Friends, can we please stop using this thread to spread rumors and disinformation about this tragedy and the response to it? It helps no one... 
The Devastation of Helene in North Carolina
- Thread starter Onomea
- Start date
I've often wished that a prohibition on spreading disinformation was part of The Rules here...
I trust the people who live there telling their tales more than folks hundreds or thousand of miles away who read their favorite rag news source. The truth will prevail one way or the other as it did with Butler PA.
Not surprising. But only the "disinformation" YOU don't approve of, right? Russia, Russia, Russia propaganda is just fine...
"Disinformation" is a buzzword that is used by one particular group to encourage the restriction of free speech of another. I won't get deeper than that, because this forum is not truly a 'free speech' arena. But it says a lot that we have posters here using that word as they are. Speaks volumes.
WRT Helene, once again, social media and other unrestricted information streams are telling us what the legacy media won't: that the .gov is screwing it up big time, and even getting in the way of the folks that are helping effectively.
This is not an aberration, it's business as usual.
That's kind of ironic disinformation since there is only one reason to visit Hades and that is not it. I get my TRUTH from the only source. I can send you a link if you like.
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Thanks for providing a sterling example of what I was referring to.
What you call the "legacy media" are professional journalists, committed to gathering information and reporting facts. They have reporters and camera crews on the ground, relentlessly covering what's going on in the areas affected by Helene. They haven't sugarcoated the news, so far as I can tell.
For you to claim that unverified -- and unverifiable -- rumors and partisan nonsense being posted on social media, by those with an obvious axe to grind, are a more accurate and informative source of information is just laughable.
I found the Facebook pages of the local PD's in the area a decent source of info, although some of more remote residents out of the townships may still be out of touch.
Seriously?! That whole free speech thing is scary, huh?
We pray for all the US citizens in areas devastated by Helene.
If you are interested in how DHS/FEMA works on site you might take a close look at the "Surge Capacity Management and training on the government web site. You can form your own opinions but mine, as a 25 year retiree, is that it is all about "who is in charge" not "how can we help"
Surge Capacity Force | Homeland Security
Surge Capacity Force | Homeland Security
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I would consider FEMA's "facts" to be about as credible as the main stream media. FEMA is a typical federal agency. They come it, throw money around and try to take credit for everything good and lay blame on the state/locals for anything that goes bad. They are also very process bound. They care more about the process (policies and procedures) than the actual outcomes. This comes from 30 years experience in state law enforcement (16 local/part-time) dealing with the feds. I spent many days/nights in the State Emergency Operations Center and know from experience they care more about how something is done than what is done.
Having said that, I recognize that there are MANY good people working for federal agencies (having personally worked with many of them) and that their good works get overlooked because of the actions of the "higher ups" who are not so good.
Having said that, I recognize that there are MANY good people working for federal agencies (having personally worked with many of them) and that their good works get overlooked because of the actions of the "higher ups" who are not so good.
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By professional journalists, do you mean the local news anchor who reported an elderly couple was found passed out dead? Or the one during the Columbia shuttle disaster who asked an on-scene reporter if a charred, smoking piece of the orbiter "smelled hot"? Those professional journalists?
I trust FEMA a lot more than anonymous internet sources or folks with a vested interest in being anti-government.
FEMA did right for a few thousand local folks in and near Ruidoso after the Big Bear Fire, the McBride Fire, and our most recent South Fork and Salt fires last July (these with 1500 houses destroyed). I've got no time for generaluzed smack talk about an agency that saved many of my neighbors and church brothers & sisters from ruin.
They also paid my grandmother for her ruined home in the Volga, Iowa floods in the early 90s.
Where you stand depends upon where you sit.
I'm glad you trust them. For me, I'll continue to watch them with a jaundiced eye based on personal experience.
Well, my pension is from the State Police, and I spent my time in EOCs and varied incident command centers wherein my people had to deliver first and continuing response. Given FEMA's role, which is not first response, they do a good job nearly all of the time.
But there's always hot coffee and comfy chairs in EOCs.
But there's always hot coffee and comfy chairs in EOCs.
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You have your opinion, I have mine. You will never convince me, I'll never convince you. Have a nice day.
LVSteve
Member
Your comment reminds me of what a former coworker said at the end of his retirement speech. "Don't let the process become the product." The room lit up from the glow of white knuckles on clenched hands belonging to the senior management and their .GOV overseers.
The emphasis on policies and procedures seems to have come about because budget oversight types do not buy into "the ends justify the means". This attitude is born of the excesses with public money perpetrated by various other parts of the federal government in the past, the DoD and the alphabet agencies being the chief offenders. Of course, it is foolish to apply this attitude when it comes to natural disasters where agencies like FEMA need to react and adapt quickly, but then there would be whines that the staff were being treated differently depending on agency.
Most government "bureaucrats" are risk averse and they believe that if they blindly follow policies and procedures they will be covered. Not necessarily their fault because its been beaten into their heads.
When teaching public policy analysis I talked about agencies being "process bound." Thinking outside the box is discouraged.
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