FEMA Didn’t Answer Thousands of Calls From Flood Survivors

>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.

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.

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.

And they are going to vote for them again. Next November is a million years from now. Though for that matter this will be forgotten by the November.

Putting this out in the world doesn’t help.

There is only one thing that might help: making it clear that this is going to keep happening. There are a lot of people who could help, but haven't in the past. If a small fraction of them realize that this is a problem that they can help fix with very little effort, then maybe it might get better.

Having said that, here's the really unhelpful part: I don't think this will work, either. I believe that the overwhelming majority of people vote the same every time, including choosing not to vote. The only thing that changes is a microscopic minority, and they choose randomly. I believe that if we re-ran the 2024 election again right now, the result would be identical.

I point that out only to say the my original comment is me being optimistic. I actually think it's even worse.

Yeah see you’re just putting negativity into the world.

I come here for intellectual curiosity. I want to hear new ideas. You’re not saying anything new. You’re leaving the social media equivalent of dog turds on the sidewalk. Please be a better neighbor.