I live in the upstate of SC...not far from the devastation in western NC and eastern TN. Here's my take.
People outside of the area don't realize the magnitude of the damage. Also, everyone wanted to help.
The counties are rural, mountain areas. The damage wiped out lots of 2 lane roads and hundreds of bridges...yes, hundreds of bridges. Sure you can come in and cut up fallen trees in order to allow first responders to get into damaged areas, but what are you going to do when the 2 lane road you opened up as a one lane road encounters a bridge that has been wiped out...duh...everything stops. You can't rebuild a bridge in a few hours. I believe several things...1. FEMA, the state and private humanitarian groups need to be more proactive and coordinated in putting out to the general population what private citizens can and should do to help. Hey...there should be a plan. In this case there was no plan. 2.
The various groups (FEMA, the State and the private groups) need to tell people what they are doing.
Within 12 hours FEMA should have been able to publish what it is doing. Not 'word salads'...like real things...like 'we contracted with the following private companies in advance of the storm to do the following and they are now on site, etc' . Same for the state. Broadcast where the various centers for donations are located...like just outside the devastation so that private people would not hinder relief efforts. Theses took too long to happen. FEMA's public posts stated that they had 1,000 people available out of 20,000 on their payroll, but they were not specific regarding what they were doing. 'Assisting relief efforts' is a word salad. Now we're going to have to go thru this again with Milton.
However, I think the folks in Florida are better organized and they had more time to prepare.
just my 2 cents. Elon's response is just another example of the inability of FEMA to prepare and respond to storms.
I live in the upstate of SC...not far from the devastation in western NC and eastern TN. Here's my take.
People outside of the area don't realize the magnitude of the damage. Also, everyone wanted to help.
The counties are rural, mountain areas. The damage wiped out lots of 2 lane roads and hundreds of bridges...yes, hundreds of bridges. Sure you can come in and cut up fallen trees in order to allow first responders to get into damaged areas, but what are you going to do when the 2 lane road you opened up as a one lane road encounters a bridge that has been wiped out...duh...everything stops. You can't rebuild a bridge in a few hours. I believe several things...1. FEMA, the state and private humanitarian groups need to be more proactive and coordinated in putting out to the general population what private citizens can and should do to help. Hey...there should be a plan. In this case there was no plan. 2.
The various groups (FEMA, the State and the private groups) need to tell people what they are doing.
Within 12 hours FEMA should have been able to publish what it is doing. Not 'word salads'...like real things...like 'we contracted with the following private companies in advance of the storm to do the following and they are now on site, etc' . Same for the state. Broadcast where the various centers for donations are located...like just outside the devastation so that private people would not hinder relief efforts. Theses took too long to happen. FEMA's public posts stated that they had 1,000 people available out of 20,000 on their payroll, but they were not specific regarding what they were doing. 'Assisting relief efforts' is a word salad. Now we're going to have to go thru this again with Milton.
However, I think the folks in Florida are better organized and they had more time to prepare.
just my 2 cents. Elon's response is just another example of the inability of FEMA to prepare and respond to storms.