We had a huge windstorm that came through our area on 5 July 2005 with winds clocked at over 100 mph.  It blew down trees and disrupted electricity and other utilities all over our area of a 1/4 million people.  It lasted all night from 10pm on 4 July to 5am on 5 July.  Now, this is hardly a hurricane (and mercifully not a tornado).  However, the damaged caused by all the fallen trees was huge.  Our power was totally out for five full days.  Some people didn't get it back for nearly 10 days.  Commonwealth Edison brought in crews from as far away as Texas to help restore power.

 

Our neighbors got out chain saws and chopped-up the fallen trees and limbs (as much as possible) to allow vehicles through and so the stuff could be removed.  We helped each other deal with the mess as much as possible, especially for those who had physical disabilities.  Our neighbors pulled together while emergency and restoration efforts were going on.  You do what you can with what you have.  A couple of days after we'd gotten a lot of the side streets cleared we drove around our area to survey the damage and saw cars flattened by huge limbs or parts of fallen trees and crushed garages and partially damaged houses.  (Our power was still out for another three days.)  We considered outselves luck that such a storm had not happened during the winter when there'd have been the cold and snow to fight besides the other mess.

 

We were very lucky that the branches and limbs that bell from our trees and the neighbor's trees did little damage; hitting between buildings -- or in the neighbor's case, missed his garage and laid across his chain link fence. 

 

No, it wasn't a tornado or a hurricane or a flood (and we've had a belly full of floods this year), but we help our neighbors first.  Let the other disaster relief people do their jobs when they get there, but we do what we can to help our neighbors or help the relief efforts.  What we aren't doing is sitting about waiting for our idiot governor, Blagojevich, to declare us a disaster area or FEMA to show up.

 

 

 

 

we werent hit directly by katrina

 

we were in the northeast corner

 

vehicles damaged

 

trees down

 

it took us a year to clean up

 

and we didnt wait for anybody

 

we did it ourselves

This is about the dumbest thing I have ever heard in my life.

We in the Houston area took a direct hit from a Hurricane and people died, and as in Katrina people were flooded, and as in Katrina a complete section of our beach front community is now missing. This only happened to us for about a weak now. And as ya'll say Katrina was for over a year. How about over three years. We still have people in the Houston area living off FEMA and crying because they are not getting help.

I have no idea what you people are seeing that upsets you enough to talk about other peoples problems this way but I thought you might have some feelings about people and what they are going thru.

This is the kind of stuff I have talked about before. I am going to use the collective Ya'll, are quick to ask for prayers for all kind of things but when people really need help and understanding you dont seem to be able to relate or bring yourself to understand what other people are going thru.

You can talk all you want about a near hit or how you rode stuff through but until you take the direct hit you dont know what you are talking about.

Now as I have found, in the past, when I make a comment to a stupid post I start taking heat and people threaten to ban me. Well do it it is fine I really dont care. I have sat back and not said to much just to see what would happen. Now I know.

THIS IS THE LAST THING I HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THIS MATTER. I WILL NOT RESPOND AGAIN. SAY WHAT EVER IS ON YOUR MIND BUT JUST THINK BEFORE YOU DO ABOUT THE PAIN AND TROUBLES OTHERS ARE GOING THRU.

it helps if you walk the walk

 

donate to the red cross as i did

 

Based on my less than satisfactory experiences with the American Red Cross in the military, I make all my disaster relief donations to the Salvation Army.  The SA has the least overhead and gets the biggest bang for the buck with $0.90 of every $1.00 spent getting to the people who need it.  The same cannot be said of the ARC.

 

 

 

I too dislike the Red Cross with the exception of blood donations because of my experiences with them.  I still remember the GI who was flown home by them when one of his parents died so he could attend the funeral.  A few months after he returned to the combat zone he received a bill from the Red Cross for his transportation!  Grrrrrrrr!  They will NEVER receive $$ from me. 

im not pushing the arc

 

but just making it available

 

my sister got in financial trouble when i was in nam on first tour

 

and i wanted to send her $300

 

the arc told me they would send it

 

and that it was a no interest loan

 

and that i would have to pay it back

 

that worked for me

The Salvation Army is still the most efficient of the private aid givers. 

 

The ARC has been involved in too many scandals for me.  They took a huge PR hit about 10 years ago when the huge salary and benefit package the boss was drawing got made public.  He had to resign (with a golden parachute) and the compensation package was "realigned" -- disguised to be less embarassing from the PR vantage point.

 

When Katrina and Rita hit the Gulf Coast, the ARC mounted a relief blitz for the victims and said that donations could be directed to recipients specifically for that purpose.  Then they said, no -- only a part of the donations would filter down to the Katrina and Rita recipients -- the rest would go into the ARC general fund.  Then they received a firestorm of negative public opinion and potential lawsuits and changed their minds.  (Nothing like a pissed-off public and lawyers to get the ARC bigwigs mind's right.)

 

During the 1995 Midwest floods, the ARC did it again.  For those flooded out, before you could get any kind of aid from the ARC, you had to take out a lien against your property to get assistance.  In other words, they were giving you a loan and using your property as collateral, when you were at your worst financially to cope.  The practices of the ARC continue to leave a bad taste in my mouth, so that's why I'll always give to the Salvation Army.  They have an outstanding record and get the aid to the people in need.