COMPLAINERS

Notes of Concern…

                               …Jackson Blair

COMPLAINERS

The hurricane Irene caught the attention of a lot of people.

Whatever information was available to those “in the know” was sufficient to cause the Mayor of NYC to order the evacuation of 300,000 people, the President of the U.S. to make two public appearances to discuss the storm, sent the U.S. Navy’s ships out to sea, had Governors declaring “states of emergency” and closed down various forms of public transportation and some casinos in NJ.

We got lucky.

Although there is over $2billion dollars of reported damage so far, a lot of complainers are out and about, and on the Internet, condemning all the pre-storm hype.

Of course, these are the same people who complained that everyone in New Orleans should have been warned before the storm and that the government was clearly not prepared to either predict or clean up after Katrina hit that area.

Bottom line: the government gets blamed if they ask us to prepare for the worst and the worst does not happen. They get blamed if they roll the dice and do not create early panic and then people get hurt and stranded.

For me, the early warnings and the opportunity to prepare for what might happen, but does not, is considerably better than being surprised by what happens and having made no preparations.

In the case of Katrina, the government failed miserably.

In the case of Irene, the government performed admirably.

Many who sees it differently need to make an appointment with a psychiatrist or psychologist because your issues need attention. In the meantime, spare us your constant complaining.

The role of government includes protecting the people. With Irene they seem to have done everything just right.