Hurricane Sandy

Postby TUfriend » Sat Oct 27, 2012 7:26 pm

Who's ready? We raked away all of the leaves, put everything away and moved the cars into the garage. We also have about an eight of a cord of firewood on our porch as well as a half a cord still outside. Unfortunately, the grocery stores all ran out of staple food items before we got there. I hope it won't even matter.

Note: America at its finest- 2 of the Dunkin Donuts in my town ran out of donuts before noon.

And to the rest of the country who laughs at us for a category 1, NJ is less prepared for high winds and has a lot of trees ready to fall all over the place. 2 inches of premature snow last year caused more damage than we knew what to do with because the weight of the snow on the unfallen leaves took down a lot of trees.
Heil Toddman, the Wonderful Wizard of Odd
I'm a nerd with a dangerous side.

See my most recent TRUE story, "SPL Initiation", here.

Read my most recent FICTIONAL story, "The Birth of a Whovian", here

Re: Hurricane Sandy

Postby EmperorDave » Sat Oct 27, 2012 7:46 pm

I am from Newark, New Jersey and I was talking to my dad abut it earlier today and he said "Don't worry about it we just gonna chill the f out." I am worried but not so much, whatever happen happens and I am okay with it, I am still gonna try to go to college on Monday and I am still gonna sleep at night with no prob.

Re: Hurricane Sandy

Postby drawscore » Sat Oct 27, 2012 8:38 pm

My uncle told me about a rather unpleasant lady named Donna, which was such an "impressive" hurricane, the name was retired. Old timers in the northeast might remember this 52 year old storm.

Drawscore

Re: Hurricane Sandy

Postby zanev » Sat Oct 27, 2012 8:39 pm

Bikini Bottom is ready
I close my eyes, Inis Mona
And reminisce of those palmy days
I moon o'er you, Inis Mona
As long as I breathe
I'll call you my home

Re: Hurricane Sandy

Postby The Black Falcon » Sat Oct 27, 2012 9:46 pm

Here in Miami we were well alerted about the hurricane, but when it did arrive it must have either just been developing or barely missed us. We barely got a drizzle.
College student by day. Crime-fighting vigilante by night.

Re: Hurricane Sandy

Postby truly_trussed » Sun Oct 28, 2012 3:45 am

TUfriend wrote:
Note: America at its finest- 2 of the Dunkin Donuts in my town ran out of donuts before noon


New Jersey has a Dunkin Donuts every 300 yards. Canada has a Tim Hortons every 300 meters. (They're on the metric system)
Be safe!

Re: Hurricane Sandy

Postby Jay Feely » Sun Oct 28, 2012 8:52 pm

My prayers go out to people on the East Coast.
You will have to subdue me to restrain me. I been a bad boy so make sure you torture me too with anything but pain.

Re: Hurricane Sandy

Postby SelenaGfan » Mon Oct 29, 2012 12:01 pm

Sandy is an annoying bitch and sound cranky outsied my Bronx window.As long as I don't lose electricity I am OK.

Re: Hurricane Sandy

Postby TUfriend » Mon Oct 29, 2012 12:46 pm

There's a tree on my street that is usually at about 40 degrees to the ground over some powerlines. Somehow it remains standing after Irene and snowtober, it it isn't budging in all this wind, but all the other trees are moving all over the place.
Heil Toddman, the Wonderful Wizard of Odd
I'm a nerd with a dangerous side.

See my most recent TRUE story, "SPL Initiation", here.

Read my most recent FICTIONAL story, "The Birth of a Whovian", here

Re: Hurricane Sandy

Postby Jack Roper » Mon Oct 29, 2012 5:11 pm

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/2 ... 36198.html


FEMA may well be eliminated if Mitt Romney is elected.

Re: Hurricane Sandy

Postby drawscore » Tue Oct 30, 2012 5:16 am

C'mon, Jack. Save the political crap and electioneering for the "Jump in the Fire" section.

Drawscore

Re: Hurricane Sandy

Postby Jack Roper » Tue Oct 30, 2012 11:30 am

FEMA is a crucial part of the Federal Government's ability to save people in such disasters as Sandy. Both Ryan, in his notorious budget that Romney extolls, and Romney in his past statements and vetos as Governor of Massachusetts, has indicated he would effectively push FEMA's responsibilities to the states, or even private enterprise. Guess that's why he seems to think by collecting relief supplies in Ohio that such action is anywhere near sufficient and efficient to meet the challenge of such a devasting storm.

Here is more on our next President's beliefs and views:

Why Romney Came Out Against FEMA
Alec MacGillis--The New Republic

October 29, 2012 | 12:32 pm

Watching one of the many Republican presidential debates, a CNN one in June 2011, I started at one exchange, and was surprised that it did not draw more comment afterward. CNN's John King asked Mitt Romney whether, in the aftermath of the recent Joplin, Mo. disaster and a budget crunch at FEMA, the agency should be shut down, leaving disaster relief to the states.

“Absolutely,” Romney said. “Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that’s the right direction. And if you can go even further, and send it back to the private sector, that’s even better. Instead of thinking, in the federal budget, what we should cut, we should ask the opposite question, what should we keep?”

King followed up: “Including disaster relief, though?”

“We cannot—we cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids,” Romney replied. “It is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids, knowing full well that we’ll all be dead and gone before it’s paid off. It makes no sense at all.”

Well, with Sandy now lashing the Eastern Seaboard, that exchange is getting some belated attention. Did Romney really suggest shuttering FEMA and leaving disaster relief to the states, or even the private sector? David Frum argues Romney said nothing of the sort, that he was simply evading King's question. I don't buy it. Romney answered “absolutely” when asked the first time if he was for sending it back to the states, and when given a chance to back away from that, declined to take it.

Now, of course, his campaign has, as part of the Etch-a-Sketch, tiptoed away from that position: in a recent e-mail to National Journal, a campaign spokeswoman wrote: “Gov. Romney believes that states should be in charge of emergency management in responding to storms and other natural disasters in their jurisdictions. As the first responders, states are in the best position to aid affected individuals and communities, and to direct resources and assistance to where they are needed most. This includes help from the federal government and FEMA.”

But what are we to make of Romney’s debate answer, not so very long ago at all? Kevin Drum makes the good point that it came in the context of the gathering debate over the budget and debt ceiling:

This was the background for King’s question. Republican orthodoxy that demanded spending cuts in return for raising the debt ceiling had infested everything, even emergency spending. Sure, Joplin might be suffering, but by God, America was out of money and there was nothing left for them. Romney, who was still in his severely conservative phase back then, went right along because he didn't dare cross Eric Cantor. Whether he really believed what he was saying or not, this is the real problem here. As president, he probably wouldn't dare cross Cantor either.

This is undoubtedly right. But I would wager that there was something else behind Romney’s answer: his embrace of glib federalism, specifically as a solution to his great Obamacare conundrum. Remember, just a few weeks prior to that debate, Romney had given a big speech in Ann Arbor, Michigan that was intended to resolve what at the time seemed like his greatest obstacle to the Republican nomination, his having signed the Massachusetts universal health care law that was the model for the Affordable Care Act. In that speech, Romney made clear that he would wrangle his way around this not by disowning the Massachusetts law, but by simply declaring that it should be up to states, not the federal government, to decide how to cover their uninsured: “Our plan was a state solution to a state problem. And [President Obama’s] is a power grab by the federal government to put in place a one size fits all plan across the nation.”

As my colleague Jonathan Cohn and others noted at the time, there were all sorts of problems with this distinction, including the fact that Massachusetts would not have been able to carry out its universal program without considerable help from the federal government. But the biggest flaw with the “let the states address the problem” approach is, quite simply, that many states don’t really see their uninsured as a problem. The political leadership in much of the country, especially but not only in the South, has again and again opted against expanding health coverage, notably by refusing to raise income eligibility thresholds for Medicaid coverage (in Texas, Virginia and many other states, an adult earning as little as $10,000 per year is considered too well-off to qualify.) This, as Jonathan wrote in a major piece last month, is a big reason why we do social legislation such as Medicare and Social Security and the Affordable Care Act on a nationwide basis: to assure a basic level of security even for people in states where there would otherwise be very little effort made to fill the gap.

Romney of course knows this—it’s why he was, at various points before health care became a toxic issue, suggesting the law he signed as a model for a nationwide solution. And he surely knows why we have a national FEMA, and why leaving disaster relief to the states would mean a patchwork quilt that might be fine for wealthy, well-governed states such as Massachusetts but deeply inadequate in poor, disaster-prone states such as Louisiana or Mississippi (not to mention that all states are fundamentally ill-suited for disaster relief because they, unlike the feds, must balance their budgets every year and so cannot borrow big-time to pay for a disastrous patch.) But to make himself fit for the Republican Party in 2012, Romney figured he’d cast his Massachusetts moderation in the guise of federalism. And, let’s face it, it’s brought him very far.

Comments:
Romney talks out of 6 sides of his mouth. Maybe he should have oral surgery...to cut the crap!

"Romney, who was still in his severely conservative phase back then, went right along because he didn't dare cross Eric Cantor. " I live in Cantor's District. We're getting pummeled with wind and rain. Let's see how much Federal aid Eric Cantor turns down one week before an election, preferring instead to rely on the Spotsylvania Volunteer Fire Department. These Republicans always talk the anti-Federal talk, but when it comes to Federal aid, always first at the trough and posing with the outsized Publisher's Clearing House checks. "Lookie what I brung you! "
"It is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids"

How someone could say that and advocate a 20% top rate cut, the repeal of the estate tax and up to $200,000.00 of tax free dividends, LT cap gain and interest income? I think I figured it out. Romney has two heads and he keeps one hidden in public at all times. It's nauseating when he eats but nobody mentions it.

So Mitt says that devolving responsibility back to the states from the federal government is always a good thing? Maybe so. As Jonothan Cohn recently wrote ("Blue States Are From Scandinavia, Red States From Guatamala"): "Since red states have more poor people, and since their state governments spend less money on the safety net, they receive a larger share of federal funds. Among states that voted Republican in the last three elections, all but one gets more money back from the federal government than it pays in taxes. For most Democratic states, it’s the opposite. Looked at this way, the red states are the moochers and the blue states are the makers." Maybe Mitt's right. Let the red stat ... view full comment

I doubt any thinking Republican ( if there is such a species) in the North East would want to live in a Republican State like Texas or Indiana. Why is that. If the love smaller government, self reliant individuals those places should be like heaven to them.





10/29/2012 - 4:17pm EDT | Sophia


Better yet - Somalia! Total freedom! You too could be a warlord! Plus, no hurricanes!





10/29/2012 - 6:58pm EDT | arnon1


Somalia? Bush turned New Orleans into a kind of Somalia when the Hurricane struck there during his Presidency and he refused to send federal aid.

Every Republican State is a kind of Somalia waiting to happen.

Re: Hurricane Sandy

Postby Kyle » Tue Oct 30, 2012 2:50 pm

Jack Roper wrote:



10/29/2012 - 4:17pm EDT | Sophia


Better yet - Somalia! Total freedom! You too could be a warlord! Plus, no hurricanes!





10/29/2012 - 6:58pm EDT | arnon1


Somalia? Bush turned New Orleans into a kind of Somalia when the Hurricane struck there during his Presidency and he refused to send federal aid.

Every Republican State is a kind of Somalia waiting to happen.


Then why do you think Mississippi, a state led by a Republican governor and arguably the most conservative in the nation, which pretty much had its entire Gulf Coast leveled by Katrina and fairly significant damage quite a ways inland, managed to avoid having the same issues Louisiana (or at least, New Orleans) had, despite being more or less forgotten by the rest of the country pretty quickly once news started coming out about New Orleans?

Re: Hurricane Sandy

Postby Jack Roper » Tue Oct 30, 2012 6:00 pm

That last comment was not mine but someone responding to the New Republic article. I have no idea if there was a reason for any disparity between the two areas, or how devasting Katrina was to a city--New Orleans--which I believe is below sea level, and coastal Mississippi. I drove through there years ago and it did not appear tro be very heavily populated in those days.

Below is from Mississippi Recovery.com:

An Ongoing Tragedy

Hurricane Katrina affected over 1 million people in Mississippi, a huge amount in a state with just under 3 million residents. Over $4 billion in federal aid has been poured into the recovery effort there to fund temporary housing programs, other housing assistance, debris removal, public utility repair, road repair, emergency services repair, and more. At the height of the temporary housing program, over 40,000 people were living in FEMA trailers or mobile homes, while hundreds of thousands of other citizens received funding for housing assistance. The housing program was finally discontinued in 2009, four years after the disaster. Following Katrina, the coastal counties lost 30-40 percent of their service sector employees, with employment levels only rising to pre-Katrina levels two years later, in 2007. Mental illnesses such as depression, post traumatic stress disorder, and anxiety continue long into the aftermath of the hurricane.

Re: Hurricane Sandy

Postby Kyle » Tue Oct 30, 2012 6:26 pm

Sorry, the way it was written it looked like you added that last comment after the sentence before because they were separated. I didn't realize they were the same comment.

You know if you read very many of my comments on here I'm politically independent and have no particular love for George Bush and think he screwed up a lot of things in his time in office, especially in his second term, but I've never understood why all the blame gets put on him for Katrina in New Orleans. The fact no one else had the same types of problems, even though devastation in some areas was as bad or worse as New Orleans, means something had to be screwed up on the local and/or state level. Granted, the levees being breached was rather unique to New Orleans, as they would have likely escaped major damage otherwise, but that was caused by years of neglect beforehand.

I have relatives who lost their house on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, so I know a little about the government's response there. The government did give quite a bit of aid and I exaggerated a bit when I said they were forgotten, although not as much as I would like to say.

In the end though, I have no idea what this has to do with Sandy, and for once I have to agree with Drawscore it doesn't belong here. But I can't say much now because I kind of contributed to that discussion, but my curiosity got the better of me and I had to ask.

Re: Hurricane Sandy

Postby Jack Roper » Wed Oct 31, 2012 12:23 pm

That's ok Kyle. The reason Drawscore objected to my inclusion with the Sandy disaster is that I related this to FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) to Mitt Romney's past positions critical of that agency. He felt that would belong under Presidential Election topic. I can't see how you can separate, however, the issue of FEMA and what it is likely to look like under a President Romney, especially since he made such disparaging remarks during the primary. And, his running mate's budget, the infamous Ryan Plan, which the House Republicans all backed, as well as Romney, includes obvious drastic cuts to FEMA.

Not all things are political but politics does affect people's lives. This disaster proves the need for such an agency as FEMA, which fell down dreadfully under President Bush during Katrina and during his father's Presidency during Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

Re: Hurricane Sandy

Postby Kyle » Wed Oct 31, 2012 1:39 pm

FEMA and Romney is a legitimate discussion, and just as an aside I actually agree it would be a mistake to get rid of it, although if that's entirely what you're relying on to get you through a disaster you're in trouble before the disaster even hits. But I just don't see what it has to do with Hurricane Sandy. I know Drawscore most likely objected because you disagreed with him.

Re: Hurricane Sandy

Postby Jack Roper » Wed Oct 31, 2012 4:29 pm

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/30/us/hu ... -fema.html

FEMA provides the Federal disaster relief that the state and local goverment's can't or won't provide. Hopefully, it will all be well coordinated. Apparently, FEMA can provide eight billion dollars--no small change.

Yes, Drawscore is my nemesis.

Re: Hurricane Sandy

Postby drawscore » Wed Oct 31, 2012 8:30 pm

Jack, you give me too much credit. :-)

Drawscore

Re: Hurricane Sandy

Postby TUfriend » Sat Nov 03, 2012 7:55 pm

I just got power back. No damage to my house. Thank God. Summers will never be the same though.
Heil Toddman, the Wonderful Wizard of Odd
I'm a nerd with a dangerous side.

See my most recent TRUE story, "SPL Initiation", here.

Read my most recent FICTIONAL story, "The Birth of a Whovian", here