Yeah, Right, Whatever

A fellow blogger sent me an e-mail that contained an interesting "letter". Well, here it is:

North Dakota News Bulletin

This text is from a county emergency manager out in the western part of North Dakota state after the storm.

Amusing, if it were not so true...

WEATHER BULLETIN

Up here in the Northern Plains we just recovered from a Historic event — may I even say a "Weather Event" of "Biblical Proportions" with a historic blizzard of up to 24" inches of snow and winds to 50 MPH that broke trees in half, stranded hundreds of motorists in lethal snow banks, closed all roads, isolated scores of communities and cut power to 10's of thousands.

FYI:

George Bush did not come....
FEMA staged nothing....
No one howled for the government...
No one even uttered an expletive on TV...
Nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards.....
No one asked for a FEMA Trailer House....
No one looted....
Phil Cantori of the Weather Channel did not come....
And Geraldo Rivera did not move in.

Nope, we just melted snow for water, sent out caravans to pluck people out of snow engulfed cars, fired up wood stoves, broke out coal oil lanterns or Aladdin lamps, and put on an extra layer of clothes because up here it is 'work or die'. We did not wait for some affirmative action government to get us out of a mess created by being immobilized by a welfare program that trades votes for 'sittin at home' checks.

Even though a Category "5" blizzard of this scale has never fallen this early...we know it can happen and how to deal with it ourselves.

"In my many travels, I have noticed that once one gets north of about 48 degrees North Latitude, 90% of the worlds social problems evaporate."

Like I said... not quite true. What is true is:

• There was a major snow storm in North Dakota that received little or no press.
  
• Celebrities (Hollywood and political) never showed up.
• The local and state police, along with the National Guard, were able to take care of the situation.
  
• They did ask for major disaster status.
  
• North Dakota is trying to recoup some of its expenses from FEMA.
  

The rest of the "e-mail" was pretty accurate. Sure, the disasters, as Snopes points out, were very different. But each area had prior warning. They knew what was coming. And they responded differently. I'm not saying that the people in Louisiana sat on their duffs, waiting to be saved by Uncle Sam, because of welfare or anything like that. That's not the point.

Maybe, since it snows every year in North Dakota, they knew how to handle it. Maybe they were just plain better prepared for the emergency. Maybe the people in New Orleans became complacent after the Big One missed them so many times. Maybe they just weren't paying attention.

I don't know... just made me think...