Helene

Watching the Southeast gets hammered by Hurricane Helene should be something that brings us all together. As a nation I mean. Everything we have can be swept away by some twerk of the cosmos. We can go to bed in one world, and wake up in another.

Help will surely snake its way through the region in the days ahead, but it won’t be enough. It’s never enough. Some will be able to re-build. Others won’t have that option, and will become temporary refugees in their own land. They will be forced to rely on the kindness of strangers, and the creaky benevolence of a government that too often sets out to do good but ends up, through bureaucratic bungling, making things worse. More than a decade after Hurricane Katrina, people were still living in toxic FEMA trailers. These shelters were found to contain 75 times the recommended threshold of formaldehyde, and were literally killing people. Such is the maze of government contracting and sub-contracting. Such is the peril of awarding the contract to the lowest bidder, or to the closest friend. Such is the fear of putting your trust in an entity not truly worthy of it.

At least 30 people have died thus far. That number will surely rise as the water recedes.