the middle near Farmingdale/Hicksville, you are just better off staying home, the altitude is about 200 feet above sea level.5. Since they couldn’t do squat to save roughly ten villages and towns during Sandy (including complete destruction of Island Park where my college friend grew up), what makes you think they’ll be able to save you next time>