I am trying to rebuild my life and, yes, I expect help. I think that is what government is for. Crazy, huh? That a government should actually be there for its people??? Idealic notion, right? Not really. I did not ask to have everything that I have ever known destroyed. And I could never ask for charity – I can, however, as hard as it is for me, ask for help. I work a full-time job, go to school (still) to try to better my life and the life of my child. YOU, yourself, would want no less for your family. I just want help getting some sort of a normal life again. Why is that so much to ask???

And to be clear, these people aren’t hurricane vicitms, they’re flood victims, caused to a great extent by the fact that federally built levees were substandard in their construction. I guess the government can tell people that the leveees will hold back the water, but walk away when it turns out they’re wrong.

Only in America… :-D

It maybe with you, but I daresay it won’t be generally, and that’s part of the point.

The feds need to tell the governors of each state explicitly what they will and will not do, and then the state,
in conjunction with each local government, needs to devise plans for various disasters – knowing what they can and cannot count on from the federal government

That’s basically how it was before: I think there was a pretty clear understanding and template (of course, not perfect), for the most part, until last year. Now it’s been turned on its head.

Well, I’m going to modify that what I just said, a bit: I’m still not convinced that bringing FEMA under Homeland Security, when that department was created, along with other reorgs, didn’t help set the stage for all of this, at least the part that was actually a fed problem (as opposed to the massive failure of local and state authorities, with regard to Katrina, to do what they traditionally have indeed been expected to be responsible for).

I don’t really have the time to hunt down the link now, but remember, a few months back, when a report came out that many of the problems we saw last year as far as federal disorganization were predicted a few years before that by, of all people, Michael Brown?

Let’s not confuse the issues here. Whether one believes that the feds should have been responsible for providing for the victims of Katrina is separate from the fact that people committed fraud during that process. I know there was a lot of fraud committed after 9/11 (although I’m not sure if there was more, less or the same), but people weren’t really making THAT big of a deal about it, and I don’t remember anyone complaining about the federal government getting involved in helping the victims and their families.

Please don’t point out the obvious differences between the 2 events, but do explain to me why we were so down on the Katrina situation. Or, explain to me the difference between the government helping with Katrina and the government helping with Andrew. Or, explain to me the difference between the government bailing out hurricane/flood victims as opposed to them helping out earthquake victims.

Listen, if the feds don’t want to get involved, that’s fine. We just need to sit down and figure out what the procedure should be in the event of these kinds of things happening. The feds need to tell the governors of each state explicitly what they will and will not do, and then the state, in conjunction with each local government, needs to devise plans for various disasters – knowing what they can and cannot count on from the federal government

Can someone tell when it became the responsibility of the federal government to bail out people after disaster?

It sure is an entitlement mentality anymore. Not sure when the tide turned on with responsibility of the government to bail people out after disasters, but that has become the expectation.

What’s even worse is when building occurs in areas that are geographically prone to the effects of hurricanes and when damage occurs there’s no responsibility for someone recklessly building just because “the view was great.”

They set a bad precedent with Katrina…
We recently had some flooding in my area, and the TV is full of people wondering when the feds will show up and hand them money.