Social Question

jazmina88's avatar

How many superpowers does government need when combating natural disaster?

Asked by jazmina88 (11652points) November 4th, 2012
4 responses
“Great Question” (2points)

The hurricane Sandy. My sister from NJ is saying how bad it is there. But she has been in KY. Power out a week later. I know it is a horrible disaster, but why blame government? Are they not lucky the nuclear plants withstood the storm? After Katrina, people could not enter the city for 3 to 6 weeks. Tornados with entire towns wiped out. Joplin, MO. Cant be fixed in a week.
How can we blame government for natural disaster? I think the relief has been good and quick, for the amount of lives the storm has affected.

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Answers

Adirondackwannabe's avatar

This was a huge disaster. When you’re cold and tired, you want to blame someone. I think the response has been excellent. But you can only fix things one step at a time. There is no magic wand.

Coloma's avatar

It’s human nature to want to always find a place to stick the blame. Human yes, mature, hardly.
Who did our ancestors blame way back when? I am guessing “God.”

Seeing as how government has become a godlike entity, well..there ya go.
Personally I don’t see how anyone can rationalize blaming a natural disaster on anything else except nature, and nature is always blameless.
When you’re talking millions of people, ANY and ALL help received should be looked upon as a fucking blessing IMO!

rojo's avatar

@Coloma “Personally I don’t see how anyone can rationalize blaming a natural disaster on anything else except nature…..”. Wanna get into the whole climate change/denial thing?

Nah, me neither.

wundayatta's avatar

Blaming government is the same as blaming ourselves. The government is us. Our elected representatives.

So if we blame government, we blame ourselves for the natural disaster. Depending on what you think of global warming, there is a possibility that we did make the disaster worse. Also, our building policies made the disaster worse. We are the ones who chose to build homes on vulnerable ocean shores. We are the ones who chose to tear down sand dunes so we could have a nice view.

And we, of course, did the planning we did, or didn’t do, for disaster.

If you point the figure at government, better be sure you are looking in the mirror when you do so if you want to get the culprit. My feeling is that if you are going to live in harms way, you should prepare to deal with the harm. And if you don’t, you have no right to complain.

I’m sympathetic, but I don’t think you have a right to demand help now. There are a lot of people in line. You want help now, you get up early enough to be first in line. If you want to wait at home for someone to come help you, then do so, but don’t hold your breath. It could be weeks.

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