FEMA and the Ice Storm

[chuckster]

Let me give you a little background of where I have been the last twelve nights. My family and I have been living out of a motel room because my Springfield, Missouri home had its power knocked out due to that big ice storm that came through the lower Midwest a week ago last Friday. Like the majority of residences in this city of 150,000, our power was out because tree limbs had been knocked down all over town.

The local utility company hired linemen and tree trimmers from all over to help with the crisis, but the downed lines could not be put back up in most cases untill the tree trimmers came through. But in the last couple of days clusters of tree trimming trucks could be seen sitting idle in parking lots at various spots in town. Furthermore, I had a chance to talk to the linemen who finally got our power up. They said they could have gotten our power up sooner if only more tree trimmers had been available. So what gives?

Turns out, FEMA rules allow local governments to hire outside contractors without bids during emergencies, but they can only work a total of 72 hours! The trucks in questioin had already worked 52 hours and the local utility company felt it had to save the remaining 20 hours they were allowed to work for when they were needed to get schools and government buildings back on line. To be fair, the crews of these trucks were working with other trucks that had not yet exhausted their hours while waiting to go back to work and as soon as bids were approved all trucks would be able to work as many hours as they could as subcontractors for the lowest bidder. However, after going on your second week out of your home because it has no power or heat in the middle of January, FEMA rules don't mean a whole heck of a lot.

Now I know I could rant and rave untill I'm blue in the face and it would njot make one ounce of difference. But I just thought I'd share it with you.

[vinny_121_ND]

Maybe u should come to canada. things get done fast here without the paperwork (well, not as much).

[tyovan]

Seems FEMA is really screwed up..

[Rakki]

I wouldn't be too hard on FEMA.... the problem is with people trying to get a slice of your tax money. Without rules in place, some official could give all the fat contracts to whoever bribes him or her most.

[Satellite Weapon]

If there are any more big screw ups maybe Fema can be broken up and replaced by a more competent group.

[tyovan]

I wouldn't be too hard on FEMA.... the problem is with people trying to get a slice of your tax money. Without rules in place, some official could give all the fat contracts to whoever bribes him or her most.

Like Cheney and Halliburton?

[Mastermind]

Several years ago, my family experienced a very similar event from a freak ice and snow storm...loss of power, etc. FEMA was no where to be seen, fortunately for us. Neighbors got together, I had just bought a really great generator (wife was pissed at the time...but got over that when we had power and most in town didn't. Neighbors and I set up our own little power grid with extension cords...I could keep power to three houses at once for their heater blowers...so we could keep several houses warm using a kind of rotating schedule....the men and I took turns on generator watch and would switch power from house to house. The folks we could not supply power to, we invited into our homes for warmth...at one time, my wife had more than twenty people in our house!!!!This only lasted three days. One guy had a fantastic camp kitchen/chuckwagon which he set up in the neighborhood and served hot coffeee, barbeque, baked taters and even hot cereal ...the kids all had a blast playing in the snow, we kept most folks warm, we got to know each other much better than we ever had in the last ten years.

The crisis ended, and I think some folks had kind of mixed feelings about that. FEMA, in my book, can go to hell.

By the way, Chuckster...you really have my heartfelt sympathy over that...hope everything is okay now. Next time, come on out here to Las Vegas for the two week...we'll put you guys up in nice weather...except for the summer, of course.MM

[SpikeBayonet]

I feel your pain - the same thing happened to me when I lived in TN in 1995 - Nashville Electric had sold all of its spare transformers and wire to companies in California (this was right after the big earthquake there) and some people were without power for 3 weeks (I lucked out and was dark for just a week and a half).

Oddly enough - West Virginia tends to have its s**t together better than most places when weather disasters happen...

[2Sheds_Jackson]

Hey I have sympathy for everybody's trials and tribulations, but I'm not really sure what people expect. FEMA is not some all powerful god that can force things to happen. Getting a contractor on the job requires action from both FEMA and the contractor. They aren't going to go to work without a contract -they want to get paid. I mean, why not blame the local government for not having a large emergency fund of cash that they can instantly draw against to pay local contractors?

FEMA can stand there waving their arms, telling them to go to work, but if the contract is sitting on ol' Betty's fax machine down at Joe's Tree Removal, and Betty is on vacation in Bermuda, Joe won't go to work.
(BTW I've spent many a summer day, chainsaw in hand, clearing downed trees after hurricanes, and I was just helping out my neighbors - no contract required.) :) Even under the best circumstances, there are a million things that can cause delays that are completely outside of FEMA's control...couple that with the fact that phones and power are out, roads are blocked, people are unavailable because they're responding to their own personal emergencies - things just won't happen very quickly.

[Mastermind]

Best to be as self reliant as possible...folks consider me a "survivalist" nut as long as everything is sunny and bright...but, it's funny, when sh1t happens, I'm always the "go-to" guy. MM

[atl]

Best to be as self reliant as possible...folks consider me a "survivalist" nut as long as everything is sunny and bright...but, it's funny, when sh1t happens, I'm always the "go-to" guy. MM

Exactly:)
nothing wrong with being prepared

[Durandal]

I have to go with Mastermind on this one...

Katrina showed us or should have taught us to be self-reliant.

I'm not blaming you Chuckster and I certainly agree with you on your opinion on FEMA.

It ay be better to not have FEMA than wast tax dollars on it.

It may also pay for a local community to have emergency plans in place. My father and I who both work full time down on our farm actually have plans with several other business leaders in the community of about 6000 (really nothing but a suburb of Cincinnati, but its still a town and independent).

We have a bobcat (with various attachments), 5 chainsaws a couple trimmers and various hand tools, a dump trailer, a bulldozer, an F350, and 4 tractors, generator, lots of fuel and and gas, wagons...and a bandmill.

Another guy is a pole barn builder, another a welder, and so on.

We would all contribute help to our community to get things back to working order. All we would need is people to flesh out the places we need backs to do labor.

That said, I know Duke (after its merger with Cinergy) has actually cut the number of linemen in the Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio area to save money, and plans to pull from other regions to help out if needed. Not too sure how that would help if the adjacent region gets hit also, the teams cannot travel quickly to the region, or the plan on getting power back in a week.

Craziness...

If it happened to me though, I would simply winterize my home and lock it up and go someplace else to things cleared up.

[Durandal]

I' also like to point out that IF, we replaced, every power line that was taken out with an underground system, there would be no problems at all associated with ice and high winds.

But they are all exposed, thus subjecting us to the wrath of nature and our ability (or lack there of) in fixing what gets broken.

Lots of communities have buried infrastructure (like the community I plan on moving to in a couple months *fingers crossed*)...cable, phone lines, data lines, electrical lines and then, obviously the normal stuff (sewer, water, and gas)...if we did the entire nation, slowly, in a couple decades, we would be storm proof in that regard.

But the grid is an EXTREMELY fragile thing and costly to maintain (ever imagine what the costs are in trimming branches out from power lines and distribution lines is?)

Yeah, it would be expensive, probably VERY expensive, but we gain sooo much from it and in the end it would cost less than lost revenue (from businesses and lack of power usage), no more replacement costs, no 72 hour work crews (getting paid overtime) every time there is a stiff breeze or an inch of ice.