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This Thanksgiving, many of my thoughts have been with the Appalachian people who have been hard hit by Hurricane Helene and its aftermaths.
People in the mountainous regions of western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee are now braving the heavy rains and high winds of Mother Nature. Due to lack of housing, many people are living in tents. Imagine trying to survive in a tent when it is around 40 degrees out, raining and very windy.
The big story on my "X" feed right now is the report that volunteers who have been faithfully showing up despite the early winter weather are accomplishing awesome tasks to help their fellow citizens. One of the completed tasks was the building of a road in hard-hit western North Carolina.
The woman who wrote about it on "X" tells it best, so here's her report:
Lisa @Lisahudsonchow7
"A road was carved out in WNC by the West Virginia Coal Miners so the VOLUNTEERS could get supplies up to the people in Chimney Rock and beyond. FEMA came in and put up a big metal gate and told the volunteers they could no longer use that road.
"Someone tore down the gate so now FEMA is getting a contract for $280,000 to put another gate, cameras, and guards to make sure no one “trespasses.” $280,000 that could be used on the victims of this storm… Now tell me why they would to this?
"'I remember Governor Cooper saying in an interview that the people in Chimney Rock shouldn’t rebuild. They just needed to sell their land. Who is he to tell them they shouldn’t rebuild? It’s their land. BUT THEN … there's the small matter of the lithium. The people who own the land are in the way…The entire situation reeks of dishonesty.'"
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When I read that post, I immediately thought: "FEMA no longer stands for 'Federal Emergency Management Authority' but 'Fubar Emergency MisManagement [redacted word that starts with an A].'"
Remember that the UN and the World Economic Forum are rather hot on the idea that rural areas in the USA should not be inhabited by normal people of average incomes. Rather the land should be owned by mega corporations like Black Rock, and by power players in the burgeoning "green movement." Both these groups seek ownership of some of the properties in these regions for lithium, rare types of granite and other materials necessary to allow for our EVs and cell phones. Both NGOs are also gifted with surplus funding to help out politicians and heads of agencies behave in ways that minimize help to victims while maximizing the abilities of politicians who will help the corporate world by setting up land grabs.
Gov. Roy Cooper has acted in a reprehensible manner. He has continually sided with "the official methods" of handling what he seems to consider a minor emergency. The traditional media purports to have the public believe that as of Oct. 18th, 2024, the fatality count stood at 95 people, with some 200 people missing.
The plight of the survivors has been minimized as well. One example is how authorities have been quick to point out that those who are missing may not be dead but might have gone off to stay with relatives in other places. The locations mentioned include cities along the Eastern seaboard and in Ohio.
What authorities have not yet been able to explain is how victims of Hurricane Helene would get to such places. Up in the mountains, entire highway systems have been washed out. Bridges are gone. Additionally, authorities have not been able to explain why a missing storm victim who did make their way to another region would not make that fact known to worried family and friends who remain behind. Since social media and cell phones are now somewhat back in service, it seems that unless these Southern storm victims are devoid of Southern hospitality, the missing are, for the most part, really truly missing.
Volunteers who talked to Lewis Herms as he made his film "Hurricane Hell" discussed their thoughts on how many people have really been killed since the storm hit on Sept 26th-27th. These volunteers believe that some 10,000 people have died.
How did these people arrive at this number? Very early on, there were cadaver dogs with their handlers who worked through many hard hit areas. The dogs were said to have marked 200 spots at each community. So assuming that there were 25 decently sized communities, with another 50 some clusters of homes and businesses, the math adds up to be 10,000 people. This body count takes in fatalities suffered across North Carolina and Tennessee.
But official dumb works differently. Authorities are only counting people whose bodies allow for identification. The cadaver dogs were marking at places where the body might be under 40 to 80 feet of debris. With the vast numbers of bodies being marked, and the lack of workers and equipment to go and sort through the debris piles, it can be assumed that many of these people will not ever be located. Or that if they are, it won’t happen quickly enough where fingerprints, etc. could possibly serve as identifying markings. Should a corpse show up with missing arms and hands, dental records would normally be one method of knowing who the individual is. Only in this hard hit region, dental offices themselves have been washed away. So what then?
For whatever reason, authorities do not take into account that as the flood waters ravaged entire communities, people's bodies were in a churning mix where semi-trailers, refrigerators, cars, propane tanks and huge pieces of homes and other buildings smashed into and obliterated the bodies. There will be many body parts that represent only small portions of the former body.
Hopefully President-elect Trump will have his say on a major televised interview and shame the lame-duck Biden administration into offering real help to the victims and the families of the deceased. The people obstructing real aid to the victims should also be shamed, with FEMA officials and Gov. Roy Cooper being at the top of the list.
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Discussion (20)
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FEMA needs to be delegated to a subordinate role in natural disasters. Their primary goals should be to hand out money when needed, and to do what local emergency management authorities asks them to do (and tells them not to) . . .
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The Amish sent a slew of people to the Helene-afflicted areas. There the Amish built at least 100 tiny houses, so that the homeless could quit living in tents and have a way to be in tiny but decent shelters during the winter weather.
Those victims who were living in tents must have felt ecstatic to know they could safely use a wood burning stove and set up beds, tables, mattresses and lighting. Sure the homes were very small, but a house is a house and usually always better than a small tent.
Then guess what? The people moving into the homes were made to leave by the usual authorities such as FEMA and state officials, as well as county zoning officials. The excuse being offered as people were evicted is that these structures might not be adequately built and also no building permits had been issued.
Why the Tiny Homes That The Amish Built For Helene Victims Are Not Being Used:
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FEMA is doing what it has alway done as far as I have known it. I lost my house to flood in 1997. I discovered then that FEMA is not about helping people. It is about taking people's property and pumping money into the Democrat class of government / people. It is a money pump and government regulation to remove from the poor.
I have lived next to a river all my life. Every flood, I see, work with people that believe that FEMA will help them. I always tell them that waiting on government to help them will no work. Move on as fast as you can. Involve them the least you can. It usually aggravates people when I tell them that. Those that wait for FEMA or government seldom get to keep their house. They either have to sell it or the government will buy it from them or new government regulation will keep them from coming back. Understand I am not saying the people there are evil or bad or mean. No they are just doing what they think is best for them based on government logic and not on the people's need. It is just that best is filling out forms and adding government regulations and making people jump through hoops while pumping money into FEMA connected companies.
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While I generally share your attitude toward big government and FEMA, I think 10,000 human casualties are unlikely to be ignored by them. I expect a cadaver dog would be unable to distinguish between human bodies and other mammals. They could be alerting on carcasses of cattle, cats, or many other things.
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In the ftermath of Katrina, thousands of Americans formed mini convoys to bring food, meds, and the very need drinking water into affected areas. FEMA had workers along those routes to prevent this from happening.
Of course FEMA "did help out" by going into more or less affluent areas that had escaped the rising flood waters in New Orleans area in order to confiscate the guns from citizens at a time when they needed them the most!
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