What about emergencies?
Aug 20th, 2008 by David Anderson
IT WILL BE THREE YEARS SINCE KATRINA, and Kent county still isn’t ready for an emergency. It has been two years since the Dow/Rico accident and we are still not ready. They couldn’t even handle the recent minor flooding in Kitts Hummock and Bower’s Beach. What if we had a chemical spill with toxic chemicals? What if we had a major storm and had wide spread flooding?
Tell me there is not a critical failure of leadership. The sad part is I doubt Kent county is alone. Check out your county.
Each person needs to take responsibility for themselves and their families, but we still need government to keep us informed and help us when we need it. It is crazy for there to have been a chemical spill and the local hospital not be informed why people are coming in when the government is on site. It was beyond belief that people were going to shelters and Red Cross not be notified that the shelter was open let alone to stock it. It is absurd that there are no sirens to go off during an emergency because they are loud. It is sad that a recent storm came and people were stuck in their homes because the roads were flooded and the government didn’t even invest in marking the roads so emergency vehicles could find them. Every year we still have failures. It is like we heard the wake up call and hit the snooze.
We need at least one person to bring up these issues for the sake of your families. We need real change.
Funny thing about emergency prepardness by the government takes money which they raise by taxing citizens. Am I the only one that sees the irony of this post?
I don’t see any irony at all.
While I am in favor of a very limited government, I think that disaster preparedness is a valid government function. All individuals should make their own preparations, but there should be emergency plans on the local level as well.
Actually, nemski, I think you might find even most Republicans OK with this as a part of tax allocation. FEMA/DEMA/(insert state here)EMA are expected functions of government, which need tax-based funding. Problem is, they need to be operated much, much better than they are.
On a side note, our church’s teen group went down to Biloxi and the surrounding area for yet-continuing rebuilding help. They took videos and pictures while they were there. You’d think it still happened yesterday. My God, it is horrible to this day. No amount of preparedness could have prevented that. It’s the aftermath that has become completely deplorable.
I share your concern about emergencies, David. Evacuation is a case in point. In Sussex County, our population has substantially increased in the last ten years, our main highways are heavily traveled most of the time, especially in season, yet the evacuation routes and capacities seem to be about the same. Will we be making the exit routes one way both sides in an evacuation emergency, like Routes 1,16,9,24,26, 54 and 113? If anyone out there knows, I would be interested to know.
That’s only one aspect of the overall planning and coordination necessary for orderly evacuation and emergency response if we ever get hit with a big one. One would think that if we were prepared, that our County and Municipal officials would inform the people on a regular basis, through the media and through mailings to our homes. I’m not seeing this happening.
Most states have an emergency asset with the amateur radio community. Delaware seems to be behind the curve in terms of active participants compared to Maryland and Virginia.
On 9/11, volunteers provided a lot of communications support after the cellular phone system was overloaded and a lot of government facilities were destroyed.
This is an area where a bit of Government outreach could create a viable capability with minimal cost to the taxpayers. Perhaps the lack of potential for pork and patronage makes it unattractive to your typical politicians.