I've been obsessively reading CNN.com and the Houston Chronicle's website for more information on what's going on in Houston. Given what I've read and the updates I've gotten from friends who are there, I'm seriously considering getting a wheeled duffel bag and buying some groceries here in NYC to take back home with me on Friday. People are standing for hours in line just for ice, water, and MREs. I know I have power again because the answering machine is working, but I don't know if the windows made it.
In any event, I've run across this particular line a few times in articles on CNN.com, and it confuses me: "Among [those who didn't evacuate Galveston] were Paul and Kathi Norton, who overslept as Ike closed in on their home."
HUH? OVERSLEPT? From what I saw on the Weather Channel, it seemed like people could have safely gotten out on Friday afternoon. So did Paul and Kathi Norton sleep until the evening? Maybe they took a nap that went on too long, but that doesn't make sense to me, either. Even if you assume that they were up all night boarding up the house and loading the car, doesn't it seem like with a hurricane coming, you just get in your car and evacuate BEFORE you take a nap? And even if you assume they were so tired, they just had to take a nap -- there's a HURRICANE coming, and it was ENORMOUS. How do you relax enough to fall asleep???
And here's some proof that I don't have a lot of the milk of human kindness running through my veins: after getting the mandatory evacuation notice, THOUSANDS of people stayed in Galveston. Now there is no running water, no clean drinking water, and no power. I'm reading quotes in articles from folks in Galveston that they're not being rescued quickly enough. When the National Weather Service says that you are risking "certain death" by riding out the storm, and when officials ask you, who have refused to evacuate, to write your social security number with permanent marker on your arm to aid with identification after the storm, I really, really, really don't think you now have room to complain that people aren't coming to save you fast enough. It's not like the National Guard and the fire department and the police department and all the other departments working on this are sitting around taking a bunch of coffee breaks, and you were told on numerous occasions by many people in authority with good information to get the hell out of town. I just don't have that much sympathy.
I understand that I'm really lucky that I have a job that allows me to be out of town nearly at will and that I have the means to fund staying away from home. I know that not everybody had the resources that I have. And I don't think that these folks have gotten what they deserve -- nobody deserves the devastation I'm seeing in photographs that they're experiencing live. I just wish people used the sense that God gave them. Especially in a city like Galveston, where there's historical evidence of the carnage that a huge hurricane can wreak everywhere you look.
1 comment:
I'm right there with you on the lack of the milk of human kindness. I would be one of the loudest complainers had I been in Houston and had to stand in line for necessitities and live without air-conditioning, and that would be okay because most of Houston was advised to stay put. But complaining from Galveston, when you were told unequivocally to GET OUT!?? No. And I can't help but think getting the island back on track would be going a lot faster if they didn't have to waste people on searchers and a phone bank to answer to the relatives of the crazies who stayed.
Yup, going to hell....
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