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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   7986 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024

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I think the real complaint is not that the Federal response has been unusually slow, but that it is insufficient for the "Biblical" levels of destruction. Thousands of dead bodies, "4 Reefer Trucks" full in one county, everyone who is asking for donations asks for more body bags because they keep running out.

Where does this figure come from? The latest news reports I can find are still talking about a figure of 200something dead, which includes the area of initial landfall.

Really, I'm wondering where this perception of "biblical proportions" is coming from. Central Europe (approximately next door from me) had a flood around the same time which looked about equally bad to the NC pictures I'm seeing, where the death toll stood around 24. A factor of 10 difference just seems to be about what I'd expect given the lower level of preparation, inferior civic infrastructure and construction standards in the US (typical European houses would be much less likely to collapse), and the European flood is now being filed away as a fairly boring once-in-a-few-years event (outside of media that is still trying to make culture war hay of it).

"4 Reefer Trucks" in one county from here: https://tiktok.com/@glutenfreebreadwinner/video/7421950512544697642

No running water at a hospital:

Mission Hospital still has not regained running water. It’s expected to take weeks for access to water to be restored region-wide, due to widespread damage to the water system.

Healthcare workers typically use running water in abundance for tasks ranging from handwashing to sterilization. They’re getting creative in its absence.

The local population is understandably filthy:

The sewage system was so backed up after the storm, Drummond said, that it wasn’t possible to flush toilets.

“We were pooping in bags and buckets,” she said.

Access to clean water was also wiped out. Patients were showing up at the hospital drenched in floodwater saturated with gasoline, chemicals and other unknown toxins.

Those people would normally be placed in showers to clean off, Drummond said. Not so after Helene barreled through, knocking out the basics of hygiene.

“It’s been really difficult to do decontamination,” Drummond said. Her team, she said, was forced to fill trash cans with whatever clean water it could find to dump over patients in an effort to rinse them.

This is from the group of people who have made it to a hospital. How many thousands are still trapped without a road in these conditions? How many dehydrated people are drinking dirty water in desperation? How long does it take before these conditions lead to disease outbreaks and deaths?

Edit: More witnesses of mass deaths: https://x.com/KristyTallman/status/1842032303637463274

People asking for more body bag donations: https://x.com/TheThe1776/status/1842120280229158963

Over 100 bodies marked in a six mile stretch of river: https://x.com/Bubblebathgirl/status/1842908549795512354

Someone seeing bodies left in trees, thought they were Halloween decorations at first: https://x.com/KellyJo_Rn/status/1841284842085880279/photo/2

Edit 2: Going to keep links to the most credible videos here so that I can reference them as people (rightfully) ask for receipts:

https://x.com/SaltyGoat17/status/1842944529172734286 - Woman saying she needs 500 body bags. County Sheriff kicked FEMA out of the county.

https://x.com/sarahsansoni/status/1842129974888644801 - Account of bodies floating in river. Similar language as some other reports, where they thought they were Halloween Costumes, then saw the faces and realized they were real bodies.

Not directly related to body count, but interesting in itself - https://x.com/ImMeme0/status/1842648530436911554 Volunteer reporting that her organization has told her to flee any FEMA agents she encounters, because they will confiscate everything she has, including her search and rescue dogs (???). Also her volunteer organization has tracked that a lot of the items confiscated from their organization have been sent to migrants (at the border?) instead of citizens. She says that when she was in the Coast Guard, the Coast Guard stopped working with FEMA because they would do similar things to them.

And in response to that video, Ryan McBeth who I also vaguely trust and respect (or at least I knew of him well before this disaster which is more than I can say for most of these) said that that this is misinformation that is killing people. He was on the phone with the National Guard (all of them at once? ha, I know what he means, but not saying who exactly he spoke to or what their position is annoys me.) National Guard is declaring that people are putting themselves in danger to avoid FEMA.

I think I trust Ryan that this is what the Nat Guard is saying, I don't trust that the National Guard has it all under control. I do not believe that if all private citizens just stopped working around the government's lack of help that it would all have turned out better.

On the more credible side: Gen. Flynn asking for donations to a Rescue/Recovery team that is normally tasked by FEMA for situations like this but, "No tasking to date (not surprising)." https://x.com/GenFlynn/status/1841822490730910109

People on the ground saying that they haven't seen FEMA or didn't see any FEMA until more than 5 days after the Hurricane: https://x.com/ImMeme0/status/1842977547103219797

Lastly, most professional video of the infamous Fire Chief directly preventing the rescue of a couple: https://youtube.com/watch?v=s8ICG0iaHqw

https://x.com/SaltyGoat17/status/1842944529172734286 - Woman saying she needs 500 body bags. County Sheriff kicked FEMA out of the county.

I don't know if I'd call this credible. The woman being interviewed never mentions FEMA once; the interviewer says it in an interspersed clip taped separately. And he doesn't say where they are. Possibly because he's in Lincoln County, which got some damage but is part of the Charlotte metro and a world away from the mountain areas that got hit hard.

had a flood around the same time which looked about equally bad to the NC pictures I'm seeing

I would care mostly population affected, not comparing cherry picked pictures when comparing how many people died.

the European flood

Note that similar area was affected in 1997 floods. Wrocław (major city in area affected by heavy rants) was not flooded this thanks to new dam/polder build after 1997 floods. During 1997 it was catastrophically flooded.

Case where people actually managed to learn from history.

And this region has decent experience and equipment for dealing with floods. It is THE primary natural catastrophe expected to happen here.

I was taking "Biblical levels of destruction" to be defined in terms of the vibes of the best pictures you can cherry-pick, rather than any concrete data-based criteria. The Bible itself may not have pictures, but it certainly doesn't make its case with data.

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