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FEMA Didn’t Answer Thousands of Calls From Flood Survivors

(www.nytimes.com)
160 points standardUser | 1 comments | 12 Jul 25 02:57 UTC | HN request time: 0.209s | source
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duxup ◴[12 Jul 25 02:59 UTC] No.44538932[source]▶
>Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, who has instituted a new requirement that she personally approve expenses over $100,000, did not renew the contracts until Thursday, five days after the contracts expired.

Your classic manager who feels they are so important that hey HAVE TO be involved in X,Y,Z but they are not a responsible enough person to actually do the job.

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bb88 ◴[12 Jul 25 03:34 UTC] No.44539065[source]▶
FEMA has "Emergency" in the name. Traditionally, it's supposed to come in when the normal rescue infrastructure has failed, due to earthquake, weather, etc. You're not optimizing for cost here. You're optimizing for reliable emergency management -- and that's going to cost money.

If you wanted a different agency, like one that prioritized "recovery after 6 months", well, it would help to inform the nation that FEMA is no longer the nationwide emergency management agency. It's up to the local and state governments.

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scarface_74 ◴[12 Jul 25 03:57 UTC] No.44539166[source]▶
And Texas voters overwhelmingly voted for politicians who caused this and still make excuses for these same politicians. I am tired of caring for people who vote for people that harm them.
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taormina ◴[12 Jul 25 05:25 UTC] No.44539543[source]▶
Not every person in the state voted for this. The dead children didn’t vote for anyone. Have an ounce of compassion or empathy.
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1. thephyber ◴[12 Jul 25 08:33 UTC] No.44540338[source]▶
The town that was flooded rejected _free funds_ from the federal government during Covid because they were choking on a red pill of conspiranoia. Destiny (the streamer) did a recent streaming session where he watched the video of the town feedback regarding accepting / rejecting federal government funds from the American Recovery Act (for sirens and standardized first responder comms systems). The short version of the plot is the people were propagandized to distrust the Biden Admin, so they rejected the free upgrades. The voters pressured the town council (one was an actual threat of violence, followed by threats of “consequences”) if the town council accepted the federal funds.

There are consequences to voters and representatives who no longer believe in our shared objective reality.

I don’t blame the little girls, but with freedom comes responsibility. Their parents were responsible for choosing the camp they went to. The camp owner and staff made the risk evaluations of allowing them to sleep in a flood plain during a storm. The local town voted for their representatives and those representatives rejected federal funds which would have given them a chance to survive without cell coverage.

Ultimately your parent comment wasn’t necessarily assigning individual blame. In a democratic republic, the voters / citizens / residents (in aggregate) are ultimately responsible for the actions that elected representatives take in their name.