Katrina is over - Why do people insist on forwarding stupid emails like this one?

[Iris]

Weather Bulletin - North Dakota

Priceless


THINK ABOUT THIS FOR A MOMENT.


North Dakota News


This text is from a county emergency manager out in the western part of North Dakota state after a snowstorm.



WEATHER BULLETIN


Up here, in the Northern Plains, we just recovered from a Historic event--- may I even say a "Weather Event" of "Biblical Proportions" --- with a historic blizzard of up to 44" inches of snow and winds to 90 MPH that broke trees in half, knocked down utility poles, stranded hundreds of motorists in lethal snow banks, closed ALL roads, isolated scores of communities and cut power to 10's of thousands.


FYI:


George Bush did not come.


FEMA did nothing.


No one howled for the government.


No one blamed the government.


No one even uttered an expletive on TV.


Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton did not visit.


Our Mayor did not blame Bush or anyone else.


Our Governor did not blame Bush or anyone else, either.


CNN, ABC, CBS, FOX or NBC did not visit - or report on this category 5 snowstorm. Nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards.


No one asked for a FEMA Trailer House.


No one looted.


Nobody - I mean Nobody demanded the government do something.


Nobody expected the government to do anything, either.


No Larry King, No Bill O'Rielly, No Oprah, No Chris Mathews and No Geraldo Rivera.


No Shaun Penn, No Barbara Striesand, No Hollywood types to be found.



Nope, we just melted the snow for water.



Sent out caravans of SUV's to pluck people out of snow engulfed cars.


The truck drivers pulled people out of snow banks and didn't ask for a penny.


Local restaurants made food and the police and fire departments delivered it to the snowbound families.



Families took in the stranded people - total strangers.


We fired up wood stoves, broke out coal oil lanterns or Coleman lanterns.


We put on extra layers of clothes because up here it is "Work or Die".


We did not wait for some affirmative action government to get us out of a mess created by being immobilized by a welfare program that trades votes for 'sittin at home' checks.



Even though a Category "5" blizzard of this scale has never fallen this early, we know it can happen and how to deal with it ourselves.



"In my many travels, I have noticed that once one gets north of about 48 degrees North Latitude, 90% of the world's social problems evaporate."



It does seem that way, at least to me.



I hope this gets passed on.



Maybe SOME people will get the message. The world does Not owe you a living.

[trotsky]

1. If your house gets covered in snow, you can still live in it.

Try that when your house gets covered in water.

I've seen that particular e-mail before, and the ignorance (and latent racism) just disgusted me.

[Iris]

7. The ignorance and, maybe not so latent, racism is a standard

for emails about Katrina, isn't it?

As far as the difference between a blizzard and a flood in a hot and humid climate - if someone can't figure that out, God help 'em.

[wtmusic]

2. Actually, once one gets north of about 48 degrees north latitude

90% of the world's population evaporates

[booley]

3. So ask this guy this...

How many bodies were left to rot in raw sewage for weeks at a time?

A body count ups the "Outrage "ante.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

4. Because they're dumb racists.

[smoogatz]

5. Why do people insist on posting them on DU? n/t

[Iris]

Because I happen to live in a very red state where co-workers

send this crap regularly.

I come to DU for sympathy, empathy, and relief.

Sorry if that's too much of a bother for you.

[SteppingRazor]

6. Um.. by posting it here, haven't you effectively forwarded it yourself?

:shrug:


Anyway, that said, here's snopes:

http://www.snopes.com/katrina/soapbox/dakota.asp

Worth reading.

[Iris]

9. No. I'm just trying to get some sympathy.

I don't think anyone here would take this seriously and then forward it to their friends and family like it was some great epiphany.

Jeez. . .

[SteppingRazor]

10. Oh, believe me -- you have my deepest sympathies...

I occasionally get such e-mails from my dad. He stopped sending them, though, after we agreed to stop talking about politics. We have a much more cordial, if less honest, relationship now.

[Catherine Vincent]

8. Because they're stupid.

And a bigot, I might add.

[formerrepuke]

11. When Grand Forks, ND was flooded in 1997- FEMA came to the rescue..

..and guess who was President at the time? The person who wrote this dippy "think about this" memo should remember that melted snow
is water.. and in the flood of 1997 was caused by snowmelt.

http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=4271

[La Lioness Priyanka]

12. whomever sent this is racist.

its a blatant excuse to justify racism.

:eyes:

[Whoa_Nelly]

13. Use REPLY ALL and send this

along with the message that you cannot fathom why anyone would turn our largest natural disaster into something so bigoted against our citizens.

http://www.snopes.com/katrina/soapbox/dakota.asp

Cut and paste the snopes response and feel free to hightlight/bold any part that ttally refutes the POS email:

Origins: On 4 October 2005, portions of Montana, the Dakotas, and Wyoming were hit by an early snowstorm that knocked out power, closed roads, and dumped up to 2 feet of snow. Some schools were closed by the storm, and thousands of power outages were reported. The National Guard was called out in North Dakota to aid the Highway Patrol in rescuing stranded motorists, of which there were hundreds.

In Dickinson, snowplows led emergency vehicles that were used to deliver fuel to a nursing home and to the Police Department to run generators during a power outage.

Sam Walker, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Bismarck, North Dakota, said of the storm: "It is, on our records, probably one of the earliest ones, as far as our recorded history goes, in 126, 130 years." But that wasn't the only surprising thing about the storm — only days before, 90 degree temperatures had been recorded in the state (e.g., 92 degrees in Bismarck on 1 October
2005).

The e-mail makes the claim of the snowbound Dakotans "No one howled for the government." Yet in a 31 October 2005 letter to President Bush, Governor John Hoeven of North Dakota did indeed "request that you declare a major disaster for the State of North Dakota as a result of a severe winter storm/snowfall, accompanied by record-breaking snowfall, rain and high winds, that occurred on October 4-6, 2005." Said request for official disaster status was spurred by an interest in obtaining FEMA assistance (e.g. "Additionally, eleven counties meet the criteria established by the Federal Emergency Management Agency 'for near record snowfall' and should be eligible for assistance with FEMA’s snow policy <9523.1>").

Midwesterners hit by this storm appear to have overcome their short-lived catastrophe without federal assistance (although as of 31 October 2005, North Dakota is seeking to recoup its storm-related expenditures from the government — see the Letter to the President above). However, in comparing response to that weather-related disaster to what overwhelmed New Orleans, it needs be pointed out that the bulk of the digging out from under the snowfall and rescuing stranded motorists from snow-entombed cars fell to the state's police and emergency service workers and the National Guard, not (as the e-mail would have it) to rugged individual citizens who hadn't been "immobilized by a welfare program that trades votes for 'sittin at home' checks." The nature and severity of the two disasters were different — the one could be coped with locally, but the other could not.

[Iris]

16. Thanks! I will!

Sadly, this came from someone I actually really like. What gets me most about this crap is how it sucks otherwise decent people. Or seems to around here for some reason. I mean, I'm pretty vocal in my intolerance for racist attitudes, but, still, I get crap like this in my in box.

[Warpy]

14. Oh, for Cthulu's sake

That kind of weather is NORMAL for the Dakotas. They get one of those every decade or so. They're set up for it. It was the same in New England.

Shift that to a location that isn't set up for it, like the south, and you've got major trouble.

Funny, people who are used to one region's foul weather always think people in hurricane country are wimps. I think they need to live through a hurricane some time. Even Cat. 1 hurricanes will get the point across.

In the meantime, politely request that this person not send you any more self righteous emails. If that person doesn't respect the request, introduce him/her to Mr. Block.

[KingFlorez]

15. They never get tired of writing the same old crap over and over

The people who write this stuff have serious issues.

[jobycom]

17. Like comparing a papercut to an atom bomb.

First of all, all the things he brags about the people doing for themselves were also done in New Orleans. Citizens organized rescue operations on their own. However, you can't send caravans of SUVs into areas ten feet underwater to pluck out stranded motorists, especially when there is no gas. You can't breathe in a house ten feet underwater. You can't melt snow when the water is a toxic misture of sewage, chemicals, and rotting bodies. You can't boil the water when there is no place dry enough to start a fire...

Just the ramblings of an uninformed bigotted child unaware of his own ignorance.

[kitkat65]

18. Of course nobody looted - It's too fucking cold!

[Sweet Freedom]

19. Post a link to this thread in the Debunker

That's what the group is for (and people there won't yell at you :) )

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=284

[Iris]

20. oh! Thanks for the heads up!

I haven't been around much lately and didn't even realize that thread was there! This is great! Thanks!

[VOX]

21. Classic freeper ploy: The False Analogy. (It strikes again and again.)

A North Dakota weather situation like the one described is in NO WAY analogous to what happened in New Orleans.

The **entire** population of North Dakota numbers 642,200. Before Katrina, the population of greater New Orleans was 1,337,726 in 2000.

And as usual, the right wing chain-message is dripping with self-righteousness, racism and mock-outrage. :grr: