It's not that we did not wat help. It's that they were so divisive that having them there was the exact opposite of being helpful.I don't have experience with your situation, but I can't imagine people who choose to live in disaster prone areas would be in favor of dissolving FEMA and all recovery funding?
Some people don't want help. But the vast majority appreciate it.
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Who invited Milton to the party?
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I think it depends in part on the personalities of the leaders of the FEMA response teams. If they just start issuing "edicts" because of government authority - not everyone appreciates that. Especially if those edicts start to interfere with what is really needed.
Traveling through South Georgia yesterday, the number of snapped off trees from Helene was impressive! Much worse than Milton dished out to Central Florida. Reminded me of what 3 Rivers State Park (NE of Tallahassee) looked like post Hurricane Michael - not equal because Michael snapped off almost everything 5 feet off the ground.
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It's really about expectations. When you get the government involved in anything there's lots of paperwork and rules to follow in determining how aid is distributed. If you fall within the appropriate group the amount of help is amazing but neighbors who compare what they received may not understand the criteria and see inequity. Even still, FEMA is not there to rebuild houses or provide comprehensive aid like a good insurance policy can. The agency's primary focus is on making homes safe and habitable, not fully restoring them to pre-disaster condition. Stress from the disaster is hard is enough. Aid that doesn't fit your idea of appropriate can easily cause frustration.
People need to think twice about where they live. Pay attention to flood zones and how global warming might impact the future of the location. If you still need to live there, budget for HUGE insurance premiums or be prepared to lose everything. As disasters become common, less funding and insurance coverage will be available to protect them.
Petrushka
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Some FEMA is only really good at virtue signaling.
Here’s what’s supposed to happen: states and their national guards do all the heavy lifting and all the detail work. This works in Florida, because they get a couple of storms a year, and it’s routine.
FEMA is supposed to supply funds and, if necessary, Army troops with aircraft and heavy equipment. FEMA is not very good at managing. But sometimes the want to micro-manage. After Helene, they wanted to micro-manage volunteers.
Petrushka
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One of the things storms do is wipe out solar installations and windmills.
I don't understand how it caused so much flooding. The US is the wealthiest nation in the world, I'm sure you can stop any significant flooding from happening. Wind you can't stop, but stopping the ocean is certainly doable.
The flooding was caused by immense rainfall. I think Tampa got 5.9 inches of rain in one hour during landfall.
Really? How would you propose to stop a 15ft storm surge? Other than a 15ft wall all along the coast?
And it wasn't just ocean. There was a whole month or rain that fell in just a few hours. On to already sodden ground.
I am also Dutch, and it is indeed remarkable. Solving this requires two things. First, a lot of money and a willingness to spend it. Second a public authority with expertise and power. The Netherlands have a tradition of more than a thousand years, with so called water boards (waterschappen). These started as communal organizations, and were an early form of local democracy. They also acquired total authority, and still do. Every few years we can vote on their management. They also have very experienced engineers and significant resources, for which we are taxed. If, for example, their management during a flood decides that your area has to be flooded to avoid more serious flooding elsewhere, that is it. It gets done. So in conclusion, it requires a social agreement that flooding has be be avoided, and that it is worth the expense and effort. Finally, of course, the most vulnerable parts of the Netherlnds are also the most valuable, with very high population densities and hence massive aggregate real estate value.
Ah ok, got it.
Oh we have that already. The Maeslantkering was finished 25 years ago and was made to stop 16ft surges. It stops the waves from surging up river and flooding Rotterdam in case of extreme weather. Everything else is just dunes doing dunes stuff. And of course we also have the Oosterscheldekering, that is made to stop 19 feet surges. Its not a small project of course, I mean the Maeslantkering is one of the biggest moving structures in the world (the balls-shaped joint is the biggest in the world at 680 tons each) and the Oosterscheldekering is 5.6 miles long. You can say we did a little bit of engineering there (the acceptable risk was set at 1 failure (=flooding) per 10000 years for populated areas). It only took one really bad storm for people to decide to just go and fix it. I simply can't image a country getting flooded by storm surges every couple of years and not taking actual action.
Rain is a bitch, especially if you turn everything into concrete. But for rivers you just have floodplains. Doesn't stop everything, but will make things a little more manageable. I'm pretty sure Florida has those, what happened there?
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Ha, good luck with that especially in Florida
Micro-managing was the problem, & our governor at the time (this happened in August of 2015)
| Gov. Ralph Deleon Guerrero Torres | Northern Mariana Islands | 2019 - 2023 2015 - 2019 | Republican |
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Very shortly after that the governor banned FEMA from being on the Island: THEN the aid started getting to all the people in an efficient and timely manor.
'Nuff said.
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And yes, all of this costs money. The southwest of the Netherlands were badly flooded by a big storm in January 1953, relatively soon after WW2 when many dikes had been neglected or were even damaged or bombed. As a result it was decided to substantially upgrade the quality and height of the dikes, and close many estuaries (that is what you see in the two pictures). It took a few decades, but the dikes are now much safer. Even so, given the danger of sea level rising, the engineering studies and planning for further improvements are on their way. Never again, is the widely shared agreement.
This is that Maeslantkering. The automatic doors are 210 meters each. At 5 m height it is just the first line of defence, to close off the entrance to Rotterdam harbour and the Rhine. It closes automatically, without any human intervention. There is a button on the website for some English text bij the National Agency responsible for coastal and river protection and the like (Rijkswaterstaat).
Deltawerk Maeslantkering
De volledig geautomatiseerde Maeslantkering is onderdeel van de Europoortkering en beschermt Zuid-Holland tegen hoogwater vanuit zee. Lees meer.
www.rijkswaterstaat.nl
Fair enough - I forgot to realise I might be talking to Netherlanders 
But - Florida has between 5 and 40 times the coastline of Netherlands??? (depending on which figures are comparable.)
Plus those dykes would have to be built all over the most valuable property in the state** - beachfront.
Not going to happen.
**Though it might well not be the most valuable for long.
But - Florida has between 5 and 40 times the coastline of Netherlands??? (depending on which figures are comparable.)
Plus those dykes would have to be built all over the most valuable property in the state** - beachfront.
Not going to happen.
**Though it might well not be the most valuable for long.
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How far inland would you have to go in the Netherlands to be safe from coastal flooding if none of the counter measured existed?This is that Maeslantkering. The automatic doors are 210 meters each. At 5 m height it is just the first line of defence, to close off the entrance to Rotterdam harbour and the Rhine. It closes automatically, without any human intervention. There is a button on the website for some English text bij the National Agency responsible for coastal and river protection and the like (Rijkswaterstaat).
Deltawerk Maeslantkering
De volledig geautomatiseerde Maeslantkering is onderdeel van de Europoortkering en beschermt Zuid-Holland tegen hoogwater vanuit zee. Lees meer.
We had a very long coastline in the southwest that we shortened by closing estuaries after 1953. The Zuiderzee coastline was similarly shortened after the construction of the Afsluitdijk almost a century ago. Before that, there were many floodings of the old towns like Volendam, Hoord, ENkhuizen.
Reclamation has continued ever since, such as in the seventeenth century in the polders north of Amsterdam, using windmills, and financed by capitalist merchants from Amsterdam. One consequence of lowering the water table has been that the soil shrinks, so by pumping out the water we are continuously sinking. Land that was once above sea level no longer is. This will be the largest challenge when the sea level continues to rise. I am sure the same is happening in coastal Florida as well. I know from Dutch consulting engineers that this is happening in Indonesia's capital Djakarta at a very rapid rate.
About half the country is below sea level, so some 100 km inland, or a bit more, depending on where you are. But even in supposedly high ground such as where we are, we are only about 1 meter above sea level. We are on a ridge that was pushed forward during the last ice age. A thousand years ago people north of us were living on little islands just above wetlands that were periodically flooded. When in the twelfth and thirteenth century European population started to grow people began to construct dikes to drain the land for cultivation. So we have a lot of small thirteenth century churches built by these new communities. This reclamation came to a temporary halt when in the early fourteenth century the climate deteriorated, followed by the Black Death, the big yersinia pestis epidemic that killed about half the European population.
Reclamation has continued ever since, such as in the seventeenth century in the polders north of Amsterdam, using windmills, and financed by capitalist merchants from Amsterdam. One consequence of lowering the water table has been that the soil shrinks, so by pumping out the water we are continuously sinking. Land that was once above sea level no longer is. This will be the largest challenge when the sea level continues to rise. I am sure the same is happening in coastal Florida as well. I know from Dutch consulting engineers that this is happening in Indonesia's capital Djakarta at a very rapid rate.
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