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Status:
"I don't understand. But I don't care, so it works out."
(set 4 days ago)
35,613 posts, read 17,940,183 times
Reputation: 50640
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Quote:
Originally Posted by otterhere
I don't think anyone is saying "don't help them," but I personally wouldn't want my donation getting into the hands of looters. How about restoring (or imposing) some law and order before millions of dollars pour into the country?
From what I've seen, for the hardest hit areas, the best idea is to simply evacuate them. Restoring order and rebuilding may happen eventually, but these places are uninhabitable at this time.
And apparently a cruise ship has removed nearly 1500 evacuees to Florida.
With the storm expected to be a threat to the Bahamas, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, etc., there should have been international cooperation to ensure that all people in areas below sea level are evacuated!
No exceptions!
Like Haiti, Jamaica, Bahamas, Virgin Islands, and other areas, there are many impoverished people that reside away from the ritzy hotels and idyllic beaches.
For the most part, these are descendants of former slaves who are marginalized, relatively un-educated and subsist on very little money.
Note, in many inner cities in the United States, it is the same dynamic to a certain extent. Yes, there has been tremendous progress made in some sectors but more progress is needed.
A lot of people appear to be callous and to not really care about these individuals.
As the impact of climate change is expected to increase, there will be opportunities again to unconditionally assist people who will be in need.
I agree that there should have been an evacuation effort for GBI. I just think the idea of building shelters is akin to Congressman Smith asking why the people on the Titanic didn't go into the watertight compartments. The shelters would have been flooded/blown away like all the other structures on the island.
Yes, Bahamians are mostly black, the descendants of slaves.
However, when I went to Grand Bahama Island 15 years ago, I remember that the population was pretty sparse and that you could see huge swaths of undeveloped land from the air but with long roads running through. I asked someone at the hotel about it, and he said that it was always a very quiet island compared to New Providence/Nassau and Paradise Island, but that a lot of people from the USA were buying land there and starting to build vacation homes, so those roads I saw were fairly new.
Fifteen years later, it seems a lot of those American land-buyers have indeed built and moved there.
Well, at least I'm not totally confused. I'm assuming these people I'm seeing interviewed were not the ones another poster saw 'floating in the water'. I'm not sure why this is bothering me but it is; maybe because it's showing a misrepresentation of those most affected?
I agree that there should have been an evacuation effort for GBI. I just think the idea of building shelters is akin to Congressman Smith asking why the people on the Titanic didn't go into the watertight compartments. The shelters would have been flooded/blown away like all the other structures on the island.
I keep reading these comments, there should have been an evacuation. I'm still confused. Evacuate to where?
Florida ! Why not? We have about 200,000 Puerto Ricans here from the island after Maria & Irma.
How could tens of thousands of people be evacuated to Florida in a couple of days before the storm hit? That would be logistically impossible. I have never heard of any major island being evacuated for a hurricane. Even Hawaii does not evacuate for hurricanes. Second, Puerto Ricans are US citizens. Bahamians are not. With the current political climate I doubt there is any political will to accept Bahamian evacuees to the US.
I keep reading these comments, there should have been an evacuation. I'm still confused. Evacuate to where?
I am thinking Florida, since that's the closest place; however, no one knew at that time that the storm would skirt around the edge of Florida, so that might not have been feasible.
Other than that, south of GBI to another part of the Bahamas missed by the storm?
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