Help, whether you want it or not

Hi Fer,
I enjoy your blog because of the information you provide concerning
lessons learned and preparedness for when disaster strikes. (man-made
or otherwise) Also I appreciate that you have taken the time to write
about your experiences.

I have come across a blog/web page that might be of interest to you
and thought I pass it on. (I am in no way connected with this site)
The author of the site has posted emails he received from a friend
concerning the aftermath of the Katrina disaster and points to
something I have not though much about, “the treatment you will be
subject to from people who are not prepared and from people who want
to help you whether you want it or not.”

Here is the link to his site
http://www.frfrogspad.com/index.htm
Here is the link to his disaster prep pages. It is a long read but
below is a brief summary of what I took from it.
http://www.frfrogspad.com/disastr.htm
“When help gets there, you may get it whether you like it or not.
There are numerous reports of aggressive, overbearing behavior by
those rescuers who first arrived at disaster scenes. It’s perhaps best
described as “I’m here to rescue you – I’m in charge – do as I say -
if you don’t I’ll shoot you”.

It appears that mid-level State functionaries and Red Cross personnel
(the latter without the “shoot you” aspect, of course) were complained
about most often. In one incident, a family who had prepared and
survived quite well were ordered, not invited, to get onto a truck,
with only the clothes on their backs. When they objected, they were
threatened. They had pets, and wanted to know what would happen to
them and they report that a uniformed man (agency unknown) began
pointing his rifle at the pets with the words “I’ll fix that”. The
husband then trained his own shotgun on the man and explained to him,
in words of approximately one syllable, what was going to happen to
him if he fired a shot. The whole “rescuer” group then left,
threatening dire consequences for the family (including threats to
come back once they’d evacuated and torch their home). The family was
able to make contact with a State Police patrol and report the
incident, and are now determined that no matter how much pressure is
applied, they will not evacuate. They’ve set up a “shuttle run” so
that every few days, two of them go upstate to collect supplies for
the rest of the family, who defend the homestead in the meantime.

Another aspect of this is that self-sufficient, responsible families
were often regarded almost with suspicion by rescuers. The latter
seemed to believe that if you’d come through the disaster better than
your neighbors, it could only have been because you stole what you
needed, or somehow gained some sort of unfair advantage over the
“average victims” in your area. I’m at a loss to explain this, but
it’s probably worth keeping in mind.”
Best regards,
Lew

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FerFAL