Do I feel for the people who lost lives and livelihoods due to Hurricane Sandy and its aftermath? Of course I do. People who lost their homes and businesses? Yes.
I’ve lived in a lot of places in my life, and it’s spent by weathercasters being more concerned about an earthquake hitting L.A. than SF or San Diego; about a horrific storm hitting Seattle and Portland en route to Chicago and perhaps NYC.
Gulf storms that may blow towards the northeast and cause some rain. I’ve lived through two hurricanes that were way worse than Sandy and no one, especially FEMA and George W. Bush, cared. I’ve endured earthquakes in the west, incredible snowstorms in the Rockies and all Al Roker says is “snow in the Rockies.”
When an incredible storm comes in from the Pacific through Seattle and Portland, where does it go BEFORE it gets to Chicago? The Rockies and high mesas, grasslands where people live. But that’s just a tag line, snow in the Rockies.
My husband could be driving up that mountain I asked him not to (I packed an overnight bag for his car that he never used because he wanted to get home). There was no mass transit, unless you count the free buses that go to the ski areas and back.
The Red Cross has money for the northeast, it always does but is asking for it now on television. No-one helped in Katrina, Rita or Ike. Even New Orleans turned their backs on Texas after we took a majority of their poor population, placed them on welfare and food stamps, put a few to work and others in prison.
I’m not from anywhere in this country of ours, I’m from everywhere. I’ve seen the good and the bad in people and hope that in a disaster, whatever the cause, people will help.
When it comes to natural disasters, TV weather people, please remember that there are folks that don’t live in NYC, LA, Chicago or the beaches of Florida. We live in the cornfields, wheat fields, dairies and cattle farms, and yes we bring your heirloom veggies and fruits to the farmers’ markets so you think they’re local.
We care about our weather and road dangers, power outages and lack of water just like folks from the east coast are now. The difference is that some of us plan for disaster and have supplies on hand. In the Rockies I had to go the state traffic map online before the storm and see which roads were closed and whether we’d have to take the detour 1.5 hours north or 1.5 hours south (to work).
Everyone suffers from weather concerns. To make the east coast the center of the universe on the news basically says the rest of us just don’t matter. Not too cheery, Dee
p.s. Mr. Roker, I’ve looked up to you for years. You set the tone in weather coverage (and probably in hours logged and persistence paying off) so please take these comments in the spirit in which they were intended – frustration, disenfranchisement and a hope for change. After all, you taught Sesame Street about hurricanes…..
Cooking with Dee 