Index to Disaster Essays
Disasters Retiming: Quarantines
The manner in which we respond to disasters is not sustainable. Disasters are worsening and resources are diminishing. Of massive disasters like Katrina, the federal government has said the states are on their own. Anyone who thinks the federal government will have the same money spigot if there is another 911 Terrorist attack, does not understand economics in a time of ballooning budget deficits at all levels of public organization. Because of budget deficits, more and more communities are scaling back or eliminating police services. The same is happening to emergency response teams.
Of the disaster leadership, consider the lack of experience due to politics: "Five of eight top Federal Emergency Management Agency officials came to their posts with virtually no experience in handling disasters"--WashPost. Worsening the situation is how federal officials have rewritten "in secret the nation's emergency response blueprint." One need not fear this secret plan because the "federal government plan for responding to emergencies will not be ready in time for the approaching hurricane season"--USAToday. Of course, the habitual politicians have a backup plan to survive emergencis and remain in power: Pentagon Wants Authority to Post Almost 400,000 Military Personnel in U.S.(2009)
Consider the math of disasters. Thanks to global dying, the size of disaster is getting greater. Hurricane Katrina affected a few million. The 2010 August monster monsoon in Pakistan affected forty to fifty million. At the same time, Russia's heat wave and fires destroyed 40% of the wheat crop which affects millions of people inside and outside of Russia--the government banned export of wheat. Independent of global warming disasters are you common everyday "disasters waiting to happen." A sign of expected worsening disasters is how the Pentagon in 2008 had requested 20,000 troops for domestic security, just a year before the prior request to post 400,000 troops in the U.S. In other words, in about one year, the Pentagon increased its estimate of disaster emergency response by a factor of twenty.
Consider the math of disaster response. The amount of money spent today on disasters is a larger percentage of public budgets than ten, twenty or fifty years ago. This continual escalation of budget percentage cannot go on. It is akin the interest paid on public deficits which rise each year as a percentage of budget (a symptom of the financial and academic cancer known as monetarism). Long before either disaster or interest payments reach 100% of the public budgets, riots and wars will wipe out the deficits as well as the government organizations. Responding to reality, FEMA is reducing financial assistance. This was part of the Bush White House "significantly scaling back its Hurricane Katrina spending requests to keep the next relief package in the $20 billion range." These are reasons why many Americans "have little confidence the federal government is ready to help them if one strikes."
Eventually, like the 1918 flu when towns isolated themselves, disaster areas will be quarantine with an embargo on any help from the outside until the area has become self-sufficient to the point of being a contributor rather than a drain on the larger whole, that is, be a creator rather than a cancer. Better an area die totally than infect and kill the larger whole--see habitual politicians. Another example is a mining disaster in which the mine is closed rather than have rescuers risk their lives to retrieve the dead miners' bodies. When the politicians initiate pork funding with deficits of disasters, they are throwing gasoline on the fires of inflation everywhere thanks to monetarism and globalization.
Thus, with the present unsustainable mode of responding to disaster coming to an end, a new way of responding to disasters is need, that is, we need to re-time our disaster responses. Intellectually, the keys are level rights through elementary democracy using brainbees and lifehours. Brainbees will organize local people to solve problems, chronic or sudden at the local level. Lifehours will reward the problem-solvers. If we do not shift from inflationary disaster response to productive disaster solutions, we will all die.
Under the following principles of fulfilling the
primary moral imperative
of saving life on earth,
FEMA should not organize
any disaster relief but quarantine the disaster area for a period of time
proportional to the size of the disaster and the area re-organizing itself
to be sufficient without outside
help--E Pluribus Onus. Those still alive can start re-integrating their existence into
a larger economy. It is interesting to note that this writer concludes a
90% Depopulation by 2015 and the
Red
Cross reported after Hurricane Katrina, "93 percent of Americans aren't
prepared for a major calamity -- a natural disaster, a pandemic or a terrorist
attack."
Over-population
Rights and responsibilities
There will be no
food or water
financial assistance
housing
NGO's, e.g., Red Cross
If you want to survive a disaster, start preparing your multi-day survival plan including food, water, shelter (tent) and protection. Of the latter, consider how in the Haiti earthquake disaster in 2010 the public safety officers were nowhere to be found in public. They had taken their weaponry home to protect their private property. This is why the Manheaven Project through the elementary democracy organizes local parallel public safety measures.
By FEMA declaring a disaster
area quarantine, it is prep for all communities and individuals to refocus
their values and views of the world on surviving a period of time without
any outside help. Trial runs with the inevitable forthcoming minor disasters
will help people prepare for the major one from global dying. Key to surviving
is eliminating one's personal economics of wants, waste, and lies--see
Human Cost of
Living. Military forces will bar entry or exit from quarantine area to
minimize civil unrest.
Afterthoughts:
Failure to quarantine disaster areas is like swimming to help a non-swimmer who has already drowned prior would-be lifesavers.
General Principle on Quarantines: (110205)
by pre- or post-responses
by others.
... Carrot or Stick