Well once again (and just after the 3rd anniversary of Katrina) I find myself talking to my brother “The Tampa Pirate” about something wicked this way comes, GUSTAV. All of the vehicles are full, extra batteries, gas, guns cleaned, plenty of ammo, water, generators primed…ect. Just watching the “Last Minuters” scramble to the pumps and crowd into the ever consuming “Walmart” in search of the elusive bottled water. The best I can hope for now is a good high pressure to form overhead and for the ice & the beers under it to last as long as possible. Pine trees on electrical lines lend to poor electrical conduction rendering useless the modern marvel of HVAC (airconditioning). You see I live in South Mississippi….the place you never hear about (except when termed ‘nations last’). Actually we like it that way, its keeps out the undesirables. Besides, everyone knows that the only place truely affected by Hurricanes is that shinning star of southern corruption, moral decay, social apathy, and governmental socialism (the city of New Orleans) or so the media would have you believe “Ad Nauseum”. Now once again we hear the media talking about the plight of what could be the nation’s most socialist city. Shame too, because there are a lot of really good people who live in and around The Big Easy.
What they (the media) fail to tell you is that unlike the last time…the state is now under new management. People are being responsible and I’m quiet sure they will be held accountable if they are delinquent in their duties. Agreed…many lessons were learned last go round, by Local, State, and Federal entities and painfully so in said order. Those lessons weren’t waisted and the amount of organization that we are witnessing in the preparation and evacuation is monumental, something akin to a military deployment. Everything has been carefully choreographed so Fema, the local authorities, & the National Gaurd can function as designed, and all of this was made possible because the Govenor asked for help before disaster had overtaken his state.
I’m in no way oblivious to the disaster that will soon befall many of my fellow southerners (be they Louisiana or Mississippi in kind) but for once I’d like to see the media get it right. I’d like to see reports based more on the grit of southerners and not government dependents. The people who never complained about what the government did or didn’t do for them. Who without prompting from the authorities prepared themselves in advance of the storm because it was their lives and the lives of their families on the line. Common sense dictated that action be taken. Who’s homes and neighborhoods were completly and utterly destroyed. Homes that had taken a lifetime of work and labor to build. Homes thought to be insured but who’s policies were in actuallity worthless because insurers defaulted on their end without consequence. People who were and will be some of the first back on the scene cleaning and rebuilding their (and their neighbors) homes and lives. These are the true victims of these storms….the ones who quietly go on about their lives rebuilding and repairing without complaint.These are the people you proudly claim as your own.
And so I wait with fingernails in clenched teeth. Wherever GUSTAV lands, it will be met with a quiet determination and steel defiance! After all there’s no blame to be had ,save lack of preparation. That’s why its called a “Natural Disaster” and last time I checked that’s nobodys fault!